You Simply Cannot Do It Alone or, How I Became a Theatre Expert in Three Easy Steps

If I could direct any young writer's attention to anything I've written, it would be (and has been) this entry. I've learned so many things the hard way in life, and how to go about finding collaborators is one of the most frustrating of all things learned. Learn from my mistakes!


Step 1
In student teaching 7th graders, I decided to create a unit on William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker. I entered the experience unsure of what I would be teaching, and as I was paging through a literature book from the early 80s, I spotted the play. Instantly I knew it’d be just the thing.

I created a fantastic unit centered on the play which focused on theatre appreciation and the theme of overcoming challenges/disabilities. I began by giving the kids notes on what makes a play—why live theatre is unique from movies sort of things—and pumped them up for enjoying the play. As part of this, I showed them clips from shows on The Tony Awards, including The Lion King and The King and I, to illustrate those points. So, for example, when we watched “Shall We Dance,” we learned how the imagination helps create the set.

I also created a bulletin board complete with photos of Broadway shows, pamphlets from local theatres, pictures of myself doing improv and the few shows I had done in college. I will admit it was a great unit. The kids were excited, loved the play, wanted to read it, and we all had a blast doing it.

My co-operating teacher was very inexperienced when it came to drama, so to him, my use of all this background and knowledge combined with my enthusiasm and the success of the unit made him impressed.

In my letter of recommendation, he wrote, “He has an extensive drama background.” I was 22. By this point in life, I had certainly developed an interest and had seen a respectable number of plays, but my actual formal education was three theatre classes in college and two literature classes focused on plays (Drama Literature and Shakespeare). I had only acted in two plays, done stage crew for one, but had been heavily involved in improv for 2 ½ years. That was it.

I now had an “extensive drama background.”

Step 2
When I interviewed for a one-year English teaching position at a prestigious arts school three years later, I advertised my artistic talent. Admittedly, by this point, I had developed considerably more in my learning and experience. I had directed high school plays, had written a ton of skits and one longer play (which was basically a gathering of long skits into one cohesive story, but nothing grand by any means), plus I had been working on my first musical (and was in fact preparing it for a local workshop reading). I had even received some encouragement from a local musical development program (headed by a respected Broadway producer) when my work (at the age of 22, pat myself on the back) remained into the second round of selection for development . . . up against some people who had had professional credits on both coasts. I had also studied musical theatre considerably to learn more and to grow as an artist.

As part of that interview, I shared all my letters of recommendation and, to my surprise, was hired.

Step 3
This was a wonderful school, and it was filled with top-notch teachers of the core academic subjects (the group of which I was a part) as well as teachers who were experts in teaching performing, visual, and written arts, including two drama teachers who were very experienced and passionate in the way you would imagine arts school teachers to be.

After I was hired, the school’s wonderful program director mailed out a “welcome back” letter to all the teachers in the building. In that letter, he introduced the new faculty.

I was introduced as the new English teacher who had “an extensive drama background.”

Gee, that was easy.


The Reality
Unfortunately, actually getting an extensive drama background under any other criteria is pretty hard. In watching the Rent 2-disc special edition DVD this past weekend, I was astounded by the fascinating documentary on the making of Rent (both stage and film), which included an extensive look at the life of Jonathan Larson and his dream of writing musicals.

Jonathan Larson labored unceasingly toward his goal. Obviously he was talented beyond belief—just look at the longevity of his show—but he still had to develop his talent. Even as his show was courting Broadway producers, the producers were acknowledging that there needed to be work done on the show. It was rough. Even today when you read analyses of Rent, it is clear people think it is a great show. But I’ve never read an analysis that points to the show as perfect, possibly a result of Larson dying before the show could be frozen to his perfection.

It appears as if Larson was learning the difficult art of collaboration. According to friends on the documentary, Larson resisted collaboration. One even suggests that his resistance to collaboration may have been why his Suburbia never got produced, that it wasn’t because he was a new talent but because it was flawed.

In my journey as a wanna-be-produced librettist, I have learned many important lessons about the art of musicals. Some of these are lessons I learned the hard way, and others I learned by reading from people more experienced than myself. However, I bring them up because in my search for collaborators in the past, I have seen many people making the same mistakes I used to make and those that even the great Jonathan Larson was prone to making as well.

Allow me to be transparent for a few paragraphs. When I started on this journey, I had a musical play I began writing. I was only twenty-three when I started it, and as I mentioned above, I did receive some encouragement on the project.

But my vision for how I would hit the Broadway scene was that I would be an all-knowing creator. I just needed to find a composer and lyricist who could take all the songs I wanted them to write (because the libretto was genius, naturally) in the style my superior judgment understood they should be. I knew exactly where the dance was to be, how I wanted it performed, and that was that.

Then I met Hattie. Hattie is not her real name, but Hattie is a very talented composer-lyricist who has a great concept for a project.

She posted online wanting a collaborator for a project, so I emailed her several samples of my work. She immediately read it, sent back a bruising email in which she strongly critiqued my work point-blank. After catching my breath, I was actually extremely thankful for her harshness because that is the only way you learn. I grew from her comments. A few of them were dead-on, a few of them not. Despite her critique, she was interested in meeting to discuss the project. Over the phone she made it clear, “I don’t suffer fools.”

As I was to learn over our next two meetings, the only fool Hattie suffered was herself. First of all, she had some great songs, but they were tripped up by forced meter and a few off rhymes, though I will say that of all the composers with whom I’ve communicated that claim to be influenced by Sondheim, she’s the first of which I said, “Yes, I can see it,” though her work has a more easily identifiable and instantly pleasing melody than the Master's.

But Hattie was much like I was. She wanted me to come in and write the libretto the way she wanted. She wanted two comedic characters much like those in another show (which, if I had ever done that, everyone would have thought it was ripping off, her idea was so blatant). She had specific plot points in mind. It was all laid out. I just needed to follow her lead.

The problem is that very few artists work alone. A novelist has an editor who gives feedback, and a playwright gets help from a director. A musical requires the typical writer/songwriter to stretch so far beyond their natural talents. I have come to learn that I need a songwriter because I can’t do what a songwriter does. I need a choreographer because he or she better knows how to make a show dance. If I am dependent upon myself to do all the roles in a musical, then there’s going to be a great book and everything else will stink. Collaboration is about individual people bringing their best talents to make the show better than any one person could do it. Michael Bennett, Bob Fosse, Oscar Hammerstein, Stephen Schwartz, and every other successful Broadway creator has needed collaborators. No one else is going to top these people on their own.

The problem with Hattie’s idea was that it was an awesome concept with no conflict or plot structure. It was a series of events in a man’s life—interesting events, no doubt—but there was no dramatic tension. As I tried to propose a plot that would give the story a spine and a sense of direction, she balked at the idea. And she should have balked because I was very far off from her original concept (she wanted me to incorporate all her songs but never handed me her lyrics); however, the idea as she envisioned wouldn’t work.

She said she wanted a collaborator, but when I stepped in to suggest improvements (or at least changes) as a collaborator would do, I realized that’s not what she wanted. She wanted someone who would be a puppet, someone who realized her ideas were as genius as she did.

And honestly, having been there/done that, I can say I have seen much of that in people trying to find collaborators online. They want a clone of themselves who writes the book instead of just the music or writes the music instead of just the book.

But I’m thankful for Hattie because I figured it out before it was too late. I realized that I was just like her, wanting to do everything myself to the detriment of my beloved projects.

