Straight to the heart

Sometimes on this blog I alternate between theater and music and the subject of this post are a pair of musicians who are making music in a genre that's hard to define. I love artists who can't be pigeonholed. Peter Ustinov - actor? Playwright? Noel Coward - playwright? Composer? Actor?

Rebecca Haviland and Chris Anderson are the heart of Whiskey Heart, which plays alt-country, or country-blues, or Americana, or adult contemporary - in other words, darn good music that whatever's left of the music industry can't label.

From left, Kenny Shaw, Rebecca Haviland, Chris Anderson and  Todd Caldwell 

I love their sound and the daring artistry that makes a country cover out of Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog." If you know the song well enough to hear Robert Plant's vocals in your head ("Hey, hey mama, said the way you move/gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove"), then you know it's the ultimate stompin' blues-air guitar-head banger. You've gotta click here and listen to what Haviland and the boys make of it.

I interviewed Rebecca and Chris over lunch at the Hash-O-Nash Middle Eastern restaurant in Mamaroneck, N.Y. For the story, including where you might see Whiskey Heart on tour this spring and summer, click here to go to the All About Armonk (N.Y.) website.

Taking a flyer on Broadway

Yesterday, I interviewed Jed Canaan, a theater man who is a resident of Armonk, N.Y., which is in Westchester County, just north of New York City. He and his wife, Bronna, run Theater Extras, which "papers the house" (gives away tickets) for producers who have seats to fill.

(An aside: when producers do this, it doesn't necessarily mean the show's a loser. It could also mean the producer really believes in it and wants to boost word of mouth. Or a celebrity or critic is coming and a full house creates a better atmosphere. It's often a win-win for the producer *and* the ticketholder.)

Are these happy producers, or what? Jed and Bronna Canaan contemplate the opening of Matilda the Musical.

With their latest venture, they would seem to have both ends of the producing equation covered, as they will be making their debut as producers at the very top - a major Broadway musical.

I waxed a little nostalgic about my time as one of the 700 producers of Godspell -- this blog entry wrapped up the whole experience -- and wish them a heartfelt "break a leg." 

The story first appeared at AllAboutArmonk:

When Matilda The Musical opens on Broadway on April 11, Jed and Bronna Canaan will mark their first time as Broadway producers, first Broadway opening night -- and the first time they've seen the show.

Isn't it a little unusual for producers not to have seen some version of the show that's eating their hard-earned cash? "It's highly unusual!" said Jed Canaan in an interview.

However, it's also a measure of the faith the couple has in a musical version of Roald Dahl's much-beloved book of the same name, featuring an irresistible story about a precociously intelligent girl who uses her wits and telekinetic powers to triumph over the idiotic adults in her life.

Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company (which has co-produced musicals since "Les Misérables" 25 years ago) bought the rights in 2009. Musician and comedian Tim Minchin wrote the music, playwright Dennis Kelly crafted the book and Matthew Warchus (Tony winner for "God of Carnage") was hired to direct. When the musical opened in London in November, 2011, Canaan took notice.

"I had read the book many years ago. My wife and I loved it. I wrote to the RSC and said if they ever brought it to New York, I'd like to raise money to produce it," he said.

The Canaans may be new to Broadway producing, but they aren't theater novices. Their decade-old company, Theater Extras, makes free show tickets available to a paid membership when producers are seeking to fill unsold seats.

Their producing arm is called North Castle Theatricals. They and their two daughters, who are 13 and 10, have been based in Armonk for six years, "love it" and have seen local theater such as the Armonk Players.

  

Canaan's instincts about "Matilda" were spot-on, as the British say. The show was a huge hit in London, winning seven Olivier Awards (including Best New Musical) and moving to a larger theater to accommodate demand.

Capitalizing the New York production at $16 million, the producers -- now including long-time Broadway players The Dodgers -- received a number of expressions of interest from producing groups. The Canaans were among those chosen to be co-producers, contingent upon raising funds from other investors.

Putting in some of their own money, the Canaans "picked up the phone," calling people they knew with the means to invest a minimum of $25,000 and understand the risks of Broadway, where eight in 10 shows lose money.

"I had to reach out to some heavy hitters. Basically, you sell the show a lot and beg just a little. But you have to believe in the project. One of the guys who invested saw the show in London and loved it, and that helped," said Canaan.

They reached their target and next Thursday, Jed, Bronna and seven couples will walk the red carpet at the Shubert Theatre and celebrate at the opening-night party.

However, the Canaans are already looking further ahead. "We're considering [investing in] 'Tuck Everlasting,' which opens in Boston this summer, and 'Diner'  from the movie," said Canaan.

