When approached by some friends about putting together a revue of some sort, I was at first hesitant. I hate revues. But then I thought, "Gee, this might be a great opportunity to do something different." So I approached the cast about doing a revue of all one composer's work...then we specified and decided on Stephen Schwartz's work.Around the time of 9/11, I recalled an evening at the Duplex by the Storefront Theatre Company called "From This Day Forward." It was of course, an evening of Stephen Schwartz's greatest songs. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, as that presentation was truly fantastic, I thought about maybe doing songs of his no one had heard before. Luckily, from my work with Stephen on the benefit concerts of Children of Eden and last year's Pippin, I felt confident about calling him and proposing the idea.
He was immediately interested and very excited about the fact that his "orphans" as he calls them, might now have a home. Stephen and I chatted about what songs of his might be appropriate and he was able to play through a few things for me that might make great additions to the evening. With a stack of sheet music and dozens of amazing possibilities, the cast-Jeremy Benton, Marcie Passley, Christine Rowan, Horace Smith and Craig Wilson, became laying claim to their favorite songs. Ray Fellman, our fearless music director quickly began trying to come up with some fun new arrangements to make some of the numbers work out of context. And finally we came up with a chiseled down list and song order that made sense.While working through the numbers, we discovered so many ways of finessing the songs to help us fit a loosely-conceived story-line and give the whole 60-minute evening a bit of an arc. It was important for us to not only let you hear the songs, but to take you on a journey with us at the same time.
Last Sunday, we had the opportunity to present the whole evening to Stephen and he seemed very excited by it. He sat and gave us some recommendations on how to best make his music work out of context, in addition to some specific interpretation notes to aid the performers in capturing exactly what was intended by the songs.Now here we are, a few days from our opening and still making some last minute changes, but ever-so-thrilled to have such a unique opportunity. Once we have the added help of Traci Klainer's Lighting Design, we should be ready to go.I am fortunate enough to have worked with Traci on the Pippin Concert and am thrilled to also be working with her as a producer on other events as well. It amazes me to hear the trunk songs of a writer who has clearly made such an impact on the contemporary musical theatre. I hope you all can join us for Reluctant Pilgrim. I think it's a journey you won't be sorry for taking.
