How did the summer pass so quickly that we’re now staring in
the face of Labor Day? This is
always a bittersweet time of year for me because it means that the idylls of
summer are ending but it simultaneously means that the excitement of a new
theater season is about to begin.
One unambivalently good thing about Labor Day is that it’s
the perfect time to salute some of the worker bees who make possible the
theater that we all so love. Over the past few years, I’ve paid tribute to
blue-collar actors whose names seldom appear on marquees and to struggling
playwrights who toil off, off-off
and even farther away from Broadway. But this year, I want to celebrate the composers, lyricists
and book writers who participate in the BMI Workshop.
BMI, of course, is the organization that collects royalty
fees for songwriters. As many of you know, its Workshop was created in 1961 by
the Tony-award winning conductor Lehman Engel and is now officially called the BMI
Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.
The Workshop’s mission is to give show makers a supportive
place in which they can develop their talent. They hone their skills through
such exercises as writing a song for Blanche DuBois, musicalizing the suicide
scene from Death of a Salesman and, eventually, writing full shows.
There might not be a Broadway musical today if the Workshop
didn’t exist. Its graduates
include Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Tom Kitt, Michael John LaChiusa,
Robert Lopez and a whole bunch of other folks whose shows every
musical theater lover knows. But
there are scores of others, some equally talented, who still labor in
relative obscurity.
About four years ago, the Workshop produced a CD of songs
written by a wide range of its members.
One of them, Jeff Blumenkrantz, hosted a companion podcast in which each
episode is divided among interviews with a composer or songwriting team, a
performance of one of their songs by a Broadway or cabaret star and then an
interview with that performer.
I recently discovered the series and devoured all 20
episodes (each under 30 minutes) in a marathon binge over just a couple of
days. They provide an intimate look at the hard work that goes into creating
melodies and lyrics that seem effortless, at the years of often unremunerated
toil that go into bringing that work to the stage and at the sheer
determination and love of the craft that keep these artists going against the
odds.
Because Blumenkrantz is a well known and popular figure in
the Broadway community, his guests obviously feel comfortable with him and they
share more of themselves in these conversations than they would in the average
showbiz interview.
In the third episode, the actress Erin Dilly talks honestly
about being fired from the title role in Thoroughly Modern Millie. Sutton Foster, her replacement, became
an overnight star while Dilly had to work hard just to stay in the
business.
In a later episode, Cheyenne Jackson talks about his
decision to be openly gay and how he doesn’t care if that costs him jobs in
movies or on TV because it is so important for him to be himself.
And it’s not just the actors who bare their souls. Songwriters sound-off on the
frustration of being denied the rights to books and films they hoped to adapt
and in many cases had already spent weeks, months, sometimes years writing
songs for. And even when rights
are granted and some money is scrounged up, the end result may be just
a showcase production.
And yet, they all keep laboring away. Even when they may have to take day
jobs—playing rehearsal piano, teaching school, even waiting tables—to pay their
rent.
Listening to their stories
and their work is yet another reminder of the toil, tears and sweat that go
into making the theater that we enjoy. So I hope you’ll join me in a round of applause for these
too often unsung players. You can
click here to access the full archive of the podcasts. In the meantime, Happy Labor
Day to you too.
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