Notes from the Underground

Jim Morgan's Musings on the York and Beyond

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Colette Collage

The current offering in our Tom Jones Mufti Series is COLETTE COLLAGE, which Tom wrote with his longtime collaborator, composer Harvey Schmidt.  It is a sensuous and touching look at the life of the famous French author.  York presented the premiere in 1983, and we are ecstatic to have it on our stage again!  Michael Montel directs, and Robert Felstein is the Music Director.  The stunning cast is headed by Christine Andreas, and includes Joanne Cunningham, Bill Nolte, Carrington Vilmont, Anne Markt, Patrick Lane, Scott Willis, Sasha Weiss, Vanessa Reseland, Nicholas Rodriguez, and Peter Land.   It is one of my absolute favorite Jones and Schmidt scores, and this cast performs it to perfection.  This weekend only, for just five performances. yorktheatre.org

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Me, with Mildred Kayden, on my set for York's IONESCOPADE. (photo by Geoff Cohen)

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And speaking of recordings...

The latest in York's string of some 35 original cast CDs has come out, and it is a doozy.  It is also the latest in a string of some 13 or 14 CDs on the JAY Records label, all produced by our friend John Yap.

Theater maven extraordinaire Peter Filichia wrote about the CD in his blog "Filichia on Friday," which is on the Kritzerland website, http://www.kritzerland.com/filichia.htm  (Many thanks to Peter, and to Bruce Kimmel for keeping Peter's voice out there.) Here's a taste of what he wrote:

Truman Capote invented the “non-fiction novel” with In Cold Blood. Stephen Cole and David Krane could be said to have invented the “non-fiction fictional musical” in The Road to Qatar, whose original cast album has just been released. For while Stephen and David were actually commissioned to write a new musical for the Emir of Qatar, "Michael" and "Jeffrey" are the ones doing it in this 2011 musical.

Cole’s such a musical theater authority that it’s worth joining Facebook to see his many perceptive comments about Forgotten Musicals. Here he gets in good puns about Babes in Oil-land and Dubai Bye Birdie. But there’s conflict in the show, because Michael and Jeffrey are, after all, New York Jews in a land that sees red instead of rolling out the red carpet for members of the tribe. Still, in this other desert city “if you play the palace, you really do” and “if they say you’re hot, you can bet it’s true.”

It’s a rare composer who can provide sharp and hummable melodies to a rash of comedy songs, but Krane does just that, down to musicalizing an Arabian movie star who plays Gypsy on his iPod. Finally the CD has a lovely song that was cut – in which Michael and Jeffrey meet and find that they have so much in common, it’s a phenomenon. Any musical theater enthusiast will relate to this one.

The Road to Qatar original cast album is available on Amazon or in the York Theatre lobby.

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Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

-Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare (thanks to Ryan Duncan)

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Happy Memories!

Very Exciting...York's IONESCOPADE was nomintated for OUTSTANDING REVIVAL in the Off-Broadway Alliance Awards!  YAY!! Congrats to all involved: Susan J. Jacks, Nancy Anderson, Samuel Cohen, Paul Binotto, Leo Ash Evens, Tina Stafford, and David Edwards--not to mention SMs Paul O'Toole and Stefanie Wagner, all the designers (Nicole Wee, Mary Jo Dondlinger and  her brother-n-law) and Chris McGovern who MDd the fabulous band, and director Bill Castellino (who already was nominated by the Lortel Awards as OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHER!).   And the first shall be last: Congrats to our wonderful composer/lyricist, Mildred Kayden, who turned Ionesco's brilliant works into a musical...and we love her for it.  Bravo to all! http://www.playbill.com/news/article/165277-Once-Silence-4000-Miles-Carrie-Rent-Sons-of-the-Prophet-Nominated-for-Off-Broadway-Alliance-Awards.

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Been a while since we chatted...

I've been busy...Here we are now in the middle of our Tom Jones Musicals in Mufti Series.

