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Transcript169 lines
- [00:06]
Poet/Reader
What lips my lips have kissed and where and why I have forgotten
- [00:18]
Michael Portantier
and
- [00:19]
Poet/Reader
what arms have lain under my head till morning. But the rain is full of ghosts tonight that tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply.
- [00:49]
James Marino
Hello and welcome to Broadway Radios this week on Broadway for Sunday, February 22, 2026. My name is James Marino and in the broadcast today we have Peter Felicia and Michael Portantier. Peter is a playwright, journalist and historian with a number of books. Peter's new Day by Day Desk Calendar, a Show tune for today, 366 songs to bright New Year, is available at finer retailers. Peter also has columns at Masterworks, Broadway, Broadway select and many other places. Hello, Peter. Hi, Peter. Yeah, we are talking about March 2nd coming up at 7pm you're going to be over at 54 below doing Peter Felicia and Friends, Broadway Tales and Tunes featuring Judy K. Dick Scanlon and more. Tell us about this.
- [01:40]
Peter Filicia
Well, Judy won't be joining us, actually. We found out that she's doing a reading of a new musical and, and she's playing Lenny Bruce's mother, which Joan Rivers did some time ago on Broadway. So, alas, we lost Judy. But yeah, we do have some nice people involved and we may have a few others that I'll know later this week. Ironically, somebody else who's doing the reading, I'm not going to say who with Judy, it's, it's going to be on Tuesday. The reading may very well join us on Monday night. We'll see what happens. But, but anyway, you will hear some obscure show songs. You will hear some famous show songs done by our cast who is able to make it that night. So we're looking forward to it.
- [02:23]
James Marino
Oh, boy. Michael Levine is your musical director, right?
- [02:27]
Peter Filicia
He is so terrific. Good Lord, he is. He is a wonder. And for those of you who need sheet music, by all means, always get in touch with Michael Levine because he certainly is the keeper of the show music flame. So always think of him when you need something that is obscure because he
- [02:46]
Michael Portantier
will have it indeed.
- [02:47]
James Marino
Does he play the violin?
- [02:50]
Peter Filicia
No, but Richard Nixon did, which is kind of interesting because on this date in 1970, he asked that the production of 1776 come down from the 46th Street Theater, another Rogers, and come to the White House and do the show, he said. But you know, I don't really like that song. Cool, Cool, Considerate Men. And I don't, I don't like that song Mama Looks Sharp. So why don't you cut those two, you know, it'll be a shorter evening. You know, so on and so forth. And Gibbston Stuart Austro, the producer, great credit. He said, nope, it's all or nothing. You know, that's it. You know, we are not cutting this show at all. I mean, we want it to be the show that people are seeing up in New York City. And Nixon relented, which was really something. And they did the whole show. It is. But yes, Nixon did play the violin and I think you're much better off hearing Betty Buckley sing. He PLAYS THE VIOLIN and with magnificent Peter Howard music arrangement. Dance MUSIC arrangement in the middle. So much better off listening to that kind of. HE PLAYS THE VIOLIN I gotta tell you, when I first got the 1776 House album, I had a eight track player in my car. So I got it on. It was the first one I had on eight track and He PLAYS the violin actually faded out halfway through. Eight tracks were famous for that. They didn't necessarily have the songs all together in one place. You would hear it fade out and then fade back in after the click tracked. So the track clicked. Sorry. So anyway, when I hear it today, I still wait for that music to fade out and fade back in. But luckily CDs don't have that problem. So I, I enjoy the CD much more than I enjoyed the eight track. So. But you know, that's not the only show tune for today we should be talking about because you can hear some other show tunes for today because a few weeks ago the Klee Band Prize for Musical theater was given out. Now, Ed Cleban, the lyricist for Chorus Line, died at much too young an age and decided to leave his money to this foundation where they would give out a hundred thousand dollars to a promising lyricist and a promising librettist. And so this year it was Eric Price who won for lyrics, and Philip Christian Smith who went for the book. And it was a wonderful ceremony up at the ASCAP office. We had introductions by Richard Maltby Jr. And Mari Yessen, Susan Stroman and John Weidman. And we had the song actually sung by Santino Fontana and Talia Saskawa. And you know, it was really quite a nice event. Now you can see this, you can see this on Playbill's YouTube channel. So call it up and see if you agree with the choices that were made by the pros who said, yeah, this one deserves 100,000. Yep, that one deserves 100,000. See if you agree, see if you disagree. And you get a preview of coming attractions. Because chances are with this nice financial push that indeed you, you will wind up seeing these shows sooner rather than later.
- [05:50]
James Marino
Now that's great. Also with us is Michael Portantier. Michael is a theater reviewer and interviewer, the founder and editor of castalbumreviews.com he is also a theatrical photographer whose photos have appeared in the New York Times and other publications and he writes cabaret reviews@nightlifeexchange.com Additionally, Michael is known as a producer and director of shows at 54 below the Lori Beachman Theater and other venues. Michael, good morning.
- [06:20]
Michael Portantier
Good morning.
- [06:22]
James Marino
So you were going to share with us a story about ladies who lunch.
