ARTISTIC DIRECTION & PRODUCING PROJECTS
For New York City Opera's transitional season of 2008-09, I served
as Director of Special Programming, working with the senior staff to create a year-long series of public events at major venues
throughout New York City while City Opera's home at the New York State Theater undergoes a major renovation.
When I was Director of Special Projects at Lincoln Center Theater, I oversaw
the development of several new musicals, including:
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
words and music by Jason Robert Brown
I arranged for LCT to
commission Brown to write this show and was part of the casting, planning and rehearsals for a developmental production of
The Last Five Years at Northlight Theatre in Skokie, Illinois in May 2001. That production starred Norbert Leo Butz
and Lauren Kennedy, under the direction of Daisy Prince. The show ultimately opened in New York under the auspices of
commercial producers Marty Bell and Arielle Tepper at the Minetta Lane Theatre in March 2002, starring Butz and Sherie Rene
Scott, again directed by Prince. Jason Robert Brown won the 2002 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music and Outstanding
Lyrics, and the show has since been produced in dozens of regional theaters
across the U.S. and has also played in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands and the Philippines.
The New York cast recording was released by Sh-K-Boom Records.
As the artistic director of Musical Theatre Works, I selected and
developed eleven new projects which were picked up by other non-profit theatres or commercial producers:
SEE WHAT I WANNA
SEE
words and music by Michael John LaChiusa
LaChiusa adapted three stories by
Ryunosuke Akutagawa to create this distinctive new musical. The two main stories
have been reset in New York’s Central Park. The first, a 1950s crime
thriller, is a sexy, violent recounting of a murder revealed from different points of view.
The second is a contemporary tale of a priest who loses his faith after 9/11.
I organized the first reading of Act I at Lincoln Center Theater. Later, when I moved to MTW, I commissioned
LaChiusa to complete his score and presented a reading of his newly completed show (originally entitled R Shomon)
in April 2003. A subsequent workshop at MTW in April 2004 was followed
by the world premiere production at the Williamstown Theater Festival in July 2004 featuring Audra McDonald. The show received its New York debut at the Public Theater in October 2005, with a cast that included
Idina Menzel and Henry Stram (see photo above), directed by Ted Sperling.
A cast recording of the Public Theater production has been released by Ghostlight Records.
The
Associated Press praised it as "highly original... an
intelligent, adult musical that entertains and astonishes at the same time." The Wall Street Journal wrote:
"It's LaChiusa's strongest piece of work to date, a little
powerhouse of a show whose sheer intensity will knock you flat." And New York magazine named it one of the
best musicals of the year, calling it "...one of the rare musicals that tried
to address the way we live now. Far more often, this year’s musicals seemed disconnected from contemporary sounds and
concerns. There’s a place for nostalgia and escapism on Broadway, of course, and the musical is often the place for
it. But what…LaChiusa showed us in 2005 is that the best plays delight their audiences precisely by refusing to escape
their time."
TRUE FANS
book by Bill Rosenfield,
music by Chris Miller,
lyrics by Nathan Tysen
What compels three friends to bike 4,800
miles from California to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts? Find out
in this stage adaptation of a a 1999 documentary by Dan Austin that presents an inspiring portrait of America today. As Dan, his brother and best friend pedal across the nation, they meet many ‘ordinary’
people who help them along the way. This project was initiated by the Drama Desk
Award-winning Rosenfield; I matched him up with Miller & Tysen, Larson Award winners who met at NYU’s Graduate Musical
Theatre Writing Program. Their new show has received both the 2004 Daryl Roth
Creative Spirit Award for its first reading at MTW (the photo above depicts
the ceremony where Ms. Roth congratulated the creative team.) Fox Theatricals optioned the show in 2004.
More recently, True Fans received the 2006 Richard Rodgers Award which led to a developmental workshop at New York's
Playwrights Horizons in February 2007.