As for Hattie, after our second meeting when she rightly rejected my ideas for the plot, she emailed me to say, “Thanks but no thanks” (which, for the record, is a really tacky/chicken/unprofessional means of turning someone down unless you’ve only been communicating through email). Her project still has not come to fruition despite her having a big-time connection to Broadway. And it won’t until she learns what I had to learn.

You simply cannot do it alone.

the Broadway Mouth
October 11, 2007

Every Story is a Love Story: The Great Romantic Musicals

Originally published in two parts, these are my thoughts on what makes for a romantic musical. Most musicals have love stories to some extent, but not every love story is a romance.


As Tim Rice says, “Every story is a love story.” However, not every love story is a romantic one. Love exists in many forms—the love between parent and child (The Rink), siblings (Side Show), ruler and country (Camelot), and friends (Wicked) to name just a few. And just because a story features a romantic love story between a couple of marriageable status doesn’t mean that their story is romantic. Fanny, for example, features a touching story of love an older man has for the young Fanny, even though she is emotionally devoted to the wayward father of her child. These are surely romantic notions, but the situation itself is hardly romantic. Hello, Dolly! is another prime example. It features two highly satisfying and endearing love stories, though ultimately neither of them sends flutters of romantic sentiment through the heart (and I don’t believe they were ever intended to).

Even as a man, I appreciate a good love story. I think as women read Danielle Steele novels to be swept away by a man of her dreams, I love a good Jane Austen novel because of its depiction of noble and honorable men finding an intelligent and independent woman in a pack if ninnies (and it helps that Austen’s characters are psychologically complex and are featured in fascinating stories of life in Edwardian England). I would go as far as to say there are very few great romantic stories, at least in comparison to the number of them which are created. Perhaps this is because I’m too cynical or approach romantic comedies with too masculine a perspective and find corny Kate Hudson movies to be lacking in true romance that doesn’t induce dry heaves.

So what makes for great romantic stories?

Well, first of all, there has to be some substance to the characters. Character types and cardboard lovers fall flat. In college I had to read a section of a romance novel in a literature class, and it was actually laughably funny (of course, I am a man, so . . . no offense, ladies). The characters should have a psychology and live a plot that rise above the been-there-done-that a hundred times normalcy.

The characters have to meet and fall in love in a reasonably realistic way. This is crucial because you have to believe that these characters are going to “make it.” People need to know each other before it can be believed that they will live happily ever after. There are more than a handful of musicals where the characters meet and fall madly in love in one scene, which is completely fine. It just makes for a love story rather than a truly romantic one.

There should be a clear reason why the characters love each other. Because she’s pretty and he’s strapping doesn’t work for a truly romantic story. I think of Wicked as a great example. Fiyero falls for Elphaba because he gets to know her. Because of this substance, “As Long as Your Mine” becomes a very romantic expression of mature love.

The conflict should be romantic in nature. Romantic conflicts include, but are not limited to, two powerful personalities who clash despite (or because of) their strong feelings, stories where there are roots to connect the lovers (like the woman loves for the man’s children too), love separated by circumstances, horrible misunderstandings that keep lovers apart, situations where one of the lovers almost makes a drastic and life-changing decision, stories where the lovers change because of knowing the other, and stories where two people have been together for years and are still (or are just realizing they are) madly in love.

There are several situations that can inherently sink a story from being romantic. If the characters are too young to really end up happily ever after beyond the end of the show, then it’s difficult to be too emotionally involved (unless the story is of another time or culture where youth equates into lasting relationships). Obsession is also inherently unromantic. It looks like love, but it comes from an emotional void that can probably only be patched in other ways. Stories that depict the main character being intimate with other characters is also not very romantic. Also, stories that are couched in insincerity lack romantic sentiment.

Above all, the story can’t be corny. I can’t think of any corny romantic musicals, but other genres that tell romantic stories are often corny, such as Hugh Grant winning Drew Barrymore’s heart by surprising her with a love song at a concert in Music and Lyrics or Ryan Gosling climbing a Ferris Wheel to woo Rachel McAdams in The Notebook.

That is not to say that there aren’t exceptions to rules. It’s always about how something is done. A musical about a barber who kills people and a woman who then bakes them into meat pies sounds gag-inducing, but the execution (forgive me) is so expertly done, it rises above all musical rules about not writing musicals about barbers who kill people and women who then bake them into meat pies.

And now I present Broadway Mouth’s Top Ten Most Romantic Broadway Musicals.

10. Parade—Even though they are married, Leo and Lucille’s journey forces their awkward relationship to change. She can no longer be a weak Southern Belle, and he can no longer be completely self-sufficient. Through their incredible life circumstances, they both come to love each other passionately. Because of this “All the Wasted Time” is a beautiful expression of their newly re-discovered love.

9. Bells are Ringing—There’s something irresistible about Ella Peterson. She’s extremely cute in how she wants to help everyone and manages win over everyone no matter what she does. While Jeff Moss is falling madly in love with her, it’s hard for us not to as well.

There is also a firm foundation in their relationship. They both need each other. Jeff needs her to help him write his plays, and Ella needs him to have someone to love.

Bells are Ringing has what is probably the most romantic line in any musical, when Jeff says to Ella, “You’re a girl with a lot of love to give. Instead of spreading it around all over the place, give it to me. I need it. I want it.”

That’s like “You complete me” long before Tom Cruise.

8. The Sound of Music—The film adaptation is the quintessential romantic story (and my favorite movie since childhood), and it is also the only case where the movie actually improved upon the Broadway show. But just because the film improves upon the romantic factor by adding location scenes (as well as additional material and re-organizing the songs) which helps create a stronger bond between the children and Maria as well as strengthening the bond between Maria and the Georg, it doesn’t mean that the original stage version doesn’t succeed independently.

There is something incredibly romantic about a love story that includes incredible children. It’s probably part of the happily ever after factor (or in love forever factor) which is so important for a romantic story because here we have one giant happy family when all is said and done. It’s beautiful.

7. Fiddler on the Roof—In our society, we value the concept of love and romance, and yet, we have a huge percentage of love-based relationships ending in divorce. I love in Fiddler on the Roof when Tevye presses Golda to answer, “Do you love me?”

Her response sums it up quite well. She sings, “Do I love him? / For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him, / Fought with him, starved with him. / Twenty-five years my bed is his. / If that’s not love, what is?” Despite my postulations on what makes for a great romantic story, Golda has pretty much summed it up—It’s the daily expressions and motions, the shared experiences, and the drawing closer together that is really what love is about.

The romantic story is also augmented by the experiences of the three daughters. While they are young, they each make severe choices in following their loves, choices rooted in cause and purpose, rather than emotion and whims. You can safely assume that each of these daughters will live with a measure of struggle but also with a life companion to share her pains.

6. The Music Man—You have a conman wanting to take advantage of a seemingly simple small-town woman, even going so far as to praise Hester Prynne for her scarlet letter. However in attempting to woo her in order to deceive her, he falls head-over-heels for her Irish imagination, her Iowa stubbornness, and her library full of books.

Marion is no foolish small town chickie, so when she accepts him for what he’s done for the community in spite of his con, she’s making a conscious decision and not one rooted in romantic notions. It is only when he changes that she really falls for him.

Above all, we love Harold Hill despite his con, and we love Marion for her stubbornness. You can help but cheer for them in the end.

5. Kiss Me, Kate—Here are two titanic personalities who clearly love each other deeply but can’t risk the gamble to admit it. Because of their mutual hard-headedness (or maybe their mutual insecurities), they almost miss out on their chance to have each other forever. Their song “Wunderbar” is beautiful for what it develops, their relationship when they have their guard down. “So In Love” then becomes icing on the cake.

