“[Playwright Mark] Saltzman illuminates the self-loathing Hart (Ben D. Goldberg, marvelously invested, if too handsome by half), pulling vintage items from his output with Rodgers (ever-stalwart Brett Ryback) into commentary.” – LA Times

“What Brett Ryback as Rodgers and Ben D. Goldberg as Hart lack in comparable vocal power they make up for in melodic, resonant stylings. And Ryback is so convincing at the onstage piano, that it’s nearly impossible to tell if he’s faking it.” – Burbank Leader

“The singing all by itself is worth the price of admission…It falls to the cast, as brilliant in their character portrayals as they are in their singing, to show us what the party line has withheld.” – My Burbank

The play is set to continue to run through the end of June…however, I will only be in it through June 9th!  So before I step out of Richard Rodgers’s shoes, come see Falling for Make Believe at the Colony Theatre!

For tickets call 818-558-7000 ext.15 or visit www.colonytheatre.org.  But Hurry – they are seriously going fast!

As iconic as the man’s music is, the man himself almost disappears behind his work – and it certainly was his intention to do so.  He and his estate did (until very recently) their very best to fiercely protect the “Rodgers and…” legacy.

Exactly what he may have been protecting it from is the subject of the play, which opens up a fascinating window to the relationship between two partners who created magic, loved each other dearly, but ultimately couldn’t help the other in the ways they needed.

Come see Falling for Make Believe, by Emmy-Winner Mark Saltzman, directed by Jim Fall (Trick), at the Colony Theatre in Burbank.  April 27 – May19th.  For more information and tickets, call (818) 558-7000 ext. 15 or visit ColonyTheatre.org

Alison Fraser sings Tennessee Williams?

This sounds like a great idea.

I’ve long been a fan of Alison Fraser’s buzzy, unique sound ever since I heard her in The Secret Garden and Falsettos.  I finally saw her onstage not too long ago in Gypsy and then School for Lies (a brilliant David Ives adaptation of Moliere at Classic Stage Company).

And now she’s going to The Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival to perform a one-woman show Only a Paper Moon: A Tennessee Williams Songbook.

As a big fan of Tennessee Williams as well, I SO wish I could see this.

My own experience at the Festival – premiering my one-act play WEÏRD, which won the festival a few years ago – was tremendous.  New Orleans is a town with a beautifully unique personality, and being there is like being right in the middle of a Tennessee Williams play.

Emily Walton as Ursula

The Weston Playhouse Theatre Company is pleased to announce Darling as the winner of its seventh annual New Musical Award.

Written by Ryan Scott Oliver and Brett Ryback, Darling is a coming-of-age story about teenager Ursula Morgan, who leaves behind her upper-class family and finds herself in the seedy underground of Depression-era Boston — a world of sex, jazz and a mysterious drug called….fairy dust.

The piece, which was featured on the “Bound for Broadway” episode of NBC’s The Apprentice, was nominated for Weston’s prestigious national award by Director of Music at Pace New Musicals Robert Meffe who said of Darling: “The rock score is dark, edgy and contagious… The lyrics are intelligent, surprising and original…The book is a wildly different take on the Peter Pan story that will have audiences trying to uncover the allusions every night.”

The Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, the only one of its kind in the country, has become a highly sought-after prize. It supports new work by writers and composers of notable promise, chosen from a group of national nominations. Winners rehearse their work in Vermont under professional musical direction with a cast of exceptional actor/singers. After performing selections from Darling in concert on the Weston stage on March 2, Oliver, Ryback and their cast return to New York to perform at an invited concert and then to record a demo cd under the supervision of Kurt Deutsch of Sh-K-Boom Records.

Derek Klena as Peter

The Vermont and New York concerts will be led under the musical direction of Chris Fenwick (Giant). The cast of rising Broadway talent includes Derek Klena (Dogfight) as Peter, Emily Walton (Peter and the Starcatcher) as Ursula, Julia Mattison (Godspell), Justin Keyes (How to Succeed…) and Max Chernin (NYMF’s Really Bad Things).

Weston Producing Director Steve Stettler comments, “We were captivated by Darling: its undeniable energy, its soaring and sophisticated score, its compelling tale of lost souls searching for connection.  We can’t wait to hear it in the voices of the exciting cast we’ve assembled.”

