CABARET LIFE NYC: Steve Schalchlin's 'New World Waking' Is a Spiritual & Political Wake-Up Call for Non-Violent Social Action and a Case for the Healing Power of Music

Cabaret Features and Commentary by Stephen Hanks

In my recent very extended assessment of cabaret shows from the second half of 2014 I finally got a chance to review (here), there were two significant omissions. I didn't leave these out of my critical mix because they weren't strikingly significant. In fact, it was just the opposite. The new variety game show, Tune In Time, which dubs itself the "Musical Theater Olympics," and the musical theater piece/song cycle, New World Waking, were among the most original and entertaining productions I witnessed this year and deserved more of a feature treatment than a quickie review. My take on Tune In Time (which will begin a new monthly run at the York Theatre on January 5) should beat the clock before the next show.

So by simple process of elimination, this commentary will be on New World Waking, which when performed on December 6 was one of the highlights of the recent annual 12-day, 20-show Winter Rhythms Festival at Urban Stages. Written by composer/lyricist Steve Schalchlin--who last year staged a triumphant solo show at the Metropolitan Room called Tales From the Bonus Round (review here), with songs chronicling his battle with AIDS--New World Waking is a dramatic, passionate, political, witty, and melodically-soaring song cycle that couldn't have come a better time given that within blocks of Urban Stages that night, thousands of New Yorkers were protesting over the latest round of police violence against people of color. While the specific philosophical and lyrical ideas Schalchlin imparts in New World Waking may be complex, his overall message is beautiful in its simplicity: Perhaps the human race could end violence, foster healing, and create lasting peace through music. In short: Can music heal the world?

It's not an original notion. And it's not about writing music to make political statements as during the war-torn 1960s, or using music as mind, body, and spirit therapy, although both are positive applications. In Steve Schalchlin's sensitive brain (with additional lyrics by Rev. Peter J. Carman, Paul Zollo, and Avril Roy-Smith), it's about music as an expression of non-violent action and perhaps even penning the quintessential peace message song. It turns out we need artists, authors, and composers thinking and writing this way now more than ever. But they're not. Just look around. When was the last time you heard a really great protest song like the classics of Bob Dylan or a musical healer like John Lennon's "Imagine?" As culture writer and film critic A.O. Scott put it in the New York Times this past Thanksgiving weekend, "Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, I've been waiting for 'The Grapes of Wrath.' Or maybe 'A Raisin in the Sun,' or 'Death of a Salesman,' an Emile Zola novel or a Woody Guthrie ballad-- something that would sum up the injustices and worries of the times, and put a human face on the impersonal movements of history. The originals are all still around, available for revival and rediscovery and part of a robust artistic record of hard times past. But we are in the midst of hard times now, and it feels as if art is failing us."

So into this void, at least in this little part of his and our world, steps a Steve Schalchlin, with an intelligent and extremely tuneful commentary on some of the current ills of American society and the entire planet. His idealistic yet utterly conceivable notion is that music can be the conduit for non-violence and peaceful change. "Religions are failing to provide role models of peace," Schalchlin observes. "Politicians are failing to provide role models of peace. But music can reach all hearts and all minds. So it's incumbent upon musicians, singers, actors, dancers and artists to use that power for good. With New World Waking, I wanted to do more than merely describe the problems in the world, but go the next step and propose solutions through non-violent resistance."

Hence the Schalchlin-sung show prologue:

THERE IS A NEW WORLD WAKING THOUGH NATIONS FAIL TO HEAR
THERE IS A WORLD OF JUSTICE UNSTAINED BY POWER OR FEAR
AND THOUGH THE MIGHTY TRAFFIC IN GREED AND PAIN SOMEHOW
THERE IS A NEW WORLD WAKING. THERE IS A NEW WORLD WAKING
WITHIN MY HEART RIGHT NOW

. . . And the late in the show song, "My Thanksgiving Prayer" (sung by Stephen Anthony Elkins):

IN THIS TIME OF MY THANKSGIVING AS MY SONG BEGINS TO RISE
LISTEN TO THE PRAYER WITHIN ME, LOOK INTO MY GRATEFUL EYE
MAY I HUMBLY STAND BEFORE YOU AS I REACH OUT WITH MY HAND
MAY THE MUSIC BRING A HEALING TO THIS COLD AND TROUBLED LAND

Given the tinderbox state of the planet in general and America in particular over the past few years (everything from global poverty to global conflicts, gun violence to the militarization of police, income inequality to corporate greed, just to name a few endemic problems), it would be understandable if Schalchlin's song cycle of political commentary on war, bigotry, and intolerance had recently come to him as an instant epiphany driving him to compose musical sermons. But New World Waking has evolved gradually over almost 20 years, like the development of an inexperienced adolescent maturing into adulthood.