4. Aida—Opposites attract, and when those opposites become not-very-opposite and fall deeply in love, it’s romantic.

Like many great love stories, it starts with the characters. Aida is a wonderful character, and her strength and determination is sexier than however the woman may look who is playing her. Though Radames starts out a jerk, his change is heart makes him a respectable guy (also, we need to remember his kindness to a young Mereb which attests to his inner nice-guys beginnings).

Because we are presented with these two characters we inherently like, we root for their love. It begins as something physical, but it becomes a union of similar personalities, a one-in-a-kind sort of love. Their love is deep, which is defined through several songs, most powerfully “Written in the Stars,” which is passionate even though it is about parting forever.

And yes, I can hardly resist the ending in which they die in each others’ arms.

3. 1776—Here we have a peripheral love story of a married couple separated by many miles, and yet, Edwards and Stone give us several very romantic moments.

John and Abigail Adams have a relationship firmly founded on mutual love and respect, which is always sexy. He huffs and fumes, and she picks on him; it’s a relationship that can only be formed through years of marriage and love. And theirs is a love that has survived separation and strife, only to grow stronger. It’s beautiful when Abigail asks John about the women in Virginia, obviously troubled by the months apart, and, knowing his wife so well, he basically says, “Don’t worry. These women can’t hold a candle to you.” Similarly, when he is in his moment of desperation and everything seems to be caving in, she is there to build him up as well. When she ends the reprise of “Yours, Yours, Yours” with the sending of saltpetre, the subtext of the action is “I love you and believe in you.” That’s more romantic than a kiss or a touch.

If most stories with romance portray the much-desired search for love, then 1776 gives us the love we hope to have forever.

2. Guys and Dolls—While it’s not written as a love song, “Luck Be a Lady” is probably one of the most romantic songs ever to appear on a Broadway stage.

First of all, there’s a romance that develops from dishonorable circumstances which could forever split apart the lovers (and almost does). Sarah Brown is a very sweet and passionate woman who sincerely intends to go great things. I would argue that she is a very modern character. Sky Masterson, while a gambler, is a respectable and honorable fellow. He does take Miss Sarah to Havana and even gets her drunk (unintentionally I believe), but he never intends for it to be harmful. After he realizes that she has downed too many drinks, he takes care of her and keeps her from harm or embarrassment.

When Sarah thinks that Sky has used her and leaves him once they’ve both fallen in love, the audience’s heart aches for these two who people who earnestly love each other but could be forever parted because of a misunderstanding.

That’s why “Luck Be a Lady” is such a romantic song, because of the desperation in which it is sung. Sky realizes he has screwed things up (with Nathan’s help), and this is his one chance to fix things up and get her back.

1. Jane Eyre—I know this’ll be controversial, but I can’t think of a more romantic story ever (and I saw the stage version before I ever picked up the novel, so I didn’t enter the Brooks Atkinson with any novel-based expectations).

It starts with two strong characters. Jane may be ugly, but she is one of the most beautiful women in all literature. I love how strong Jane is. I admire greatly how she refuses to give in to her passions because she realizes that it would betray her conscience and her sense of self-worth. I stand in awe of how she refuses the Rochester family jewels as a sign of her independence and her refusal to lose herself in the signs of wealth. I also adore Jane for her love of knowledge and learning and how that has shaped her view of the world.

Rochester, while certainly flawed, is also a very endearing character in how he treats his women. This complex topic could be discussed in a multi-page analysis, which I’ll forgo, but the fact that he has done his best to take care of Bertha Mason and to honor his wedding vows despite the difficult circumstances in a time when the insane were discarded and locked up under cruel circumstances is very honorable. And while he does attempt the dishonorable by wedding two women, his intentions are pure in his desire to keep both respectable (in a “what you don’t know won’t hurt you” way) and in violating only his own soul.

There’s also romance at the heart of how they meet and live. They both deeply love each other but cannot express it out of fear—Jane’s fear for her appearance and lowly position and Rochester’s fear of his dark secret and Jane’s youth. Then when they finally cross that hurdle, they are almost torn apart forever—each still singularly attached to the other—until a Providential intercession unites them forever. Their love for each other is rich and rooted. Even when circumstances change—Rochester is disfigured and Jane inherits great wealth—their love survives because it springs from their equality in spirit and intellect, their enjoyment of the company of the other.

It doesn’t get much better than this. It really doesn’t.

the Broadway Mouth
October 6 and 10, 2007

Revivals and Revisals: Paint Your Wagon Any Color You Want

It's amazing how perspective changes things. There are always so many press releases that never come to anything, and this Paint Your Wagon revival was another. Still, I think the reflections that came from it are still valid.



Most recently, there has been some talk of a new production of Paint Your Wagon in which the story has apparently been rewritten to remove the polygamy elements while keeping the characters and basic elements of the original story.

I love my Paint Your Wagon CD. There are so many wonderful Lerner and Lowe songs (I can’t get enough of Olga San Juan’s “How Can I Wait?”), but when I read the libretto a couple years ago, it didn’t quite leave me with the same feeling.

Very few of the revivals to hit Broadway do so without some alteration. In Kiss Me, Kate, John Guare was tapped to make some ghost alterations to the Spewack’s original book, including making major changes to the Ron Holgate character as well as interpolating “From This Moment On” from another Porter show. According to Donna Murphy, there were some nips and tucks to Wonderful Town, while the producers of Bells are Ringing brought in Comden and Green to make some lyrics changes. In addition to her usual new orchestrations to open up shows for more dance, Susan Stroman switched around the order of things for The Music Man. Trevor Nunn got the Rodgers and Hammerstein organization to allow for some changes to Oklahoma!, and The Sound of Music revival added the two songs from the film.

Throughout Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik’s Broadway Musicals: The Greatest Shows of All Time, Bloom and Vlastnik make a case for keeping classic musicals just as they are, no re-writes, no updates, no edits. For a long time after reading this book for the first time, I felt strongly about that.

But now, I’m honestly torn.

Broadway musicals, in my mind, are like the plays of Tennessee Williams, the novels of Willa Cather, the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. You don’t mess with great pieces of literature. They act as the signature of the writers, and they should be enjoyed and studied without alteration.

But then the truth is that musicals are collaborative pieces. It’s not just Jule Styne and Leo Robin’s songs, it’s also Joseph Fields and Anita Loos’ book, not to mention John C. Wilson’s direction which no doubt guided the whole effort, plus Agnes DeMille’s choreography. Without any one of those pieces, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes could have become a very different piece.

What changed my mind about Bloom and Vlastnik’s assertions was The Boy Friend. I saw the Julie Andrews tour. I was very excited to see it. Because Julie Andrews was on the CD, I had checked it out of the library several times in high school and copied three of the best songs onto a mix tape. Once I got into Broadway musicals, I bought the CD.

There are a lot of fun songs in that show, and from reading the plot synopsis in the liner notes, I had imagined it to be a funny and romantic show along the lines of Guys and Dolls. I even mentioned this to a friend of mine as a possible show I could direct when I was directing high school plays. She had seen the show and said, “I saw that at a high school once, and there was just nothing to it.” I figured she had just seen a dopey production.

Nope. Nope, she didn’t.

I know the show has fans, but when I finally saw it in production, whatever charms it had on the 1950s audience intimately familiar with the 1920s shows to which it was a valentine, was completely lost to the 2000s me. The plot is paper thin and the characters ½-dimensional.