Weston’s New Works Programs have recently been supported by the Anton Family Foundation, Dramatists Play Service Inc., Dramatic Publishing, the Frederick Loewe Foundation, Stacey Mindich Productions LLC, Music Theatre International, National Alliance for Musical Theatre/National Fund for New Musicals, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Foundation, Samuel French Inc., Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records, Tams-Witmark Music Library Inc., and many generous individual donors.  The demo recording is supported in part by SAG-AFTRA.

For more information about the award, or the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company’s 77th summer season, visit www.westonplayhouse.org.

Well…

I am a person who eats pretty well, exercises pretty regularly, and doesn’t have too much extra weight on him.  I’m basically living at my greatest weight loss potential. 

So, every time I see a weight loss ad on TV I hear people like this:

Say things like:

“Oh my god! I have so much energy! I feel so happy and amazing!! I no longer have trouble breathing when I sleep!!!”

I think:

“Fuck.  This is as much energy as I’m ever gonna have.  This is as happy as I’m gonna be. And I STILL have trouble sleeping through the night!?!?”

Well, no more, my friends. If they’re going to the gym in  January – then fuck it, I’m staying on the couch!!

If you saw the recent Spielberg movie, you know that Daniel Day Lewis’s portrayal of the 16th President is sweet, subtle, and extremely endearing – all attributes that Lincoln was noted to have.  But the truth is, even 3-D glasses wouldn’t give this Lincoln any dimension.

Having written a play about Abraham Lincoln myself…
…I know a little bit about what Mr. Tony Kushner was dealing with.

It’s hard to get a pulse on exactly why Lincoln felt the way he felt about slavery.  He just did.  (As did a lot of people at the time.)  He stepped up to the plate of humanity and totally hit a home run.  He was solidly good.

But, as I read recently, the absence of inner-conflict in a character is the staple of melodrama.  If your main conflict is between “virtue and vice” – a.k.a. “things we all agree are good vs. things we all agree are bad”  you basically end up with Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. 

If on the other hand you dramatize his (probably real) indecision about whether or not freeing slaves was a POLITICAL MEANS to END the war, you start to not like the guy so much.  He becomes a politician, using a politically hot topic merely to “preserve the Union.”  It messes with the solid gold character we’ve grown accustomed to over the course of history.

Or if you think, like Kushner did, to dramatize Lincoln’s attempt to delay the end of the War in order to sneak in the 13th amendment (a much more noble portrayal), you in effect move the drama of the film to the congress, which is where the movie LINCOLN really takes place.

And that is why Tommy Lee Jones’s character – Congressman Thaddeus Stevens – is the true protagonist of the story – the one with a desire and the will to pursue his desire against primarily external forces to a closed ending of irreversible change.  Abe certainly DESIRES the change, but does very little to bring it about, and ultimately does not seem to change himself at all.

Anyway. This is what I was left thinking about after the film – which is, all in all, a very good film. Duh.

I also found myself very sad when ::SPOILER ALERT:: Lincoln was shot.

Because I realized that the goodness in humankind is measured only by its ability to hate. And that even 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, the struggle between those two universal truths is ongoing – both racially still, and also in the Civil Rights debate of today: gay equality.

What were you left with after you saw LINCOLN?

For those unacquainted with the show, Darling is a dark deconstruction of the Peter Pan story as told from the perspective of the “Wendy” character.  The show has gone through many different incarnations, and the current version resembles Peter Pan mostly in broad, thematic ways.

However, when first conceived, the show borrowed a lot more from the original J.M. Barrie story – including the characters John and Michael Darling.  Also, in the original stages of conception, it was not immediately apparent that Ryback and Oliver would work exclusively on either Book or Music/Lyrics.

Thus – this sketch of a song meant to be sung by John to his younger brother Michael was created by me.  I pulled it out of the drawer and recently set it to music for my concert The Kid With the Keys, which premiered this fall in Los Angeles.

Be sure to tell me what you think in the comments below!

I really hope this lays the groundwork for original Movie Musicals to see the light.

And Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman deserve all the praise they’re getting.

Anyway. This clip has nothing to do with any of that, but it’s been making the rounds on Facebook this morning, and it’s hilarious to watch. And damn if some of those voices aren’t SPOT. ON.

Enjoy!

And the even better news is – we’re still there!  If you scroll down their homepage, we’re the number one video in the Archive!

If you haven’t watched the video – watch it now and click FUNNY!

If you have – go watch it again and click FUNNY!  The more Funny votes we get the better.

Now, Argo be fabulous!