Geniuses of rock and roll

As I left Mamaroneck's Emelin Theatre after Smokey Joe's Cafe, a revue of songs by rock and roll pioneers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, I had to check my right ankle to see if it was significantly more muscular than the left, as I had been vigorously tapping my foot for two hours.

The show, which ran for five years after premiering on Broadway in 1995, showcases the amazing depth and range of this songwriting and record producing team whose collaboration began in 1950 when they were both 17 and ended with Lieber's death in 2011.

The audience was mostly north of age forty, but that's to be expected when Lieber and Stoller's greatest hits mostly came in the 1950s and 60s. Any list has to start with such classics as "Hound Dog," "Kansas City," "Yakety Yak," "Poison Ivy," "Charlie Brown," "Stand by Me," "Jailhouse Rock," "Love Potion No. 9," "On Broadway," "Spanish Harlem," "There Goes My Baby." Elvis alone recorded 20 of their songs.

An engaging nine-member cast put across about 40 of the duo's songs with class and sizzling choreography by director Kenney M. Green in a production by Westchester Sandbox Theatre, subject of this blog post from a couple of weeks ago. Kevin Rees' set in blue and beige featured two staircases flanking open-side boxes for the band and sliding panels to create different spaces.

It's the first time that the Sandbox, which operates out of a 100-seat storefront venue nearby, has partnered with the 285-seat Emelin, Mamaroneck's main live theater venue, which ironically hasn't produced much theater since its play season collapsed about four years ago with the departure of an artistic director. Since then, the Emelin has presented music and dance performances and rented its space for school performances. Later this month, however, it will present several performances by the Missoula Children's Theater.

For Smokey Joe, Green has assembled nine pros -- Steven Charles, Kate Cherichello, Paula Galloway, Brandon Lavon Hightower, Keva Moolenaar, Jennifer Pace, Steven C. Rich, Derrian Tolden and Randy Taylor -- but without cast photos in the program or a listing of songs and who was singing them, it was impossible to tell who was whom.

However, further Internet research, which I hope is accurate, turned up some clues. Green used the actor/singers in various combinations, but seemed most inspired in Motown-style choreography and staging with the quartet of African-American actors Steven Charles, Brandon Lavon Hightower, Steven C. Rich and Derrian Tolden. They do fine work, but it seemed to unbalance the show a little when other actors didn't get such interesting movements.

Of the women, I thought Keva Moolenaar and Paula Galloway had the strongest voices, with Galloway doing a Jennifer Hudson-like emotional belt on "Brand New Fool." However, Green overloads the emotion toward the end of the show with this number and Tolden going too far over the top with "I Who Have Nothing." Tolden provides a nice comic focus on a couple of songs, most effectively on "D.W. Washburn" and "Treat Me Nice."

For this viewer, it was a revelation to realize that Lieber and Stoller also wrote cabaret songs that were as good as anything Kurt Weill turned out. Jennifer Pace, whom I thought was best doing intimate songs rather than belting, got my attention with "Pearl's A Singer." Moolenaar vamped a feather boa and a chair doing a surprisingly modern "Don Juan," where the refrain goes "your money's gone," and the sexy "Some Cats Know," a ballad about taking it slow in intimate moments.

Randy Taylor energetically led "Jailhouse Rock," but that song and "Hound Dog" (sung with the original lyrics), indelibly linked with Elvis, weren't given enough of an original spin and wouldn't compete with anyone's memory of the King.

Steven C. Rich tossed a very amusing tantrum on "There Goes My Baby," with three-fourths of the quartet backing him. Steven Charles seemed smoothly to channel Nat King Cole (in my book, a huge compliment) on "Loving You." The ensemble finale fittingly brought the show to a satisfying close with a rousing "Stand by Me."

Adam Tilford was listed as musical director and conductor, so I assume that was him conducting from behind the keyboard and keeping an excellent five-piece band on track, but the musicians were not identified in the program. Green could have called upon the band to provide graceful musical segues for a couple of awkward silent scene changes.