In 1997/98, after writing the score for his award-winning off-Broadway musical based on his life-threatening battle with AIDS called The Last Session, Schalchlin was itching to follow it up with another project. He had just read the stories of two brutal hate crimes against young men who apparently needed to suffer because they were non-straight in America. In April 1995, 17-year-old Bill Clayton of Olympia, WA, who was openly bisexual, was assaulted and less than a month later committed suicide. Bill's mother Gabi was soon befriending the late Carolyn Wagner of Fayetteville, AK, whose own 16-year-old son William was the victim of a vicious anti-gay bashing at his school in December 1996. The women would become co-founders of FUAH (Families United Against Hate) and both were active in PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Schalchlin was so moved by the stories (see him in photo with the two moms, Carolyn far left), he was compelled to compose songs from the two grieving mother's point of view--one a tender ballad, one a humorous, but biting commentary, country style--and the first pieces of what would eventually become New World Waking were born.

SHE FOUND SOME WORDS LEFT IN HIS NOTEBOOK.
THE ONLY CLUE HE LEFT BEHIND.
AND FROM THE WORDS LEFT IN HIS NOTEBOOK
SHE SAW INTO HIS TORTURED MIND.
FEAR WAS HANGING IN THE AIR.
HE LEFT A SIMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE:
WILL IT ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS?
IS EVERYTHING SET IN STONE?
IS THERE NOTHING I CAN CHANGE?
WILL I ALWAYS BE ALONE?
WILL IT ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS?
IS EVERYTHING SET IN STONE?
IS THERE NOTHING I CAN FIX?
WILL IT ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS?
--Gabi's Song

WILLIAM WAS MY SON IN ARKANSAS, A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT
IN REDNECK COUNTRY THIS WAS NOT VERY COOL
SO, THEY CALLED HIM A FAG AND THEY CALLED HIM A QUEER
THEN THEY JUMPED HIM ON THE SIDEWALK AFTER SCHOOL
TELL ME WHY DOES IT TAKE FIVE GREAT BIG GUYS
TO BEAT UP ONE LITTLE QUEER?
WHAT DO THEY FEAR? WHAT DO THEY FEAR?
--William's Song

About a decade after Schalchlin's statements against gay bashing, a woman named Caroline True heard about "Gabi's Song." True was connected to the pop singer George Michael and looking for places scarred by violence where they could use John Lennon's "Imagine" piano (an upright Steinway) that Michael had purchased for $2.1 million at a 2000 auction. Presumably, one of ultimate pop songs of peace played on the original songwriter's own piano could be an instrument of healing. Gabi Clayton told True about Schalchlin's song about her boy Bill and on May 8, 2007, Schalchlin was playing "Gabi's Song" and "Imagine" in the front yard of the Clayton's home in Olympia. [See video, below.] The composer observed the peaceful effect the songs had on its listeners and Schalchlin had another epiphany. "I wonder," Steve mused, "what it would be like to write a song of perfect peace."

Soon Schalchlin's musical vision was now extending beyond just writing LGBT anti-violence songs. A month after his "Imagine" concert in Olympia, Schalchlin heard about the second bombing in less than 16 months of the al-Askari Mosque in Iraq (the first of which had destroyed the Mosque's Golden Dome). After observing what he calls "the knee-jerk reaction of politicians to turn to violence as a first option" after such an event, Schalchlin had a dreamlike thought. "I saw a gigantic room filled with people from all over the earth," he relates. "They were listening to a most beautiful piece of music and the music had created peace among them." To Steve Schalchlin, music--possibly humankind's greatest invention--is a "Super power, so the artists and musicians must accept the responsibility."

Schalchlin took on that responsibility and given the dearth of social action messages in art, books, and music these days, it wasn't a moment too soon. New songs commenting on non-violence more globally were added to the mix. Peter Carman, a minister in Rochester, NY, had been rewriting lyrics to traditional hymn melodies when Schalchlin met him while playing a concert in the area. Schalchlin, raised a Southern Baptist in Little Rock, AK, began writing new music to those hymms and what emerged were pop gospel songs such as "My Thanksgiving Prayer," "Lazarus Come Out," and "My Rising Up," the latter of which has become the rousing sing-along show finale. Around this time, he also wrote the song "Holy Dirt," an intense commentary on any terrorist act, from the Iraq Mosque bombings to violent episodes in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

THE MARTYR WORE A JACKET BOMB
TO KILL THE INFIDELS AROUND
HE SAID THE PEOPLE IN THIS PLACE
DO NOT BELONG ON HOLY GROUND
THE ROCKET CAME FROM NOWHERE
CUZ THEY SAID THE MARTYR FORCED THEIR HAND
CHILDREN ARE COLLATERAL WHEN FIGHTING OVER SACRED SAND . . .