A show simply must appeal to a modern audience. Theatre is not a museum. So, if that show contains sexist or racial caricatures no longer acceptable or jokes and plotting that wouldn’t connect with a modern audience, then the show needs to either be shelved or altered.

The problem is either when the music is so good or the book is so good except for “that one element” (or is great in summary but not in execution). One could argue that these are the exact reasons why Encores or Reprise exists, to showcase great music from shows that don’t get much play anymore, usually because of out-dated or clunky books.

However, there are millions upon millions of people without access to Encores or Reprise, yours truly being one of them. In its short run, more people saw the Sweet Charity revival (myself included) than could have ever have seen it in an Encores or Reprise production.

That is not to say that all changes are necessary. There is a big difference when “I’m an Indian Too” is excised because it requires Native American stereotypes that will turn off the wealthy, well-educated audience that supports Broadway, and when new songs are inserted in The Pajama Game for no apparent reason.

Honestly, there are many changes made for artistic interpretation of the director. That’s where I have issues. Nobody takes a great modern play, like The Crucible, and begins to add re-writes and switch things around because of their own artistic interpretation. This classic piece of literature, particularly now that Arthur Miller has died, is considered “locked.” Tennessee Williams isn’t around to makes alterations to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, so nobody else will be allowed to. The director works to interpret what the playwright has given him or her. Like all great literature, it still leaves room for interpretation—is Brick gay or is he straight?—but it does so within the intents of the playwright.

I think of the Trevor Nunn Oklahoma! preserved so beautifully on DVD. As far as I can tell, the changes to that production were essentially interpretative changes—Trevor Nunn saying, “If I had originally directed this, here’s what I would have done.” But, I would say, “You didn’t, and you are compromising the playwrights’ intentions.”

That is really one of the key problems with much of the criticism on message boards. The harshness often comes not from “Where did this production go wrong” as much as “Here’s what I would have done, which is obviously infinitely better.” The problem arises when it results in the compromising of great American works of art.

But then you do have a problem when the shows become museum pieces. Should no one ever hear those great Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh Wildcat songs live because the libretto is reportedly weak?

A good example of this is with Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman’s Over Here!, which has a libretto by Will Holt. If you read the synopsis in the liner notes, the show sounds like tons of fun. However, if you read the libretto—published by Samuel French, so you can actually order it and read it—the show is written to the people who lived during World War II. It has a “remember the good old days” aura about it.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember the good old days. The good old days to me are Saved by the Bell. And, I don’t think there are tons of people who remember those good old days left to fill a theatre for a long run.

It would be my dream to write a modern musical comedy libretto for Over Here! using the old songs (and probably needing a few more added) to make it palatable for modern audiences, allowing audience to hear that great music again.

Did I mention I would love to see Paint Your Wagon on stage in an entertaining form?

But there I go contradicting myself. Bad, bad Broadway Mouth.

In the end, it’s all about money. Who wants it and who is willing to sacrifice grandpa’s work to get more of it? If I ever get a show or eight on Broadway, I hope to God my grandchildren aren’t bastardizing my work to send their children through college. But then, I also hope I write shows that are timeless enough to survive decades untouched.

the Broadway Mouth
September 26, 2007

Epilogue: 50 Amazing Broadway Performers in 50 Weekdays

The summer I start my blog, I did a regular sereies called 50 Amazing Broadway Performers in 50 Weekdays. Below is the epilogue to that series. If you'd like to see what I originally wrote about them, just type in their name into the search box in the upper left corner, and any related entries will pop up.

On a side note, I've now seen some of the people mentioned here perform live--Susan Egan, Judye Kaye, and (referenced below) Hunter Foster.


Norm Lewis
Felicia P. Fields
Carol Channing
Chuck Wagner
Susan Egan
Marla Schaffel
Douglas Sills
Mary Testa
Cleavant Derricks
Carly Jibson
Sherie René Scott
Denis O’Hare
Michael Lanning
Amy Spanger
Faith Prince
Emily Skinner
Jose Llana
Stephen Lynch
Rebecca Luker
Randal Keith
Sutton Foster
Lea Salonga
Rick Faugno
Leslie Kritzer
Merle Dandridge
Marin Mazzie
Carolee Carmello
Rachel York
Audra McDonald
Donna Murphy
Brian Stokes Mitchell
Keith Byron Kirk
Craig Bierko
Leslie Hendrix
Christine Andreas
Elaine Stritch
Bernadette Peters
Donna McKechnie
Bebe Neuwirth
Michael Berresse
Heather Headley
JoAnn M. Hunter
LaChanze
Stephanie J. Block
Judy Kaye
Sharon Brown
Tina Maddigan
Christiane Noll
Idina Menzel
Chita Rivera

When I look at this list of talent, I am amazed by these people. I mean, seriously, look at these names and try to tell me that the people out there pounding the boards today don’t compare with those of the past. For each of these performers I’ve seen in person, I look at their names and waves of excitement wash over me as I think about the prospect of being able to see them again. For each of the performers I haven’t seen in person, I get excited in hoping to someday witness their talents in person.

As I said before, nothing will ever replace Gwen Verdon or Ethel Merman or John Raitt, but then, nothing will ever replace Keith Byron Kirk or Donna Murphy or Michael Berresse.

And the best part is that there are so many other talented people not on the above list who are amazing Broadway performers. On the people I’ve seen list, there’d be Felicia Finley, Richard H. Blake, Jessica Snow-Wilson, Diana Kaarina, Andrea Rivette, Coleen Sexton, Elisabeth Withers-Mendes, Krisha Marcano, Kenita R. Miller, Kendra Kassebaum, Jenna Leigh Green, Bob Martin, Danny Burstein, Sandy Duncan, Natasha Diaz, Solange Sandy, Paul Schoeffler, Melba Moore, Adam Pascal, Damian Perkins, John Hickok, Kelli Fournier, Beth Fowler, David Garrison, Deborah S. Craig, Barret Foa, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Sarah Saltzberg, Lisa Yuen, Margaret Ann Gates, Melinda Chua, Luoyong Wang, Christa Justus, Kim Huber, Kate Levering, Christine Ebersole, David Elder, Howard McGillin, Sandra Joseph, Jenny Hill, Blythe Danner, Judith Ivey, Polly Bergen, Mary Stout, Austin Miller, Alli Mauzy, Tom Hewitt, Charlie Pollock, Samuel E. Wright, Tsidii Le Loka, Cherry Jones, Ashley Brown, Amy Bodnar, Brian d’Arcy James, Sara Gettelfinger, Jacques C. Smith, Loretta Divine, E. Faye Butler, Hayley Mills, Jay Garner, Florence Lacey, Cory English, Michael DeVries, Monica M. Wemitt, and Lori Ann Mahl, to name just a few.

If I were to create a list of amazing Broadway performers I’d love to see, names like Tonya Pinkins, Hunter Foster, Betty Buckley, Judy Kuhn, Anthony Crivello, Norbert Leo Butz, Kerry Butler, Sally Murphy, and Kelli O’Hara would make that list as long as the one above.

the Broadway Mouth
September 24, 2007

Get with the (Souvenir) Program

This was originally posted September 18, 2007, and it's still pretty dead-on. It feels good to be dead-on.


I never leave for a show without the money to buy a souvenir program. To me, the CD and the program are essential elements of the experience. You pay $80+ for the show, and not only do you want to remember every minute of that awesome/expensive experience, you want pictures to help you remember and the music to relive it again and again.