Break a leg, Jed and Bronna.

Westchester theater's risk pays off

John Fanelli and his Standing Ovation Studios in Armonk, N.Y. have scored a huge hit with In the Heights at Westchester Broadway Theatre - a gritty, urban show that was thought to be a stretch for the suburban dinner venue. The musical is sold out for the original five-week run and has been extended to April 7.

Kudos to Fanelli for producing and directing the first local production since the show's 2008-2011 Broadway run and to WBT for varying their lineup of classic musicals (Guys and Dolls, The Sound of Music) with a story set among the residents of Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood, spun to the beats of salsa, hip-hop and pop.

In the Heights, with music, lyrics and concept by Lin-Manuel Miranda and book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, won four 2008 Tony awards, including Best Musical. WBT's cast includes members of the Broadway cast and the just-completed national tour.

In The Heights at Westchester Broadway Theatre

The winning Arielle Jacobs plays Nina, who has returned home with a lonely secret - she's dropped out of Stanford due to money woes. Perry Young (who is a dead ringer for Miranda) is the neighborhood's anchor -- good-natured bodega owner Usnavi who dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic.

Christina Aranda looks as if she is easily playing 40 years beyond her actual age as Abuela Claudia, the neighborhood's loving matriarch. Nicole Paloma Sarro and Benjamin Perez play Nina's parents, Camila and Kevin. Perez makes the most of "Inutil" ("Useless"), a song expressing a father's pain at feeling helpless when his daughter is in distress, and Sarro seeks to stop their arguing in "Enough."

Special mention must go to Westchester-trained FaTye, who plays Benny, an employee of Kevin's car service. As an African-American, Benny feels odd man out among the Latinos and FaTye skillfully negotiates his emotions from genial to resentful to loving suitor of Nina.

Nina's quandary over what to do about her college dreams is paralled by hairdresser Vanessa's desire to get out of the neighborhood and afford an apartment downtown. Gizel Jimenez dynamically expresses Vanessa's desperation and attraction to Usnavi.

Sparkling Latin dance numbers, originally choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler and reproduced by Morgan Marcell, punctuate the characters' emotions. But for all of their desires to get out of the barrio, they realize that, as Camila sings, "When you have a problem, you come home."

Steve Loftus' set design, with the silhouette of the George Washington Bridge in the distance, beautifully evokes the street scene and Andrew Gmoser's lighting design creates attractive patterns and textures. However, the show's sound issues, which earlier reviews have mentioned, seem to continue as several patrons last night remarked that Usnavi's intricate rap lyrics were hard to hear.

Overall, the "In the Heights" adventure has been a success for WBT. Patrons Seth Segall and Sue Mirialakis, attending last night from White Plains, said it was their first visit to WBT. "We just recently started discovering local theater. I was not familiar with this show, but I'm interested in new theater," said Segall.

This story first appeared at www.allaboutarmonk.com.

Raw courage

Imagine you are a teenager (or try to remember it).

Sometimes you feel like a thumb-sucking little kid; other times you glean flashes of wisdom with the mind of an adult.You're not sure what to do with your changing body and voice, even as society wants to tell you in order to sell you something. You're trying to negotiate your own moral compass, buffeted by the storms of hormones and peer pressure.

Now imagine you have to pretend to be somebody else, to move with grace and purpose. You have to memorize hundreds of words, repeating them over and over again for weeks. Then you have to go to a school you don't know, get up in front of some of your friends and perform for an adult you don't know who is noting and judging your performance right in front of you.

This takes raw courage, friends, and it's what I saw when I served recently for the first time as a judge for the Speech and Theatre Association of New Jersey's Secondary School Theatre Competition in association with the New Jersey Governor's Awards in Arts Education.

The competition was held at Rutgers University. My section was "dramatic pairs" -- scenes for two people that are dramatic rather than comedic -- and took place in a classroom.

The Speech and Theatre Association of New Jersey's logo

We were to judge acting skill rather than choice of material, but the choices were quite varied. No Shakespeare - indeed, nothing earlier than the 19th century -- but the play excerpts included Agnes of God, A View From the Bridge, Uncle Vanya, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Doubt and Proof. I wasn't familiar with some of the other works, including Juvenilia and Water Babies. 

Skill level varied, of course, but all 13 pairs were uniformly good in at least one area - memorization. My most recent acting foray came during my educational theater master's program at NYU in which five of us performed three scenes from Measure for Measure. It was about 30 minutes and I had about 100 lines to memorize. Our group rehearsed obsessively for weeks (I ran lines at dinner, in the car, on walks and once woke up in the middle of the night with the text running through my head) and nailed the performance. 