Two great shows so far:  The Show Goes On, celebrating all the great Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt shows (with Tom in it, and featuring Stephanie Umoh, Graham Rowat, and the ever-fabulous Susan Watson!), with Michael Rice at the piano and directed by Pamela Hunt; and Roadside (the first and possibly last Jones and Schmidt musical), directed by David Glenn Armstrong, music direction by Christopher McGovern, and with another fabulous cast featuring Ed Watts, Janine DiVita, Jamie la Verdiere, Ryan Alexander, Daniel Levine, Erick Devine and Nick Wyman.  These two shows are notable for being the first shows premiering on the York stage to be reprised (or Encored?) in the Mufti Series.  They came off beautifully, may I add...

Last Wednesday, we were honored to host Story by Story: A Conversation with Tom Jones.  While I was onstage with my longtime friend, I needed to do nothing more than occasional prod to head Mr Jones in a new direction.  Leading up to the evening, people kept asking "What questions are you going to ask?" "How are you going to get him to talk?"  I assured them that getting Tom to talk is not the problem; the difficulty is making sure we move on to the next fascinating story so that all the subjects on the list can be covered in the time allotted. But he covered much of his illustrious career in a delightfully engaging way--and those of you unfortunate enough to miss the evening will be happy that we have a video of it which we will make available on this site and on our website.  Thanks, Tom, for another fantastic (no k!) evening.

 And this week in the series: A New York Premiere!  Harold and Maude, which Tom wrote with composer Joseph Thalken.  Another wonderful York cast, headed by Cass Morgan and Matt Dengler, and featuring Donna English, Donna Lynn Champlin and  Steve Routman; music director is John Bell and our director is Carl Andress.  So very exciting to hear it coming together; if you happen to have seen it before in its several productions around the country, this is a never-before-seen version, in one act and with two or three new songs.  Remember, five performances only, this weekend!

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A quick video interview with Mildred Kayden about IONESCOPADE.

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York's Next Mainstage Show...IONESCOPADE

It begins performances on January 23, and I am excited. Hearing the music waft down the hall, sung by this wildly talented cast makes me even moreso (they are Nancy Anderson, Paul Binotto, Samuel Cohen, David Edwards, Leo Ash Evens, Susan Jacks and Tina Stafford) . The show is Ionescopade, taken from works of Eugene Ionesco, with music and lyrics by the very talented Mildred Kayden.  I have gotten to know Mildred over the past couple of years, and she is remarkable. She wrote the show in 1974, and has fiddled with it each time it was done, all the while writing new pieces.  I visited her in early December in Florida, and here is a short video from a conversation we had.

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Poster for York's A Doll's Life, 1994-95.

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A Doll's Ongoing Life

A new theater company downtown is presenting A Doll's House, by Ibsen, in rep with A Doll's Life, by Comden and Green and Larry Grossman.  Interesting idea, since one ends with Nora slamming the door, and one begins with it.   Their PR blurb mentions that it is only the third time the show has been seen in NYC, the first time being the Broadway production.  What they don't mention is that the other two were York productions: one in the first season of our Musicals in Mufti series, and the other a full mainstage production the following season. Interesting to note that neither production was a mere revival of the original show; it was heavily re-worked by the writers for both of these productions. They worked closely with director Robert Brink, who helped them address storytelling issues in both score and book.  The show came out greatly improved--with impressive reviews, especially considering how the original production was received--and had a successful run.   The sad thing is that it was not recorded (we were just coming into the world where making cast recordings became much easier with the advent of digital technology).  The revised score deserves it.

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Design Sketches

On York's Facebook page, we are featuring some of my sketches that led up to the set design of our new mainstage production, IONESCOPADE.  Take a look over the next week or two, and see the tangents my mind went on as we prepared the show.

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Starting Off...

So, here I am, entering the World of Social Media.  We at the York Theatre Company are very much interested in reaching out to new audiences, and  thought that this could be a great way to begin.