. . . THE TOUR GUIDE SAID THE PROPHET DIED
AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE WE FORGET . . .
. . . I RAISED MY HAND AND ASKED THE GUIDE WHY
HOLY LANDS HAVE SO MUCH HURT
IS IT CUZ WE STILL BELIEVE THERE'S SUCH A THING AS HOLY DIRT?

Schalchlin took this burgeoning songbook to Kathleen McGuire, the Artisic Director and Conductor of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, and on October 28, 2008, with the SFGMC and the 75-piece Women's Community Orchestra, Schalchlin performed the first concert of a new song cycle called New World Waking to thunderous approval. The evolving score was presented again at a New York benefit concert in Spring 2010. More than four years later, on December 6, the current manifestation of New World Waking was presented at Urban Stages and received a genuine and very deserved standing ovation.

Directed by Andy Gale with Musical Direction (and on-stage conducting) by Mark Janas (Co-Producer of the Sunday night open mic variety series, The Salon), the Winter Rhythms production of New World Waking was something like a staged-reading that was cast with talented Broadway, Off-Broadway, and cabaret performers (including Broadway's Lucia Spina, who provided a classic show stopping performance in the cycle's "Part III" on "William's Song"). Schalchlin, Gale, and Janas assigned songs to the featured performers, who were rehearsed separately. The full group harmonies were then improvised and the entire piece was turned into a kind of musical jam session on stage. "We wanted the cast and audience to experience the full piece at the same time," Schalchlin explains. "I was hoping to mix the old show biz idea of a community sing with a slight narrative thread, but with a strong emotional impact. I wanted it to work as a civic piece where everyone felt included, from the atheist to the strongest believer in God or gods. Besides, if you can't do that, then what's the point?"

Schalchin's long-time partner, the celebrated actor/singer Jim Brochu provided narration and context, reading quotes that were incorporated throughout the show--Ken Burns documentary style--from thinkers as diverse as Gandhi, Hunter S. Thompson, Lao Tsu, Hermann Goering, Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez. According to Schalchlin: "The songs are connected thematically with the goal of not merely reporting on violence in the world, but offering a solution in nonviolent resistance." Schalchin also accomplishes the extremely difficult task of delivering songs with strong messages without being overbearingly preachy. The score exhibits the composer's affinity for mixing pop, country, Broadway, gospel, and classical influences, while the lyrics (some also written by Rev. Peter Carman, Paul Zollo, Avril Roy Smith, and Jake Wesley Stewart) are political, passionate, idealistic, and thought-provoking, but also often convey a playful to biting sense of humor, as on one of the newer songs, "Vacationing In Syria" (sung powerfully in the Urban Stages show by Brian Childers), which comes at the end of "Part I--Violence in the Community." The lyric features a killer final verse that is angry and amusing at the same time and one that might get Schalchlin's computer hacked by North Korea or a certain former Vice-President.

I'D RATHER SEE CHENEY AS THE PRESIDENT
KIM JONG UN IN UNDERPANTS
STUCK INSIDE A SPIDER WEB
NECK DEEP IN SOME KILLER ANTS
EATING WORMS IN VOMIT SAUCE
SIZZLING IN AN ACID RAIN
AMPUTATING BODY PARTS
RUN DOWN BY A SPEEDING TRAIN
VACATIONING IN SYRIA
VACATIONING IN SYRIA
THAN HAVING TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO YOU
I LOVE YOU BUT IT'S TRUE
IT'S LIKE VACATIONING IN SYRIA WITH YOU

The lyric relates someone's impatience with intolerance and an inability to communicate, but is it directed toward a difficult lover or to society in general? "It's not directed at anyone in particular," Schalchlin explains. "It's a song of frustration from anyone having to explain who and what they are to others. It could be a song about how often transgender people have to explain their choice to change their bodies to conform to their 'real' gender. All of us have felt that way. The lyric is kind of an 'F-You' to the world as an emotional release."

Schalchlin also addresses militarism and war and its many implications in three of the cycle's most compelling songs, delivered in the show's "Part II--"Violence In the World." At Urban Stages, the hush in the audience was palpable when as mothers with young sons in the military, Eileen Tepper and Cindy Marchionda sang the haunting, "He's Coming Back."

I SENT MY KID BACK TO THE WAR THIS MORNING
THEN DROVE HOME THROUGH THE COASTAL L.A. GLOOM
HE'D BOUGHT A TON OF X-BOX AND NINTENDO
AND THEY POPULATE THAT MESS HE CALLS A ROOM
HE'S ONLY AT THE MID-POINT OF DEPLOYMENT
I CONFESS IT WAS A PARENT'S PRIVATE JOY
IN JUST TWO DAYS, THIS MAN, THIS ARMY CAPTAIN
TURNED BACK INTO MY CAREFREE LITTLE BOY
(AS I) SORT THROUGH ALL THE GAMES AND TOYS
HE SCATTERED ON THIS FLOOR
HE SAID THESE HOLD THE HOPE THAT I NOW LACK
THE THINGS HE LEFT HERE
MEANS HE'S COMING BACK. HE'S COMING BACK.

