The Screams of Kitty Genovese
By David Simpatico, librettist
Eight years ago, I met UK composer Will Todd at the Opera Boot Camp in Kent, England. Five composers and five writers were selected from around the world to learn how to write for the musical theatre. Will was my final pairing. Over a cigarette I turned to him and said, "Dude, I want you to write me a love song for a man with a hunting knife." He looked at me, said "Yes, of course" and 20 minutes later, he'd set my lyrics to "Winston in the Night." The song was lush, yearning, filled with the romance of destiny. And it was perfect for the homicidal maniac who lived at the heart of THE SCREAMS OF KITTY GENOVESE, the play I had come to write.
Will and I wrote 8 minutes of musical ideas that summer, and those 8 minutes got us invited to the O'Neill Music Theatre Conference, where Paulette Haupt brought us together for 11 days so we could both be on the same continent while I wrote the first draft of the libretto. Over the next few years, Will and I would fly back and forth across the Atlantic to condense a huge amount of work into short concentrated bursts, the two of us living and breathing the drama that was slowly unfolding in front of us.
After several hopeful leads and many false starts, we have finally arrived at the New York Music Theatre Festival, just me, Will and Kitty. And Kris. And Michael. And Staci. And Bill. And David. And Mary Mitchell. And Anne Marie. And Tracy. And Sheri. And Arthur. And Melanie. And Randall. And Rex. And…..well, I could sing 'em all and stay all night.
I was amazed, watching the 12 actors working in a tiny cramp of a rehearsal space, and about 15 designers, the director, tech crew and musicians piled along the walls, wrestling KITTY towards our opening night a few days later. The score is sung through and beautifully complex, and the actors, despite the broken air conditioner and miniscule rehearsal period, are true champions, throwing themselves into their roles with intense concentration and good humor.
We are all working to the very tops of our abilities, and that is a tie that binds us together with KITTY. We have become an instant community, all working together to tell the tale of a community that failed to work together, and the disastrous social repercussions of that failure. And I guess it all comes down to community. From the NYMF staff, to the collection of production teams presenting a myriad of musicals, to the KITTY team and finally, to the audiences that will be witnessing our show. And this is, perhaps, the most important aspect of community that we can hope for. KITTY addresses the inactivity of a community when it is ruled by fear and terror. There are no rules, no instruction manuals for dealing with terror in a moment of chaos. Hopefully, the audiences watching KITTY can gain some vicarious experience from the action unfolding on stage, and take it with them as some point of reference, so that they may be better prepared to deal proactively with terror, should they have the misfortune to be thrust into such a situation..
We owe it to ourselves and to each other to help each other, to deny the paralysis of fear and combat it with action. And if the only thing audiences take away from KITTY is a sense of empowered community, then all the work we've done, collectively and individually, will have been worth it.
Visit www.nymf.org for tickets and more information.