Westchester Sandbox's artistic director, Dan Ferrante, in a conversation at intermission, mentioned some of the technical challenges the company was working through at the Emelin and from the viewpoint of an audience member, sound quality is a big one.

The sound system seemed to lend a coarse quality to the voices sometimes, basically failing at the essential function of a sound system - showcasing the voices on stage like a diamond setting. I would also think sound designer Howard Fredrics will be working further on balancing volume levels, as the instruments often overwhelmed the voices.

Carla Linton's lighting design was a tad too frenetic during "On Broadway" and it seemed that a couple of cues were missed, leaving performers momentarily in shadows, but overall, it successfully reflected the songs' various moods.

There is a huge amount of potential for Westchester Sandbox and the Emelin and I hope both continue to explore it. What a joy it would be to welcome back plays and musicals on a consistent basis to Mamaroneck's local theater. Westchester Sandbox, which produces theater by and for young people as well as adults, has a stream of productions, an energetic and sharp artistic director and a vision.

Smokey Joe's Cafe had the audience clapping and cheering - and if there had been a dance floor, they wouldn't have been sitting.

God speed, Godspell

This blog started in April 2011 with "call me Maxine Bialystok" and the start of my adventure as a Broadway producer, investing $1,000 along with 700 other folks in the revival of Godspell. Today, a chapter closes as Godspell plays its last show - even as I write this - at the Circle in the Square Theatre on 50th Street, just west of Broadway.

For me, and I would venture to say for a goodly number of those 700, this has been a theater experience unlike any other. The opportunity to get so close to the creation and running of a Broadway musical for a relatively small amount of money, the community created by lead producer Ken Davenport and his staff, the sense of intimate involvement, the unique qualities of this show, the visionary ideas on marketing and investment ... not only do I find it hard to be objective about it, but I'm having a tough time even processing the whole thing.

On an important level in terms of an investment, Godspell has been a disappointment. The Broadway run will not repay its investors. I received $50 back from my original investment since the producers did not spend the entire amount raised (and clearly were not from the Max Bialystok school of producing), but it looks like I'm out $950. There has been a national tour announced and I'm not sure if us POGs (we were dubbed People of Godspell) get a piece of that, but this is the situation right now.

Director Danny Goldstein and Solange De Santis at intermission at Godspell

It played 30 previews and 264 performances since opening last November. Reviews were mixed. Some found the show's high-octane style joyful, others frenetic and childish.

Although I loved the cast for the most part, especially the supremely talented Telly Leung (of Glee), Wallace Smith and Uzo Aduba, I thought Miranda Hoffman's ragbag of costumes were a weak point. I like the staging in the round at Circle in the Square's lower level theater and thought the placement under the main theater where Godspell composer Stephen Schwartz's Wicked is running forever, was particularly apt.

However, I think there were a couple of reasons the show wasn't nominated for any Tony awards, a development from which it couldn't recover although Ken managed to get a number from the show on the awards telecast. No question the show was warm and embracing and word of mouth from those who did see it (some 154,000) was extraordinarily good. But it wasn't glamorous like our other Jesus across town, Jesus Christ Superstar.

I also felt it never really answered the question, "why Godspell now?" Ken's answer was "because our society and our politics is more divided than ever," and it's a great answer. Maybe the audiences on tour will find that answer. But Godspell is so familiar from the last four decades of school, church and community performances that it wasn't able to make a compelling case for itself given the intense competition of Broadway. Once people saw it, they were glad they went, but it wasn't at the top of enough theatergoers' lists.

I went to see the show twice, the preview before it opened on Nov. 7 and Hunter Parrish's second-to-last performance as Jesus on April 15. I hadn't intended to go a second time - had a "been there, done that" feeling - but my friend unexpectedly had an extra ticket. Although I was a little reluctant, Godspell worked its unique magic on me - and I was really glad I went (same reaction as the rest of the audiences, right?)! I was particularly interested to see how Hunter had deepened a character interpretation that seemed to me to be a little bland at the beginning.