HAROLD AND MAUDE: THE
MUSICAL
book and lyrics by Tom Jones,
music by Joseph Thalken
based on the film by Colin Higgins
“Harold and Maude has all
the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage,” declared one critic in 1972 when this cult film favorite was released. This quirky black comedy about an unlikely romance between a suicidal young man in
his 20s and a 79-year-old woman living life to the fullest has now been adapted for the musical theater in a first collaboration
between veteran writer Tom Jones (The Fantasticks) and up-and-coming composer Joseph Thalken. At MTW, I presented the show's first reading in May 2003 and subsequently presented it in September
2003 at the NAMT Festival of New Musicals in New York. The show then premiered
at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse in January 2005 with Eric Millegan and Estelle Parsons in the title roles (see above
photo). After further rewrites, the show re-opened at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California in May 2005. Robert
Hurwitt, in the San Francisco Chronicle, declared it "a success -- smart, funny, irreverent, tuneful and fairly faithful to
the movie's story and spirit but different enough to claim its own vibrant identity."
WAS
book & lyrics by Barry Kleinbort,
music by Joseph Thalken
Based on the celebrated novel by Geoff
Ryman, Was interweaves two stories told a century apart – the first, in the 1870s, involving a young orphan named
Dorothy Gael; the second, in the 1980s, regarding Jonathan Wood, a successful but dying actor, whose obsession with The
Wizard of Oz leads him to Kansas searching for proof of Dorothy Gael's existence.
I first developed this piece at Lincoln Center Theater with an initial reading directed by Graciela Daniele and a subsequent
workshop directed by Tina Landau. At MTW, I put together a presentation for the
2003 NAMT Festival of New Musicals that led to the show's first production at the Human Race Theatre in Dayton, Ohio. A revised
version of the show premiered in October 2005 as the inaugural offering of Northwestern University's new American Music
Theatre Project.
SOON OF A MORNIN’
words and music by Andrea Frierson
The tiny African-American community of
Gee’s Bend, Alabama is world-famous for its distinctive quilts and inspiring music – both of which were on display
in a traveling exhibition seen in New York at the Whitney Museum in 2003. This
new musical tells the story of how the ‘Benders’ rebuilt their lives after the era of slavery ended, through faith
and the bonds of friendship. At MTW, I commissioned Frierson to write this new
piece about Gee's Bend. After researching this subject over the last few years
at the Library of Congress, Frierson has created an original show that also incorporates some period folk music heard in Gee's
Bend. Excerpts from the show were presented in 2004 at the Kennedy Center’s
Millenium Stage. In October 2005, the show was presented as part of the second annual New York Musical Theater
Festival.
GREEN VIOLIN
book & lyrics by Elise Thoron
music by Frank London
conceived by Rebecca Bayla Taichman
and Elise Thoron
At MTW, I provided a developmental home
for this new music theatre piece about Marc Chagall and the Soviet Yiddish Theatre in the 1920s and 30s. The piece was then presented as an MTW co-production at Philadelphia’s Prince Music Theater in May
2003 with a cast led by Raul Esparza (see photo). The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: “Go to Green Violin if
you have any interest in the way theatre reinvents itself,” and the weekly City Paper added “it is a work of great
seriousness and heart…with haunting, even unforgettable moments.” The
show was nominated for 11 Barrymore Awards – the most honors for any show in Philadelphia that season, including Outstanding
Overall Production of a Musical. A new version with an American/Russian
cast was presented in St. Petersburg, Russia in November 2005, followed by an all-Russian production in Moscow in 2006.
It was also performed by a cast of London-based actors in 2006 at the Jewish Music Festival in Amsterdam. And the
show's script was included in a new anthology, "9 Contemporary Jewish Plays" -- using an image from the Philadelphia
premiere as the book's cover.