These students were doing scenes that had to be ten minutes or less, still a decent amount of work. No one "went up" on their lines (prompting was strictly prohibited), no one had to delay or stop the scene, even momentarily. God, they must have been nervous, but the pairs who introduced their scenes did so with poise and confidence.

Only my top two pairs went on to the finals in the afternoon. There was a clear #1 - two girls who performed a riveting scene from Agnes of God - and my #2 was a boy and girl who played a scene from Before It Hits Home, in which an African-American family is riven by a son's news that he has AIDS. Unfortunately, the second pair went so badly over time I had to disqualify them and I hated to do it. I wish they had timed their piece better because a wider audience should have seen them, but they got encouraging comments on the judging sheet.

If there had been a prize for Most Delightful Surprise, it would have gone to the boy and girl who did a scene from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with consistent melodramatic style. How wonderful to get a break from naturalism!

Afterwards, one judge mused on whether any of the contestants would have professional careers on the stage. I thought about this remark and realized the concept had not crossed my mind the whole day. 

The point, I think, for these students is in the doing and the developing. Simply taking part in theater - even acting at a very basic level - brings you out of yourself in the attempt to inhabit and understand another person. It's actually a profoundly weird and profoundly human thing to do. It broadens your outlook. You realize you may not be alone. What an important experience that is for young people at a stage in life where you often think you're the only one who's ever gone through a particular emotional storm.

After the taking part - then the hard work begins. Training body and voice, learning how to work with a partner and a team, taking direction, maintaining concentration and at least the outward appearance of confidence - what great skills for life theater teaches! And at this point, we haven't even yet gotten into literary and dramatic research required for a role, acting and movement techniques, using costumes and makeup, considering the influence of music. 

When I was looking for images to illustrate this blog post, I entered "Rutgers" into Google Images. Apart from a few campus pictures, all the images that appeared had something to do with football - logos or photos. No pictures of theater groups, unless you use the term "Rutgers Theater."

Now, playing sports is a wonderful thing and teaches excellent life skills, also. But there's a high school in Rye Neck, near my town of Mamaroneck, N.Y., where the drama teacher somehow gets members of the sports teams to take part in the school musical. Last year, they did Beauty and the Beast and I was blown away by the quality of the show - and by the discipline and style of the entire cast, not just the leads.

Football players learning how to sing and dance. Now that's a well-rounded education.   

Aw shucks, thanks

I "liked" the website www.ticketprinting.com on Facebook and voila, won $500 in printing products which I know I can put to good use. Ticketprinting.com's blog writer, Monica Friedman, subsequently called me, conducted a very engaging interview and published this story. Let's hear it for the arts, education and the power of a beautiful ticket in the hand!

Contest Winner: Solange De Santis

by MONICA FRIEDMAN on DECEMBER 17, 2012

 

 

Solange De Santis published Life on the Line in 2000.

Journalist and Theater Critic Praises the Power of Arts and Education

Let it not be said that Solange De Santis fears getting her hands dirty, plunging into a story, or taking a risk for a cause in which she believes. She may be a writer by trade, but her love of knowledge and education marks her as a modern Renaissance woman. An accomplished journalist and theater critic who once took a job to assembling cars in a doomed GM factory in order to learn, first-hand, the plight of the blue-collar worker, she is also a dedicated educational booster, volunteering her time to support the arts in schools.

“The arts are my passion,” De Santis explains. In addition to directing and running sound for community and school theater, “I play the piano, I sing in the choir at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Mamaroneck, I’m a judge in the Theatre Startsplaywriting competition in Ontario, Canada, I am doing communications consulting for Westchester’s St. Thomas Orchestra.” Plus, she finds time to help organize dances and other arts-related activities atHommocks Middle School in Mamaroneck, New York.

Arts, Communication, Education, and Tickets

A firm believer in the power of education, De Santis attributes her accomplishments to formal schooling: “I explored the worlds of literature and drama in my undergraduate study at Barnard College and journalism at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Much later in life, I went to NYU for an M.A. in educational theater, graduating in May 2011.” Communication, she believes, is the key to success, and the arts are the most profound way to communicate. True communication, she feels, “leads to understanding and that means a lot less conflict in the world.”

In the past, De Santis has used TicketPrinting.com to produce tickets for Hommocks’ 8^thgrade dance and “found the service to be fairly easy to use…and very reasonably priced.” Rather than choosing “small, flimsy raffle tickets you can get for $11 in a roll,” which had been used in the past, she “was able to design a much larger ticket with a raffle stub and heavier-weight cardboard with wording customized for our event” for about $80. She found the numbering made “management of the ticket list and the raffle…a breeze. It was an excellent solution.”