Here is Hunter singing "Beautiful City" with all his soul:

So, the $64,000 (or $950) question - was it worth it? Well, you could put on one side of the ledger the "free" things I received - a glass of wine at the investors' gathering at Sardi's, a Godspell t-shirt for our Times Square flash mob, a poster with all the investors' names, food and drink at a holiday party and an "appreciation" party - and I suppose it would add up to another $75.

But how do you put a price on intangibles, on the things that the Master Card commercial says are "priceless?" What would it cost me to get a Broadway producer to listen to me and return my e-mails, as Ken does without fail? What would it take to be part of a "flash mob" rehearsing in a Broadway studio, then dancing in Times Square to "Day by Day?" Why are my eyes tearing up right now, thinking of the eager faces and intense conversations among the People of Godspell at our shareholders' meetings and gatherings?

Maybe the next to last word should go to my Toronto theater friends Scott White and Peter Fenton, who sent me a e-mail reading, in part: "A note of thanks for getting theatre onto the boards by being a producer of Godspell ... 90% of Broadway investors never make their money back, but they help put important work on stage that employs actors, directors, choreographers, stage managers, crews, theatre staff and ushers AND brings joy to thousands of people ... the theatre community at large thanks you."


No, I don't have $900 to throw around every day but the at the final reckoning - yes, priceless.

Why "Once?" This is why ...

On a Tony Awards ceremony that seemed more entertaining than last year's, the musical Once cleaned up eight times: best musical, musical director, actor, scene, sound and lighting design, orchestrations and book.

Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti

I saw the show in early April and was enchanted. From the first moment, director John Tiffany had created a complete and satisfying work of dramatic art where all the elements were consistent and true to a delicate and affecting story.

You don't want to slide into the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre at 7:58 pm for this show; the pub set features real beer taps and the audience is invited to go on stage and buy a pint. Cast members are playing and singing, just like a Sunday night "session" in a Dublin pub.

The story unfolds gracefully after the house lights dim and the audience returns to its rightful place. Based on the 2006 film of the same name, Once is the story of a Dublin musician hurting over a girl that got away and a young Czech woman who inspires, goads and encourages him to play again.

Cristin Milioti (center, at piano) and Steve Kazee (r) in Once

Played by Steve Kazee (who gave a very affecting Tony Awards acceptance speech), the generically-identified Guy works in his dad's vacuum cleaner repair shop and is a bit stuck, emotionally. He dreams of making a record but is doing too much talking rather than doing; he pines for his girl but can't decide whether to go to New York after her.

Into his fog walks Girl (I'm not sure whether I like this dramatic convention; it always seems a bit precious), a small, thin, very intense young woman (Cristin Milioti) whose response to Guy's comment on her demeanor is - "I am always serious. I am Czech."

They seem like oil and water -- the laid-back Irishman and the emotional Eastern European -- but music links their souls. She plays piano, he guitar and they begin to connect. She brings a vacuum cleaner "that needs fixing" and of course it's not the only thing that needs fixing around there. But this love story, like life, isn't simple and he discovers that Girl lives with her daughter, and her mother, and that there is a husband back home.

Her unwavering commitment gives him the courage to seek a bank loan in order to make a recording of his music and the scene with the bank officer (Andy Taylor), also an amateur musician, is charmingly funny. David Patrick Kelly, as Guy's father, and Anne L. Nathan as Girl's mother, Baruska (how come other characters get names?) also make strong impressions. Playwright Enda Walsh's book makes a character like Girl endearing rather than annoying.

However, the reason Once won all those awards is that it expands the film's story into a brilliant piece of theater. All cast members play musical instruments and Steven Hoggett, the movement genius behind Black Watch and American Idiot, has choreographed stylized actions for scene changes and songs.