When I come home from New York on the plane, the care of my souvenir programs is of utmost concern. I don’t want smashed corners or bent pages. That means they never go in my suitcases or in overhead compartments. I make sure one of my carry-ons is a nice plastic shopping bag that is small enough to keep my programs close together, and I slide it carefully under the seat before me. I then don’t move my legs (which are quite long, since I am 6’ 5”) for the entire flight unless I can do so without stepping on my programs.

Thankfully, they all still look as good as new.

Lately I’ve seen a few programs popping up at used bookstores in my area, which is how I got my Ragtime program (a souvenir of my Lincoln Center Theatre archive viewing). I often pick them up and am surprised at how vapid a number of them have been, more filler and fluff than actual substance. Now, I know not every theatre-goer out there is as obsessive as I, but on some of these, I can see why they’d have no problem selling them for a quarter to a used bookstore.

If you’re paying $10 (or $20 at Tarzan with a cheap bag), you want something to help you preserve the memory. No wonder people were selling of these Rent tour and various other programs. They gave no real clue about what they had seen on stage. Obviously at one point they wanted to preserve the memory, so the show must have been dear them enough to pay for the program in the first place.

I love my programs. When I want to remember how great Jane Eyre was, I just page through the beautiful photographs. When I want to remember how much I laughed during Kiss Me, Kate, I’ll pick up the Broadway or the tour cast program. If I want to remember how great Jayne Patterson was as Fantine, I pull out one of my Les Miserables programs.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Sometimes, though, I do think the producers’ perspective of what we want to remember and what the audience really wants to get are two different things.

So, dear producers, here are some guidelines to help you as you assemble the program you want to sell to aid your bottom line and to aid us in remembering a (hopefully) magical experience.

1. We want pictures. Lots of them that we can easily see.

On this front, The Color Purple program had to be about the most disappointing program I’ve ever gotten. Many of the pages consisted only of one large picture spread out across two pages. There’s one beautiful picture of LaChanze when Celie finds Nettie’s letters, where the crease comes in at her shoulder, which damages the effect. And since the picture is basically LaChanze (lit beautifully) surrounded by pitch black stage, I’m not sure show two pages were needed for that picture, particularly considering the program as a whole.

In addition to the overall shortage of pictures, there are a good number of pictures printed in the program which are so small, they might as well not be included. Seriously. God forbid you should want to remember any of the supporting characters. For such a beautiful show, you’d think they could include something to better help you remember it.

There is, however, a nice picture of Oprah, as if we don’t get a chance to see her often. She looks great, of course, but she wasn’t in the show.

2. Fewer words. There can be one page dedicated to words about the show, but that’s really about it.

In The Color Purple, we get one page dedicated to Oprah telling about how the book changed her life (she already gets a whole monthly magazine and a daily television show to tell us about herself and her experiences). There’s also a page dedicated to Alice Walker and the various incarnations of The Color Purple (with two very small shots from the show at the bottom, relegating Krisha Marcano’s beloved Squeak to a size smaller than my thumb). There’s also two pages about the creation of the show, and another page dedicated to the composer/lyricists and choreographer. There’s also one page (two bottom halfs) detailing the history of juke joints, and one page and a quarter (roughly ¾ of two pages) dedicated to a timeline of African-American history. Then writer Marsha Norman—oddly enough, almost the least-winded of them all—get her say in less than a page of writing (spread out into two pages). I’m surprised the stage hands don’t have a page to share their thoughts, though perhaps that’s one thing that’ll be negotiated for soon.

So, did I buy this program to remember the $120 I spent on The Color Purple or to get a textbook on African-American history?

My Wicked program is an example of an exceptional program in this regards. There is one page dedicated to Gregory Maguire (spread out over two half-pages), and the rest is pretty much pictures that don’t require a magnifying glass to identify.

And even though the cast pictured is the Broadway cast and not the original tour cast that I saw, the pictures are of significant scenes and costumes so that I can vividly recall the images I experienced that wonderful night.

3. Don’t get too cutesy. Stylish design is good, but you don’t want it to overpower the content. A board game in the Urinetown program, for example, is great fun . . . until you realize how much space it’s taking from other content.

Similarly, my program for The Drowsy Chaperone has ten pages of fun fluff. The pictures in the rest of the program are spectacular, but when I find myself looking I through it again, the two pages dedicated to Gable and Stein’s stable aren’t very interesting. The ten pages of Man in Chair’s scrapbook don’t help me remember the show.

4. Remember your audience. Why do people buy souvenir programs? To help them remember the wonderful experience they just had. As flattering as it surely is, an entire page dedicated to snapshots of the producers at the end of my Hairspray program is not why I bought the program. Don’t get me wrong, I am very thankful for all nineteen people and organizations shown there, but . . . They weren’t in the show, so why are they in the program?

Similarly, the Hairspray souvenir program—which has lots of beautiful pictures of the Original Broadway Cast—sprinkles throughout pictures and bios of the entire creative team. The bios come in the insert in the program (which, by the way, was cleverly printed on a fold-out poster). Not only is it redundant to take up space with them in the program, it’s a repeat of information.

When I see the programs that wind up sold to used bookstores, often, there’s so much information not related to the specific experience that I look at the programs myself and can’t get a feel for what they experienced.

5. Use updated pictures as much as possible. I think, as happens so many times, Cameron Mackintosh leads the way on this one. Towards the end of its tour, Les Miserables would hit my city almost yearly. And with every pass through, the souvenir program would be updated with the cast changes. It was a smart move on Mackintosh’s part because I bet I’m not the only one who didn’t mind double-dipping, particularly when it came to getting photos of favorite performances (for me, it was the amazing Jayne Patterson as Fantine).

It seems to be happening less now, but on tour, it often seems like we just get the New York cast in our photos. That’s still nice, but since it is supposed to be a souvenir of what we just saw, updated photos would be ideal.

And I know late in runs, the New York programs tend to be an amalgam of photos from various casts. I bet most theatre-goers would prefer to see photos of their cast rather than a mix of great casts of the past.

6. Make sure that there is a souvenir program!

Probably the strangest purchase I ever made was a program I got at the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat tour with Patrick Cassidy and Deborah Gibson, which not only didn’t feature the cast I saw, but it wasn’t even the production. I think it was a program of photos from perhaps the original Broadway production. Strange.

I figure if the non-Equity tour of Godspell can come to town with not only a program of the cast but a CD as well, a Broadway tour could at least manage a souvenir program.

I’ve been fortunate that for several tours, I was able to get missing programs on a trip to New York, but it is annoying to see a show and to discover that the program isn’t available. Sometimes it’s a matter of printing times, such as when The Music Man was so new in New York, the programs just weren’t made yet. However, on a tour like Annie Get Your Gun or The King and I, which had been playing in New York for some time, some form of souvenir program should have been possible until new ones were printed.


Two exemplary souvenir programs that I remember are the programs for Bells are Ringing and Tarzan. For Bells are Ringing, there were a ton of pictures throughout (literally from cover to cover), of varying sizes but all large enough to easily see what was going on. The design includes lines on each page, I think to represent telephone lines, but they don’t obscure any pictures. There is writing (a piece from Betty Comden on the inspiration for the show, two historical sections on prices in 1956 and the history of communication, and a few paragraphs from the producer, and about a page from the director), but the best part is that these writings seem secondary to the photographs. They are beside the pictures, in corners of the actual photograph, and above them. A little less writing would have been nice (who cares about a history of communication—what’s the audience for this program?), but the great and many pictures make up for it. This program, by the way, was designed by Dewynters.