Solange De Santis, 2007, with award for Best Sound Design from the Association of Community Theaters-Central Ontario

$500 in Free Printing and a Warm Emotional Glow

Having recently won $500 in free printing from TicketPrinting.com, De Santis is exploring her options and will most likely dedicate the prize to St. Thomas Orchestra’s May concert. Since the orchestra does “not yet have a digital purchase option,” she is also considering Ticket River’s online box office as a solution for Internet sales. She likes the idea of “total solutions,” offered in Event Kits “such as the tickets-poster-flyer package in the classical music section” and finds the service “so useful for schools or amateur/community organizations with limited budgets and people like myself who are not necessarily ticket management professionals.”

In spreading a love of art and music, ticketing options become an important part of creating access. De Santis recognizes how all the details come together create results, and sees that, “the easier the process, the better you can focus on the event itself and [the] better your relations are with your audience.” To her, “a ticket is an essential print product that is part of the overall communications environment.” It’s not merely a way to count heads or push an audience through a gate, but rather, a “little representation of your event,” that can be held in the hand. “Ticket stubs are often saved as souvenirs, pasted into scrapbooks…even in the digital age,” she reminds us, and, “A nice-looking ticket creates a warm emotional glow.”

The Rev. Garrison's revival meeting

What tall white man from Minnesota could possibly keep 65 virtuoso musicians waiting as he rambled on about his high school girlfriend?

Garrison Keillor, of course, whose appearance last night with the New York Philharmonic turned Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall into an extension of the studio where he's hosted National Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion for almost four decades.

Garrison Keillor

The format of the program, a benefit for the Philharmonic's pension fund, was quite intriguing and nothing like Prairie Home's country-tinged variety show. Along with conductor/pianist Rob Fisher, pianist Richard Dworsky and soprano Christine DiGiallonardo, Keillor loosely organized the program on the theme of music that has influenced his life.

That music includes hymns and with the perspective of a man who has turned 70, matters of the soul were also addressed, resulting in what amounted to a gently-led revival meeting in the heart of secular New York City.

Fisher and the orchestra opened the program with Emil von Reznicek's Overture to Donna Diana, a speedy work that was, in part, used as the theme to the old radio and TV shows featuring Sgt. Preston of the Yukon (and his "trusty dog," King).

Keillor then ambled out, dressed in suit, red bow tie and signature red sneakers. He has a stage presence like few others. Six feet, three inches tall, he seldom looks at the audience, in fact often turns his back, apparently addressing the orchestra. Possibly he is overcome by Lutheran shyness - the desire not to make a spectacle of oneself. He is not a graceful figure, at times resembling a man whose joints have been glued into one position.

Keillor noted that Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow will be retiring shortly and mused on the indignities of age - "people take your elbow." He recited seven sonnets, mostly on love, some on existential themes. (Addressing God - "When I die like other folks/I don't want to find out you're a hoax.") Who else would rhyme "Zhivago" with "Chicago" in an ode to Julie Christie?

The world of faith has always been a thread in Keillor's work and another poem lauded "Episcopalian/saving my love for you." Raised a member of the Plymouth Brethren in rural Minnesota, Keillor has outlined the foibles of Scandinavian and German Lutherans and currently attends an Episcopal church.

The orchestra interspersed various pieces, such as the Trepak from The Nutcracker and opened the second half with Stravinsky's Circus Polka.

Keillor continued his thoughts on age in an improvisatory section called "Over & Over & Ever Again." I was reminded that whenever I think I could hear the same ramblings from somebody's uncle in a living room, this extraordinary writer will create an image of surpassing beauty. And this was it: as you age, "the water that passes you by is full of music."

Proving the point, he and DiGiallonardo sang the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which contains the lyrics "Tune my heart to sing thy grace/Streams of mercy never ceasing/Call for songs of loudest praise." Keillor's surprisingly supple baritone and intelligent harmonizing melded beautifully with DiGiallonardo's crystalline tone.

Here's Mumford and Sons' version of this ardent, lovely song:



Keillor then expressed what I think is about the profoundest, simplest expression of a man engaging faith in the modern world that I've ever heard. He recalled that his mother, as she was dying, "believed she would walk into the arms of Jesus." Then he said: "I have believed it from time to time. Not right at this moment. But maybe tomorrow."

In the entire audience of New Yorkers primed to hear a humorist, in a world where the sophisticated view is to laugh at mention of religion, absolutely no one laughed.