The songs by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, including the Academy Award-winning "Falling Slowly," forge a similar style, but these lyrical, soulful ballads explore depths of feeling without becoming tedious. Tony winner (and double nominee) Natasha Katz' lighting design casts a subtle atmosphere of gold and amber and Clive Goodwin's Tony-winning sound design strikes a balance between pub sound and theater sound.      

Despite all the awards, not everyone cares for the show. A friend said she was bored; others think it moves too slowly. But I think it creates an unusual magic.

Bloody 'ell!

Wow! Who knew that the tousled-haired middle-aged guy on the $20 bill -- our seventh president, Andrew Jackson -- was a rootin' tootin' hottie in tight black jeans, kohl eyeliner, spiky haircut, muscle shirt and boots?

As conceived in the musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which I just caught at the end of its two-weekend run at Westchester Sandbox Theatre in Mamaroneck, N.Y., politics in the early 19th century featured a resentful populist movement, a tight group of East Coast politicians and a charismatic Western leader, all set to a bitchin' emo-rock score.

In other words, more than a few similarities to today, with echoes of the Bush years. OK, maybe they didn't have emo (emotional hardcore) rock punctuating the 1828 election, which resulted in Jackson's first term as president and the founding of the Democratic Party. But they sure did have emotion, as a young United States of America - just half a century old - was still struggling to find its feet after two wars with Britain.

Bloody Bloody was a sensation in 2010 at the Public Theater off-Broadway but didn't find its audience on Broadway, closing after four months. This was the first New York regional production of the show and a really fine affair it was.

The four-year-old Westchester Sandbox produces both mainstage adult shows and theatre for and with young people in a 100-seat storefront venue. Bloody Bloody was staged by the three-year-old Little Radical Theatrics company, whose mandate is to provide an outlet for 20-something theater artists who are out of high school, possibly in college and possibly heading for professional careers or community theater.

The cast, as directed by Michael J. Mirra, hit just the right note of intense deadpan attitude, as creators Alex Timbers (book and the original production's director) and Michael Friedman (music and lyrics) urge in their notes for licensed productions.

Jackson and his rag-tag followers - cast members play various politicians (Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, John Quincy Adams), Indians, citizens - defiantly stake their territory in the opening number, "Populism, Yea, Yea!" as they accuse the educated elite of Massachusetts and Virginia of ignoring the people of the expanding frontier.

The show's charm comes from its skillful layering of modern idioms and styles on a quite serious look at a young nation where a boy from rural Tennessee can rise to be a military hero and president - and a major slave owner and persecutor of the native population. It also skewers an eternally adolescent streak in American politics: deep down, we want our president to be a rock star.

Jackson's rough childhood, during which he was orphaned at 14, joined the military and was captured by the British, is summed up succinctly with the phrase, "Life sucks, and my life sucks in particular." Enraged by Indian attacks on his family and French, Spanish and British control of various territories, Jackson longs for a leader ("I'm Not That Guy") then realizes he will take action ("I'm So That Guy").

The "bloody" of the title was well earned as Jackson took on the British at the Battle of New Orleans, headed up a militia that drove Indian tribes out of the Southeast ("Ten Little Indians") and cleared Spanish and French forces from Florida.

But the minute you think you've got Jackson pegged as more Hitler than hero, the show illuminates his complex personality. The same man who signed the Indian Removal Act, forcibly relocating tribes west of the Mississippi, also adopted a native boy whose parents had been killed in battle. His relationship with his wife, Rachel, was passionately loving and her death - incredibly on the eve of his inauguration - devastated him.

The magnetic BJ Markus, with a fine singing voice, rivetingly played Jackson with more sexy snarl than the handsome Benjamin Walker in the original productions. The entire cast did great work, but particular mention should go to Dany Rousseau's portrait of the strong yet wistful Rachel.

Markus and Mirra are credited with the very effective scenic design - a stage framed with portraits and objects from what look like America's attic. Ricky Romano's five-piece band provided tight accompaniment. However, Mirra's lighting design occasionally left some performers in unfortunate shadows.