It’s almost unfair to use the Tarzan program as a model because it was for a Disney show and is about twice as long as other souvenir programs, no doubt because of the history of Disney’s success on Broadway (and the additional $10 I paid). The program, however, was filled with so many beautiful photos that the amount of writing doesn’t matter. There are many photos from the show itself, plus many others from photo shoots. There is an essay on Edgar Rice Burroughs, three paragraphs from producer Thomas Schumacher, and a few snippets here and there on the creative team for the show. But it is essentially a luscious book loaded with pictures printed on very high quality paper (even the insert of the actors’ bios is printed on thicker paper).

My love for Broadway and the excitement for seeing a show runs incredibly deep. There are times that I pick up a brochure or catalogue and I am immediately taken back to great memories when the printing smell is that of a Broadway program. That smell—no, aroma— takes me back to so many great experiences in the theatre that it makes me wish I could go run and see Show Boat again or Urinetown.

Souvenir programs not only help the bottom line for the producers, they are an essential part in recalling the experience for many people in the audience. When well-created, it becomes a permanent memory when the shows are long-gone and the casts have moved on. When not well-created, you can buy them for $3 at your local used bookstore.

the Broadway Mouth
September 18, 2007

Eight Top Ten Theatre Books I Love

I originally posted this column September 8, 2007. I love nothing more than a great theatre book, and here are the best of the best.


Honestly, when I began buying theatre books, I’d pick them up as remainders at a local used bookstore. I never expected to fully read them, just to use them as reference books to look up shows and their creators.

However, the breakthrough came in reading Keith Garebian’s books on “the making of” My Fair Lady and West Side Story about seven years ago. Garebian’s books make for interesting reading, which somehow came as a surprise to me at the time (Give me a break; I was only twenty-three). Since then, I’ve worked my way through a good number of theatre books—from two Ethel Waters autobiographies, another Keith Garebian book (with the other two waiting in the wings), Ted Sennett’s fantastic Song and Dance: The Musicals of Broadway, Max Wilk’s Ok! The Story of Oklahoma!, Peter Stone’s lengthy account on Titanic (not to mention the show’s libretto), Stuart Ostrow’s A Producer’s Broadway Journey, among many others (many of which I have bought brand new, by the way).

And, naturally, like any good reader, I have many more to go, with Donna McKechnie’s Time Steps: My Musical Comedy Life and Letters from Backstage: The Adventures of a Touring Stage Actor by Michael Kostroff high on my list of books to buy.

In all my reading, though, there are eight theatre books I probably have relied on more and revisited more often than any others. Above all, they make for interesting reads about topics that greatly interest me, but a good number of these are also books that have not only kept me informed but have also worked to shape my understanding of musical storytelling structure, characterization, and song placement. For someone like me, that’s invaluable.

Making It on Broadway by David Wienir and Jodie Langel—I’ve already detailed this one in an August blog entry, so I will save time by paraphrasing myself. If you read that blog entry, maybe skip ahead to the next book.

Making It on Broadway is a collection of first-hand accounts from contemporary Broadway performers about the heart-breaks and disillusions they’ve met as they’ve worked to make it on Broadway. Reading it was instant meth. Once I started, I literally couldn’t stop. It’s both hilarious (with many laugh-out-loud moments) but very enlightening and touching too. It’s all real stories by people who have pounded the boards.

Making It on Broadway has honestly had a profound effect on me as a theatre-goer and as a future librettist. When I think about whom I’d love to cast in my shows if they ever made it to Broadway, I think about this book. When I see Jerry Mathers stumbling through a televised performance from Hairspray, I think about this book. When I see people attacking performers on message boards, I think about this book. When I envision the career I’d like to have as a writer and the impact I’d like to have on Broadway no what genre I write, I think about this book.

Honestly, I need to also say again, I really think Wienir and Langel should write another Making It on Broadway book, perhaps dealing with another aspect of the business, like what performers think about current trends—amplification, the types of shows that are produced, savage message boards, etc.

(P.S. If you did read that rather melancholy blog entry, first of all I apologize. Secondly, I never did take a teaching job in California. Despite great encouragement from a recruitment organization, I couldn’t make the timing work. I’m working on Plan C . . . or is that Plan G? Anyway, this will all make for a great memoir someday.)

The TheaterMania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings, edited by Michael Portantiere—This is such an invaluable guide. It’s one of those books I find myself perusing often, re-re-re-reading entries. It’s great for the critical commentary on shows and performances, as well as a go-to guide for which recording is best suited to your needs. I love that there’s such a handy one-stop-shop for finding out which CD is the most complete recording, the best-sung, and all that jazz.

Obviously, there are entries with which I greatly disagree—Les Miserables, Aida, and the revival Hello, Dolly! come to mind—but I can’t get enough of this book and these observations. I don’t know if there’s a plan to update, but I sure hope we get another one soon. There are so many great new recordings I want to read about.

Let’s Put on a Musical! by Peter Filichia—I value this book so much because I have such a high respect for Peter Filichia and his TheaterMania column, though he does produce some darned exasperating quiz questions.

I originally picked this book up when I was directing high school plays, but in the six years since I decided I wanted a personal life and resigned that position, I couldn’t count how many times I’ve paged through Let’s Put on a Musical!.

In the book, Filichia outlines all the information you’d want to know about specific musicals in deciding whether to produce a show for your school, community theatre, or whatever, identifying significant set pieces, the amount of dancing, casting needs, and so on. What keeps me picking the book up are his concise appraisals of the musicals in his identification of assets and liabilities. It grants you a glimpse into Filichia’s thoughts on most of the significant musicals from about Oklahoma! to 1993, the year it was published. It’s like a movie guide from a great movie critic, except for musical theatre.

Whenever I see a show performed or read a libretto or listen to a CD I haven’t popped in for awhile, I love to read other people’s view of the show, and because of that, Peter Filichia’s Let’s Put on a Musical! has been invaluable. Sometimes I just open it up and page through the information on various shows.

There was word a few years back about Filichia updating the text to include the many new shows that have arrived on the scene since 1993. Personally, I can’t wait. I want to see what he has to say about The Scarlet Pimpernel and Titanic and Aida and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and so on.

Note: Thanks to someone who commented on this thread, I can pass on to you that the new Let’s Put on a Musical! is already published. I’m excited!

Everything Was Possible by Ted Chapin—Again, I paraphrase/quote myself from a June blog entry where I analyzed problems and solutions to Sondheim and Goldman’s imperfect masterpiece Follies (for that blog entry: http://broadwaymouth.blogspot.com/2007/06/road-they-didnt-take-fixing-follies.html) in which I discuss this amazing book.

In Everything Was Possible, Ted Chapin describes with great detail the laborious rehearsal period for the original Hal Prince/Michael Bennett production of Follies. In addition to being a fascinating read because it details the creation of this breathtaking production, it gives you a stripped-away, glam-less documentation of the making of a Broadway musical (which, for the record, has a great many similarities with directing plays at the high school level, which I found fascinating).

It becomes a page-turner as former intern Chapin details the week-by-week developments of the show. You know how the show turns out before you even take in the introduction, but as you read, you do find yourself wanting to know what happens next. It makes for a fascinating read and a must-have for anyone interested in how Broadway musicals are made.

Broadway Musicals: The Greatest Shows of All Time by Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik—In this fascinating must-have tomb, Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik list and detail the 101 best Broadway musicals of their choosing. This is an exciting read loaded, stuffed, and jammed with rare full-color and black-and-white pictures and tons of interesting information. I know this book received a lot of press in its 2004 publication, but it shouldn’t be ignored or forgotten.