Oh, there was plenty of humor as Keillor and the musicians ranged over a landscape that segued from "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning" into Tchaikovsky's Serenade into the Erie Canal song into the Texaco jingle into the Coke jingle into Amazing Grace into the Oscar Meyer weiner jingle. (Although I have to say that having the New York Philharmonic play ad jingles is like having Shakespeare write your office memo.)

At 2 1/2 hours, the program could have been half an hour shorter, but it ended with "Come Thou Fount" again. Our hearts were in tune and the waters of forgiveness and blessing flowed over all.

The Public Theater shines its house

Attending the Public Theater's Oct. 4 celebration of its newly renovated Astor Place home in lower Manhattan, I had to marvel "who woulda thought it if you were there at the beginning?"

Joseph Papp founded the New York Shakespeare Festival (which became the Public Theater) in 1954 on almost nothing and in the early years of the festival fought municipal power broker Robert Moses over whether he could offer Shakespeare for free in Central Park. (Papp won and the Public has been producing free Shakespeare ever since.)

Today, the $40 million revitalization of the 158-year-old Astor Library was cheered by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a host of cultural officials from a municipality that put up a heroic $28 million of the total cost. Bloomberg noted that in 1967, the city rented the dilapidated building to Papp for $1 per year and "we have been richly repaid."

In addition, Ford Foundation president Luis Ubinas not only represented a major funding organization, but told a poignant memory of visiting the place as a young man and encountering Papp, who told him he was too early for curtain time but to stick around because he was welcome.

In its 58 years of existence, the influence of the Public Theater can't be overestimated, from the idea that great theater belongs to everyone (the Public's mobile unit takes Shakespeare to New York neighborhoods and such institutions as prisons); to the development of plays and musicals that speak to the times (Hair, Sticks and Bones, The Normal Heart); to the nurturing of African-American, Asian, female playwrights; to pioneering the workshop model of play development (A Chorus Line).  

The Public Theater's newly-renovated lobby with artist Ben Rubin's "Shakespeare Machine" - a chandelier with lighted digital blades that will be programmed with quotes from the Bard.

The building now houses four theaters and the successful cabaret venue Joe's Pub. Remarkably, the theaters remained open during the four-year renovation. Last spring, when I saw Gatz (click HERE for that blog post), I walked on planks and stepped around construction equipment.

Ubinas recalled that the Public's current artistic director, Oskar Eustis, in fine Pappian spirit, started the ball rolling by saying, "I have this impossible-to-renovate old building. There are no [original architectural] plans. The building could fall in for all we know once we open it up."

What's resulted under the leadership of Ennead Architects is a spectacular re-thinking of the lobby and exterior. On the sidewalk, the main entrance now embraces the street with a glass canopy and wide granite steps and ramps. Historic preservation work restored the brick work and decoration on the facade.

The lobby gleams with a unified box office, "library" area and balcony on the mezzanine, restoration of historic moldings and a digital chandelier that will run quotes from Shakespeare in unique patterns. The Public has brought in some excellent chefs, starting with Joe's Pub, to create unique menus but it doesn't quite seem in the egalitarian spirit to serve $14 cocktails.

Work done in the theaters themselves involved heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades, addition of fire sprinklers and electrical upgrades. I was a little disappointed to see that the pathetically uncomfortable seats in the Newman Theater which I encountered at Gatz are apparently remaining in place.

But Eustis said the space is truly "open to the public," and you can walk into the lobby "go to that fountain and get a drink." The spirit of Papp was present as Eustis said "the greatest art belong to everybody and it is made greater if it belongs to everybody." The Public has always been founded on that idea of communication and community, that theater isn't just a one-way street.

Vanessa Redgrave reciting Shakespeare as Oskar Eustis looks on. 

In a heartfelt directorial stroke, performance was part of the celebration and Vanessa Redgrave, Mandy Patinkin, Liev Schreiber, playwrights David Henry Hwang and Suzan-Lori Parks, Bloomberg and Papp's widow Gail, among others, took turns reading appropriate excerpts from Shakespeare:

"I have lived to see inherited my very wishes and the buildings of my fancy." Coriolanus

"There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple." The Tempest

When we mean to build/We first survey the plot." Henry IV 1

And Eustis wrapped with "I can no other answer make but thanks/And thanks; and ever thanks. (Twelfth Night)

And to leave us with a rousing song, the young cast of the recent Broadway revival of Hair sang "Let the Sun Shine In" from the mezzanine. It was a fitting sendoff for another half century, at least.

The cast of Hair