Jackson's legacy is controversial even today, but this show, and Green Day's American Idiot, are modern classics that use rock music to make profound comments on American politics and society. Little Radical Theatrics' production brilliantly conveyed the spirit of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

Music theater on film - "Arlington"

Music videos have been around since MTV first cracked the airwaves in 1981 and reviewing one might be seen as a stretch for a theater blog, but a short film called Arlington dramatizes a deeply-felt piece of music by well-known singer/guitarist Lisa Nemzo (click here for her website) and I call it music theater on film.

The CD cover for "Arlington," by Lisa Nemzo

It was inspired by the story of Theresa Arciola, mother of Private First Class Michael Arciola, killed in Iraq in 2005, who visited her son's grave at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. five times a year so he "wouldn't be forgotten." (For the film's website - click here)

The film and the lyrics in one stanza contrast the capital's lovely blooming cherry blossoms with a horse-drawn casket borne to the plain grass field and small white tombstones of the "saddest acre in our nation."

As the song so truthfully says, it's "never a destination," and that phrase caused me to have a new image of the national resting place for our warriors - an ironically beautiful place, but a place you may not want to visit, unless you must. And for the warriors themselves? The unwished-for conclusion to their individual journeys.

The film's images are profoundly simple - the mother, played by Nemzo, looking at the model airplanes in her son's former bedroom - scenes of military comradeship - flowers at a grave. The most emotional image, for me, and a brilliant piece of theatrical expressiveness, was a fade in of the rows of stones, then a person in uniform behind each one, the living embodiment of sacrifice, then a fade out to the plain stones.

No surprise that the film won Best Merit Award for Best Music Video at the Accolade Film Festival this year in La Jolla, Calif. Well-deserved praise for director Mary Ann Skweres, cinematographer Rachel Wyn Dunn and co-editor Bob Bayless.

Lisa Nemzo

Lisa Nemzo will be playing Arlington  at the Mamapalooza Festival (click here for more information) on Sunday, May 20 in New York City.

The song and film were created to benefit the David Lynch Foundation (click here), which supports Transcendental Meditation training for vets and at-risk students, among others, and the Global Stress Initiative (click here).


Arlington writes an essential chapter in the American book of music and creates a poignant, thoughtful, gentle space in which to meditate upon heroes, warriors and those who love them.

The Play from Tedium

Signature Theatre's production of Edward Albee's The Lady from Dubuque demonstrates the company's mandate - representing the range of a playwright's work.

This 1978 play was written in the years between two great plays - Seascape (1974) and Three Tall Women (1991), both Pulitzer Prize winners. Not that Albee was exactly idle during these years; there were five other plays, but none of them reached the heights of Seascape or Women, or earlier work like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962).

Dubuque seems to start off in Virginia Woolf territory, only it's three couples instead of two having a late-night drink-up and cage match. Long-legged, elegant Jo (Laila Robins) is mistress of the caustic quip and launches zingers from an Eames chair as she sizes up the weaknesses of the others. Husband Sam (Michael Hayden) seems to be playing a role as genial host and master of the suburban house.

Pugnacious Fred (C.J. Wilson) is a bully with a much-younger girlfriend Carol (Tricia Paoluccio) who is apparently a hapless airhead. Conventional Edgar (Thomas Jay Ryan) accompanies hand-wringing, neurotic doormat Lucinda (Catherine Curtin). 

Again, like Woolf, there is games-playing going on. As the curtain rises, Sam is starting "Twenty Questions" with the fraught query, "Who am I?" But the apparently sociable evening immediately heads off the rails as Jo addresses the audience with the frank admission that she is dying. Since the atmosphere is one of games-playing, one has some doubt at first as to whether she actually is dying.

As the evening progresses, a second game takes place when Carol, who's not as clueless as she first seems, and Sam pretend he assaulted her in another room - but it's just a put-on to get a reaction out of the others. Pretty soon, Jo leaves no doubt that she is dying, doubled up and screaming in pain.