First of all, the book is only $34.95 which, considering its size and plethora of full-color pictures, is a real steal. Most importantly, however, the content is even more impressive.

It is clear Bloom and Vlastnik really researched this book. They reach back to such shows as The Desert Song, The New Moon, and The Student Prince in Heidelberg, often describing these lesser-known musicals in such vivid detail as to make you wonder where they hid the time machine. Most importantly, they make these older musicals—which are only names in books to many of us—come alive and seem vital. In a quick and pleasurable read, I learned so much about the pre-Oklahoma! periods and why those shows were popular.

While incorporating these important older shows, the list does consist of mostly modern (or post-Oklahoma!) musicals, giving you a front-row seat to their glories. In addition to the usual suspects, you get shows such as Destry Rides Again, Do Re Mi, and Fanny, none of which I knew much about until I read this book, beyond being a CD on a store shelf that is.

I love learning about Broadway musicals, and I gained so much insight from this wonderful book. Not only did I take in all sorts of new information about classic shows that I had seen, but I was also introduced to much rarer gems.

Plus, the authors don’t just stop at discussing shows. There are sidebars on legendary Broadway performers and their varied careers, as well as creative team members, such as choreographers and songwriters.

So, for example, in the Brigadoon entry, there are three full-color photos accompanying the main text (including two with great views of the set), a sidebar on Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe (with a black-and-white picture of the pair with Moss Hart) and a color picture of Julie Andrews and Richard Burton in Camelot. The pictures throughout the book are as varied as to include Elaine Stritch out-of-town in Sail Away, Betty Buckley in Triumph of Love, and Tommy Tune and Darcie Roberts in Busker Alley.

Personally, I’d buy Bloom and Vlastnik’s book on the 101 second-best musicals, 101 most mediocre musicals, and the 101 most miserable musicals if there’s this much important information and rare visuals to accompany them.

Broadway Yearbook series (1999-2000, 2000-2001, and 2001-2002) by Steven Suskin—This was a short-lived but cherished series in which Steven Suskin provided detailed analysis and discussion of all the Broadway shows from their respective seasons. Personally, the first two books were particularly nice because those were the first two years where I made trips to Broadway, so I saw some of the shows he discusses with the cast members he names. For me, it really is a beloved record to help me remember (jn addition to all the Playbills and souvenir programs I so carefully hauled home) those two glorious trips.

I hardly feel qualified to criticize Steven Suskin, who is not only extremely knowledgeable about theatre but is also a very skillful and witty writer. I will, however, endeavor to try.

Namely, I often find myself disagreeing with Suskin’s harsh words and interpretation of events. For example, I find his excellent analysis of the structure of Bells are Ringing to be pointless because musical comedy is an art, not a science, and the fact that the songs are unevenly distributed doesn’t matter in the face of what a fantastic show it is (Mel Brooks, by the way, is on my side in this). His harsh criticism of the text of the show seems particularly silly when, in the same book, he so highly praises 42nd Street, a show with a bloated book that I’m betting was written by a fifth grader.

Still, I find Suskin’s informative background information invaluable and his erudite criticism fascinating. In fact, when I disagree with him, I love the books even more. I can honestly say that by reading these books, I have learned much about storytelling in musical theatre and what critics expect of a show, priceless concepts for someone who wants to create.

I don’t think these books are still in publication, but they would be an invaluable addition to any musical theatre library.

Ever After by Barry Singer—This was another one of those books I bought and devoured in a very short time. It is essentially a collection of articles Singer wrote for The New York Times (thanks to Michael John LaChiusa for that info). In addition to being a fascinating read, this is another book that has dramatically shaped my theatrical worldview.

When I started writing my first musical, I was listening to a number of amazing contemporary theatre scores. This was around the time I began shopping at Barnes and Noble, searching for interesting CDs to buy from shows I’d never experienced—which ended up in my exposure to favorites like Triumph of Love, Side Show, Marie Christine, and Ragtime. This was coupled with then-recent touring productions of shows like Jekyll and Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Titanic, Les Miserables, and Parade. My first attempt at writing the show (which was without collaborators) was heavily influenced by these lush scores of emotionally charged ballads and anthems which I still cannot get enough of. However, in analyzing the list, only a few of those ran long enough to recoup their original investment.

And, as in life, the right role models are so important in art.

But as I read Barry Singer’s book, I gained insights into these and other shows, understanding what audiences want and what critics (usually the door-keepers to any show) perceive. It took a few years of my opus lying dormant on my computer before I understood what needed fixing, but when I did, Barry Singer’s perspective was crucial in coming to see it for myself.

Plus, I love books on contemporary theatre. When I read a book on musical theatre, I want it to be contemporary, so I can learn what is happening now. I also appreciate being able to read about productions of shows I’ve seen. I want to know what people think of Jane Eyre and The Scarlet Pimpernel. I will probably vehemently disagree with what they have to say, but I love learning that new perspective.

The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen by Ethan Mordden—For many of the same reasons as with Singer’s book, I devoured Ethan Mordden’s book when I finally got it. Here is a discussion of contemporary musical theatre with smart observations and interesting analyses. Invaluable for me was his very strong coverage of the dark ages of the 1980s, where he details what sounds like some pretty fantastically awful shows I never even knew existed (save for Starmites, which I regretfully experienced first hand in a high school production).

I love Mordden’s style which, while a little showy in the superfluous wordy footnotes department and the tossing around of fancy foreign words, is lively and engaging. His style is such that, after reading The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen, I feel like I would know Mordden if I ever met him on the street. Perhaps someday I will.

Once again, I can’t say enough about how this book, like the Singer and Suskin books, has greatly impacted me as a wanna-be-produced librettist (by the way, that one’s for you, Mr. Mordden). I love theatre, I love musical theatre, and I just want to soak it all up to write the best I can.


I’ve read many theatre books, though I have a great many more to go. While I haven’t been there yet to know the best advice to give to other people in my shoes, where I stand now, I don’t think I could say enough about Making It on Broadway, Everything Was Possible, Broadway Musicals: The Greatest Shows of All Time, Steven Suskin’s Broadway Yearbook series, Ever After, and The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen as fascinating reads that will shape how you view any writing task before you.

As for The TheaterMania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings and Let’s Put on a Musical!, they are fun reads and valuable reference books. Personally, I wouldn’t want to part with them from my library.

the Broadway Mouth
September 8, 2007

Eight Top Ten Things to Guide You in Recording a Solo Album

This list was originally posted August 23, 2007.


Emily Skinner wrote in the liner notes to her self-titled solo album:

“What I didn’t want was an ego trip of the ‘Songs I like to listen to myself sing the most’ type.”

I don’t know about everyone else, but I like those kind of ego trips! After all, if you don’t like to hear yourself sing the song, why the heck would anyone else want to hear it? Who cares who picks the songs as long as you sing them well?

I love a good solo album. It’s a delight to hear the stars I love singing songs I wouldn’t otherwise get to hear them sing. On message boards, people are always fantasizing about ideal casts and who they’d die to hear sing different parts. A solo album is a theatre fan’s chance to dream in stereo.

Though while we all love a good solo album, sinking your hard-earned money on a great voice underperforming on disc is a major letdown. Not only is it a waste of money if you don’t like the CD, even worse, it’s a waste of talent. It can also hurt that star’s chance of having a successful second album.

So, as an avid theatre fan, here are some guidelines for recording a solo theatre album that will entertain and delight your fans and hopefully win you a few more.