Speaking of Dick Cheney, the former VP probably wouldn't be a fan of the song, "War By Default" (sung in this show by Jeremy Abram), a lyric that cuts right to the chase about America's war-mongers who have little conscience about the ramifications of their military decisions.

WHEN THE DRUMBEAT FOR A WAR BECOMES RELENTLESS
WHEN MEDIA IS HUNGRY FOR A STORY
SOMETHING THEY CAN ILLUSTRATE WITH GRAPHICS
THAT PICTURE LOTS OF GOSSIP, GUTS AND GLORY
WHEN THE HERO OF THE DAY'S A POLITICIAN
OR A TECHNOCRAT BEHIND AN OFFICE DOOR
A CHICKEN HAWK WHO NEVER HELD A RIFLE
BUT SENDS OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS OFF TO WAR
WITH NO DECLARATIONS EVER MADE OR RESOLUTIONS PASSED
YOU CAN TAKE IT TO THE BANK AND YOU CAN LOCK IT IN A VAULT
SO MANY END UP DYING WHEN IT'S
WAR BY DEFAULT

Although saying anything is the "best song" in such a superb piece is difficult, one of the most interesting and offbeat numbers given the totality of the score is "Kelly & Sinatra" (sung by Jacob Hoffman), a clever and compelling lyric (with a lovely pop melody) sung from the point of view of a bartender serving two sailors during "Fleet Week." The Navy men remind the young barkeep of Gene and Frank in On the Town--only these guys have actually seen action. They're now on a break in New York, New York, a wonderful town, and though the bartender is thankful he's not one of them, he's guilty about it at the same time, as the very end of the song reveals:

I ENJOY MY FREEDOM IT DON'T COME FREE
BUT THE JOB AIN'T LIFE AND DEATH TO ME
THEY SAILED OFF
WITHOUT A BACKWARD GLANCE
BUT I BET IF THEY JUST
GAVE THEMSELVES A CHANCE
LIKE KELLY & SINATRA, THEY COULD DANCE

IF THIS STORY'S FAMILIAR WELL
WHAT CAN I SAY
NEXT YEAR, MORE KIDS
WILL BE COMING MY WAY
AND THAT'S FLEET WEEK
NEW YORK
ON MEMORIAL DAY

By that point, I felt like dancing, but there was still the "Part III-Awakening Suite" to go. This section was really Schalchlin's wake-up call, not so much to specific personal action, but to a universal spiritual and political awakening through the power of prayer and music, in this case uplifting gospel sing-alongs such as "Lazarus Come Out" (led by Jake Wesley Stewart) and "My Rising Up" (featuring Clayton G. Williams). And as with any cycle, a song version or otherwise, things usually come full circle and it did through his "Epilogue," as Schalchlin reprised his title song "Prologue," with that final music-can-heal-the-world denouement.

THAT ONE PERSON REALLY IS ALL THAT IT TAKES
COMMITTEES AND GROUPS, THOUGH, MAY TRY
NO, SOMEHOW IT MUST ALL MUST COMES DOWN TO ONE PERSON
OR THE HUMAN CONDITION WILL GRADUALLY WORSEN
NOT HIM AND NOT HER, LORD, BUT I . . .
THERE IS A NEW WORLD WAKING
THOUGH NATIONS FAIL TO HEAR
THERE IS A WORLD OF JUSTICE
UNSTAINED BY POWER OR FEAR
AND THOUGH THE MIGHTY TRAFFIC
IN GREED AND PAIN SOMEHOW
THERE IS A NEW WORLD WAKING . . .

WITHIN MY HEART RIGHT NOW.

C'mon people, listen to Steve Schalchlin's melodic message of non-violence and peace. It's time to come out . . . and wake up . . . and play the music.

Note: Also excellent in the Urban Stages Winter Rhythms production of New World Waking were: Kimberly Faye Greenberg, who was poignant on "Gabi's Song"; Natalie Dixon and Maria Fernanda Brea as reluctant soldiers on "I Enter This Battle Gravely," and Brea again with a lovely solo on the spiritual "Sanctus." Brian Dorais was appropriately indignant toward tyrants and dictators on the bouncy "Franco Ate the Paperwork," and narrator Jim Brochu had a nice turn vocally on "Brilliant Masquerade," a story song about 1930s-'50s bandleader Billy Tipton, who was born a woman but lived as a man. Also in the company were: Rebecca Aparicio, David Gillam Fuller, Bill Goffi and members of the Urban Stages Summer Youth Camp program.

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