In the second act, the morning after, Sam descends the winding stair of John Arnone's gorgeous set to find yet another couple in his living room - the elegant, white-haired Elizabeth (Jane Alexander) and Oscar (Peter Francis James). Sam opens the act with the question, "Who are you?"

They are Death, of course, come to take Jo and you can see it coming a mile away. With not much surprise left in the text and much screaming from the dying Jo and several of the other characters, the play visits the house of tedium. Albee's nihilistic view sees no particular peace in death, certainly no religious victory, and not much wisdom. So what is left? "Nothing is retained. Nothing," Oscar says. "There is only one thing that matters: Who am I?" Sam says.

All right, if finding truth in identity is what matters, then what has Jo found? Not much but witty, savage assaults on the existential inevitable. While Virginia Woolf inhabits equally bleak territory, wondering how the characters in that play are going to live proves to be more interesting than considering how one in Dubuque is going to die. Nevertheless, seeing this play provides a deeper understanding of this great writer's body of work. 

Vulnerable boats against the current

Scott Shepherd as the reader in Gatz - and Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby

"In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since." -- "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Those are the first and last sentences of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's deathless 1925 novel about money and desire and the dark side of America's "pursuit of happiness."

They are also the first and last lines of Gatz, a "staged reading" unlike any I have ever seen. Over the course of eight hours -- 2 pm to 10 pm, with two short intermissions and a dinner break -- the entire 49,000-word text of the novel is read aloud, and it pushes the bounds of theater by making us fall in love with prose.

New York City's 21-year-old Elevator Repair Service, which specializes in unusual theater, approaches the drama of the book by not dramatizing it - in other words, by not creating a play out of the plot.

Director and company founder John Collins realizes that the narration of the story by the character Nick Carraway and Fitzgerald's ravishing prose are the drama. But this is three-dimensional theater and visual must be served.

So the glamorous world of Gatsby's Long Island mansions, "blue lawns," white flannels and champagne parties takes place - most improbably - in a shabby office in an unidentified downtown. Time? Apparently the 90s, judging from the clunky cordless phones and computers.

One of the beaten-down workers (Scott Shepherd) can't get his computer to work and it's taken away. Goofing off, he slides a book out of a Rolodex case and begins to read. "In my younger and more vulnerable years ..."

As Fitzgerald's classic tale of romantic obsession unfolds, the workers take the parts: brutal philandering Tom Buchanan, (Gary Wilmes, recently so effective in Chinglish - see blog post here) feckless wife Daisy (Victoria Vazquez), jaunty friend Jordan Baker (Susie Sokol) and intense Myrtle Wilson (Laurena Allan).

As Carraway, Shepherd (also, amazingly, appearing in Blood Knot further uptown at Signature Theatre) mostly reads the text with a medium-weight voice and a touch of the Midwest. It's a most attractive voice to listen to, not flamboyant, but very clear and possessed of a distinct though modest personality.

Apart from Shepherd, the most effective cast member for me was Jim Fletcher as Jay Gatsby, deep of voice and dangerous of manner. The cast also has a couple of unusual participants: Gatsby's father, who appears toward the end, bewildered by his son's death, is played very effectively by Dr. Ross Fletcher, chief of staff of Washington D.C.'s VA Medical Center. The playbill says he has played the role since 2005.

Sokol is a second-grade teacher at a school in Brooklyn. For me, Vazquez was miscast as Daisy. A tall, elegant woman with dark hair, she hardly embodies Daisy's fragility.

The actors' movements are also subtly deliberate and graceful, so the swirl of 1920s party dresses somehow both meshes and contrasts with a woman carrying a stack of papers through an office.

Sometimes the emphasis on the visual distracts from such sentences as this: "The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life."

One scene in particular, a drunken party in a New York hotel room attended by Carraway, Tom Buchanan and his lover Myrtle, isn't enhanced by the characters/office workers tossing papers into the air, symbolizing the chaos of the moment. It smacks of an actorly exercise.    

These are small points, however. The day married a book I've loved for more than three decades and my great love of theater and gave me a single masterpiece.