My Upcoming Show

Right now I'm working on music directing Musical of Musicals: The Musical and I'm having so much fun, both with the humor of the show and with the caliber of the performers.

CLICK HERE for the website for the show flyer:

Since my theme for this blog mixes the arts and ephemera, theater is such a perfect example. I've now done more shows than the number of years I've been alive. Some of them I've felt passionately about. I remember finishing up "Fiddler on the Roof" in sixth grade and feeling--no, KNOWING-- that nothing could ever be so exciting as playing Yente with that particular cast in that particular school for those particular teachers. Even now, I wish I could go back and have that experience again...and given the backdrop of this year of loss, I wish I could go back to being embarrassed about having my whole multigenerational family filling up the front row of the auditorium! I felt the same way about Gypsy, one of my first music directing experiences, and my big senior show.... I knew I was growing, and I was really proud.

Sometimes, with shows, though, I've become nonchalant. Younger stars sometimes weep and think there will be nothing like this ever again. They're right. Each show happens only once. Each performance happens only once. The audience differs; the mood differs; the energy level difers; the little goof-ups differ. I remember watching an outdoor performance of Dom Juan by Moliere at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, France. I was in awe of my luck to be watching a classic play in a historic site, and I loved imagining all the people who had seen that very play in that very place over the years. That night, it started to pour, and the performance. The cast improvised an ending in all of five minutes. Yes, Dom Juan had been played many times before, just as I've played the piano for many many performances of Gypsy. But it had never been played just that way before...and never would be again. My younger friends are right that there will never be an exact replication of a particular theater experience again, and that theater friendships, sometimes, are like summer camp relationships--really tight for the duration of the event, and then fondly remembered, or peacefully forgotten. I've become nonchalant, though, because I know there will always be the next show, and because I do have the fortune of long-lasting genuine friendships.

I've been lucky to spend most of my theater-making energy over the past few years at the Somerset Valley Playhouse. I'm really comfortable there, and it's kind of a home away from home. After music directing three shows there, back to back (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Once Upon a Mattress, and Pied Piper), I felt particularly connected, and I look forward to working on "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" this summer.

However, right now I'm enjoying working with the Edison Valley Playhouse. The cast of this show is of a very high caliber, and the director knows how to mix joy and seriousness. We get a lot accomplished. I also like being in a new environment, and a little out of my comfort zone, because I used to be afraid of change, and now I know I can handle new situations. This particular play is so clever, too.

So, yes, I will be making sure to enjoy each moment while I'm working on this show. And somehow, this show feels really important to me just now.