HONEYMOON IN VEGAS, THE MUSICAL
book by Andrew Bergman,
music & lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
In October 2003, I organized a table reading at MTW of the first draft of the script for
this new musical comedy, based on Bergman's own screenplay. At the same time, I introduced Bergman to the work
of composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown (with whom I had worked on his earlier shows Parade and The Last
Five Years), and they are currently finishing the score and revised script for an anticipated Broadway production.
A GOOD MAN
book & lyrics by Philip S. Goodman,
music by Ray Leslee
Based on the award-winning novel by Jefferson
Young set in 1946 Mississippi, this new blues musical is about an unlikely hero named Albert Clayton. A black tenant farmer
living a quiet life, Albert has always wanted to live in a house painted white (although no tenant house has ever been painted
that way). When he decides to make his dream a reality, it causes major friction
with his white neighbors and other blacks in the community. Tensions mount higher,
causing Albert to become ever more defiant. In the end, Albert’s own wife
turns against him in a harrowing and bloody act. Even then he does not back down
-- ultimately they join together, filled with love, hope and possibility. Leslee’s
credits include the award-winning Avenue X; Goodman, whose successful career in film and television spans five decades,
makes his musical theatre writing debut with this show. MTW held a reading of
this piece in October 2003, directed by John Ruocco which led to a presentation at the 2004 NAMT Festival of New Musicals
in New York and a concert performance at New York's Aaron Davis Hall. Most recently, the show was presented in Austria
in November 2006 by the Vienna Chamber Opera (see photo). Der Neue Merker's reviewer wrote: “The legendary
blues and jazz and the African-American church music merge with the story, and in a remarkable integration, transform it into
a brilliant, joyful musical. A Good Man is an exceptional musical, well worth seeing and sometimes putting pressure
on the tear glands.”
IT’S ONLY LIFE
The Songs
of John Bucchino
Bucchino’s songs have been performed
and recorded by such diverse artists as Art Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Barbara Cook, Patti LuPone and even Yo-Yo Ma. The New York Times has hailed his “singular voice and absolute integrity of expression,”
and The Los Angeles Times declared that his music offers “gentle, humorous, sad and sardonic insights into modern
life." MTW presented an early version of this new revue in 2003, with a narrative
framework devised by director Barry Kleinbort. For a second reading at MTW, the
show evolved into a theatrical concert, with Daisy Prince as its new director/co-conceiver. (See
above photo.) Commercial producer Arielle Tepper then selected it for her inaugural Summer Play Festival,
presented in 2004 on New York's Theatre Row. It was presented in January '06 as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook
series, and a studio recording has been released on the PS Classics label. The show will be presented as part of the
first Festival of New American Musicals in Los Angeles in the spring of 2008.
FOR MY FAMILY
words and music by Ricky Ian Gordon
While Stephen Holden in the New
York Times calls Gordon’s music “caviar for a world gorging on pizza,” For My Family contains
some of his most accessible material to date. Inspired by real events, this new show tracks a changing American
family over the last half of the 20th century. Although the deaths of Gordon’s
father and Gordon’s lover are central to the plot, this is ultimately a celebration of life, and of the artistic process
-- what Gordon has described as “the hot coal inside of you that makes you want to create in the first place.” MTW presented a first reading of this piece in November 2002 directed by Tina Landau. The Sundance Theatre Lab presented a workshop production in May 2003 at the White
Oak Center in Florida.
VOICE OF THE CITY
by Christopher d’Amboise
using a score of period songs
A valentine to Vaudeville, this new show
nonetheless focuses on the genre’s demise in 1929. At the Variety Saloon
on NY’s Lower East Side – part social club, part rehearsal hall, and part flophouse – performers of varied
ethnic and racial backgrounds share stories and perform for each other one last time.
The show features choreographed storytelling by d'Amboise -- a leading figure in contemporary dance. I produced a workshop at MTW in 2004, using a student cast/crew from Marymount Manhattan College. NYC's York Theatre picked up this project for further development.
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