1. Theatre folk seem to like to pick the most obscure Broadway songs to sing. For example, Dorothy Loudon performed a song from Ballroom on the My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies concert. I’ve read a ton about Broadway musicals, and I’ve never heard of that show. Audra McDonald chose a song from Hooray for What. She sang it well, but, um, it never stuck to the ribs, you know. Heather Headley sang “He Touched Me” on The Love Songs, and I still don’t know which show that’s from.

It’s understandable because an artist wants to have the chance to trod a path that few have trod. There are songs that, because they are so popular, have been performed by everyone and their YouTube-obsessed cousin. But if you are making a theatre CD, the selling point is going to be your awesome voice singing songs people have wanted to hear you sing or have wanted to have on disc.

So, guideline one is to select a variety of songs for your CD that are both new to your audience but also familiar. I like being introduced to new songs. It’s just that when you have a CD that is mostly new songs, it can be difficult to enter in without the hook of familiarity. Theatre songs are linked to stories, so if you are performing a song from a 1930s show that is no longer produced, it’s hard for people to follow your stories. At the same time, it’s nice to be introduced to new songs. It’s great to see a new show and have one or two of the songs in your back pocket to look forward to. A blend of the new and familiar is always a good mix to have.

2. Recording songs from shows that were never recorded, however, is a big bonus. I love that Emily Skinner brought in Alice Ripley to record a duet from James Joyce’s The Dead on her solo album. That’ll be one of the few chances I’ll ever have to hear anything from that score. Similarly, Matt Bogart’s “Tell My Father” from The Civil War, which was never recorded by a Broadway performer, is a highlight on his CD.

It’s also a joy for your fans to hear the songs you performed on stage as a replacement or tour cast member. Personally, I would love to have Merle Dandridge signing an Aida song or Kim Huber singing one of Belle’s songs. We theatre fans eat that sort of thing up. Feed us well!

3. If you want theatre people to buy your CD, do a theatre CD. Audra McDonald can pull off her solo albums because she has the marketing push behind her and has found crossover success. But if you do, say, a jazz CD, then don’t be surprised when it doesn’t sell well. I love Brian Stokes Mitchell, and I have no clue how his Playbill CD has sold. However, it was a jazz CD. Personally, I’m not interested in jazz. Jazz fans buy jazz CDs with jazz songs, and theatre fans buy theatre star CDs with theatre songs with theatre arrangements. Personally, I want a Brian Stokes Mitchell theatre CD, just not with jazz arrangements.

In fact, there is one beautiful theatre voice I won’t name who has permanently destroyed several aging pop songs for me because they were such a poor fit for her tremendous talents, and now I can’t bear the thought of hearing them again. Oh, if only she had recorded theatre songs!

That is not to say that there isn’t room for difference. For example, Adam Pascal’s rock albums are great. But he’s not taking “The Party’s Over” and turning it into a rock anthem. He’s got the voice to pull it off, and he’s doing rock songs. Similarly, Laura Bell Bundy has a country album out. She’s not directly reaching her Broadway fans. She’s not doing “For Good” with a country twang. I’m sure many of her fans will go along for the ride, but she knows her primary audience for the album isn’t Broadway.

So if you want to primarily sell your theatre voice, do theatre songs! And do them with theatre arrangements.

4. Give us theatre interpretations. I love Susan Egan’s solo album So Far. In addition to Egan’s great voice, she gives us a theatre CD in which she sings theatre songs as if she was in the show. That’s really the ideal album for the theatre fan.

I think of as an example the two Fantasia solo albums, both which have not sold to Fantasia’s American Idol fanbase. Fantasia earned a billion votes by singing one style, then produced two albums in a completely different style. She’s probably happy with their R & B integrity and how they reflect the kind of music she wants to do, but she’s not making the kind of music people voted for her singing. The result is that her sales reflect that. It’s the same analogy for theatre albums. If people are buying your CD because they liked what they saw on a Broadway stage (or on YouTube or on an OBCR or whatever), then determine what level of success you want to have before releasing the solo album that deviates from it.

Also, if you do have traditional theatre interpretations, do your character analysis work. A theatre song is not intended to be sung only by hitting the notes. Even if you can hit amazing notes, there’s more to a theatre song than that. That’s actually really boring. Unfortunately, I bought a CD by a theatre star whom I esteem highly, but his CD is so boring. It’s like a solo choir concert—a performance lacking emotion.

5. Make sure that the sound quality is top notch. There are a few CDs out there with great voices I won’t name that sound like they were recorded in a tin can in a basement. The vocals are strong, but they don’t have a clear audio quality. If you’re going to go through the process of recording your voice, do it justice!

6. If you do a gospel album, you’re not allowed to be photographed without a significant percentage of your clothing for a ten-year time span. Jubilant Sykes (from the Encores! Bloomer Girl), for example, did an album that showcased his voice beautifully through Gospel songs in 1998. He’s never been photographed without a majority of his clothing. And he’s got one year to go.

7. As for arrangements, if you can’t finance a full accompaniment, follow the example Chuck Wagner set on his self-named solo album. I once read how many instruments he used, and while I don’t recall that number, I do know the final tracks don’t sound like they were done on a budget. The ideal is a full orchestra, but if you can’t do that, be creative.

8. Do an album. Actually record it. I don’t know the financial aspect of recording a solo album, but there are plenty of people out there who need to do a solo theatre album—Carolee Carmello, Rachel York, Donna Murphy, Brian d’Arcy James, Anthony Crivello, and Norm Lewis all come to mind.

When I think of great solo theatre albums, several come to mind as great examples. One of those is Matt Bogart’s Simple Song album. His song selection is a mixture of classics, contemporary, and rare. A sampling of the seventeen tracks include “Soliloquy” from Carousel (classic), “I Don’t Hear the Ocean” from Marie Christine (contemporary), and “Proud Lady” from The Baker’s Wife (rare). I know that when I finally get to see The Baker’s Wife (or Anyone Can Whistle), because of Bogart’s album, I’ll have something to which I can look forward.

In his own words (from the liner notes), his “aim was to create a theatre album where I could bring the appropriate theatricality to each of these pieces as though I were simply performing them live and on stage . . . I feel these theatre songs demand a certain attention be paid to their design to tell a specific story.” As Michael John LaChiusa also writes in the liner notes, Bogart understands that a song “needs no embellishment, no ego-driven interpretation.” And because of this, it’s an extraordinarily effective album. When I hear his “Written in the Stars,” I feel like I’m sitting in the theatre watching the show.

I’ve never seen Matt Bogart perform, but the CD showcases his talents beautifully. The songs use traditional arrangements, but he makes them his own through his theatrical character-driven interpretations. Because there is a mixture of songs, you can focus on hearing the new ones for the first time and take the time to figure them out, while enjoying the better-known songs instantly. There’s also a blending of different styles of songs, so it doesn’t feel like one long ballad or you don’t skip ahead to the songs that have a different tempo just for a change of pace. It is a well-rounded CD that perfectly showcases Matt Bogart’s talents.

In thinking about Bogart’s Simple Song CD and Susan Egan’s So Far, both produced for Jay Records by John Yap, I wonder why this Yap fellow isn’t doing this with other people. He should be calling Sutton Foster, Brent Carver, or Marla Schaffel.

So . . . In short, don’t forget your roots. If you want to do something different, then go completely different. But after that, come back and do a theatre CD. We love your voice. It’s just that there’s a lot of CDs out there vying for our money, and we want to spend it on what we love.

the Broadway Mouth
August 23, 2007