- [06:29]
Michael Portantier
Yeah, I had an actual real life ladies who lunch experience which I don't think I've ever had before because I don't, I don't know, I don't tend to go out to restaurants for lunch and whatever, for whatever reason. But I was at a local Thai place actually and there was a group of five women and they really were ladies who lunch, like old school New Yorkers talking about shows they'd seen and somebody was talking about one of their friends had a new book out, you know, so that cut that kind of group. And of course all of a certain age. But at any rate, at the end of the, the afternoon the check came and one of them said, so it's my birthday, does that mean I'm not paying? And one of the other ones says, you're paying. And the first one says, but you didn't even sing Happy Birthday to me. And she said, the other one says, you're paying. And she paid and they still didn't sing Happy Birthday. So I thought of Sondheim. Peter, you know what you said about eight tracks? It's so amazing to me to this day that that format ever existed with that tremendous flaw. I, I was, I pat myself on the back that I was smart enough not to buy into that.
- [07:55]
Peter Filicia
Yeah, well, if I didn't have it in the car, I wouldn't have done it at all. That, that's the reason rather than listening to what was on AM or FM radio, I wanted to hear the music. I wanted to hear. The funniest one of all was Dear World with the overture showed up on track three. I mean, it didn't start because they had to fit everything as best they could. So the tail, wag the dog because it was only a tiny little piece of T they had and they just looped it and so, so yes, Darling of the Day by Jupiter were on eight track tape. They live in my house. I've never thrown them away and never will.
- [08:31]
Michael Portantier
I eventually had A cassette player in my car. But I think the cassette players and cars came after eight tracks first.
- [08:37]
Peter Filicia
I think they did.
- [08:39]
James Marino
Eight track was first. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
- [08:41]
Peter Filicia
Yeah. And there were many more cassettes that came to light, even of cast albums.
- [08:48]
James Marino
Yes, we talked about it before, but the. The original CD release of the Phantom of the Opera was one long track.
- [08:59]
Peter Filicia
That's right. Track.
- [09:00]
Michael Portantier
Yeah.
- [09:02]
James Marino
And it's frustrating to me listening to various cast recordings these days on like a Spotify because they do have that little break in between songs on Spotify sometimes. And I'm like, it takes. Takes you totally out of the moment when you have.
- [09:24]
Michael Portantier
Oh, you mean even when there's not supposed to be a break like in Phantom.
- [09:27]
James Marino
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [09:29]
Michael Portantier
Okay.
- [09:30]
James Marino
If it's, you know, wall to wall through song.
- [09:32]
Michael Portantier
Yeah, yeah.
- [09:33]
Poet/Reader
Hold fast your dreams within your your heart.
- [09:45]
James Marino
With us today, we have a very special guest. Georgia Stitt is with us. Georgia is a composer, lyricist, music director, pianist, and music producer. Her original musicals include Snow Child, Samantha Spade, Ace Detective, the Big Red sun, the Water, and Mosaic. And you also have some other stuff in the works that we will chat about. Georgia. Georgia was the music director of Thirteen, the Musical, which was released on Netflix in 2022. On set, music supervisor for the Anna Kendrick Jeremy Jordan film. The last five years she's worked in the music department of America's Got Talent, Clash of Choirs, Grease. You're the one that I want. Oh, I didn't realize you work with that. Is that how you met Laura Osnes, Georgia?
- [10:32]
Georgia Stitt
Yep, that's how I met Laura Osnes. Yes. When she was auditioning to the show that she actually won.
- [10:39]
James Marino
When you first saw Laura perform, were you like, oh, she's gonna be big?
- [10:49]
Georgia Stitt
I will say yes. She's super talented. And most of the contestants were at that point, it really was an embarrassment of riches. So it wasn't clear to me from the beginning that she was going to win, but it was some pretty tough competition. She was certainly deserving of the spot on Broadway that she won.
- [11:08]
James Marino
Selected other cool things are you did the Disney ABC TV Once Upon a Mattress Story tracing Ullman and Carol Burnett.
- [11:15]
Georgia Stitt
And Carol Burnett.
- [11:16]
James Marino
Oh, my goodness.
- [11:18]
Georgia Stitt
Your New York theater work with her.
- [11:19]
James Marino
Yeah, yeah. Isn't that. What did you think when you were like, I'm actually going to work on a musical with Carol Burnett? Did ever in the bingo cards for you?
- [11:35]
Georgia Stitt
I mean, it's on your bucket list of dream people that you'd like to meet and work with. I think it's probably the reason I said yes to the Job, you know, her name showed up, and I was like, yep, yep, sign me up. I'll be in the room with her. And if. If you've heard these stories about her, she's so classy. And the story that I tell, a lot that I remember really clearly is that on the day of the orchestra recording, she walked into the orchestra recording and had memorized the names of all the musicians. And so she just walked through the orchestra. She was like, hello, Bill. Thanks for being with us today. Hi, Peter. Thanks for being here. Georgia. I'm so glad you're with us today. And so she said then and other times, like, all of those people know who I am. And so I feel like the least I could do is learn their names. It's so classy and amazing.
- [12:27]
James Marino
I can't even do that at family reunions.
- [12:30]
Georgia Stitt
I know.
- [12:33]
James Marino
Some of your other New York credits include Little Shop of Horrors, the Broadway production Dory Me, can can, starring Patti LuPone. Both of those who are encores, Sweet Charity, Off Broadway with Sutton Foster, Avenue Q, Sweet Smell of Success, the Music Man, Titanic, Annie, and both the 2000 and 2023 Broadway revivals of Parade. Georgia, thank you so much for spending some of your Sunday morning with us.
- [12:58]
Georgia Stitt
Well, thank you for inviting me. I always like coming here to talk to you.
- [13:02]
James Marino
So you have a new album that. Forgive Me. Is it officially out yet?
- [13:11]
Georgia Stitt
No, it comes out on March 6th, so I guess it depends on when people are listening to this, but. March 6, 2026.
- [13:18]
Peter Filicia
All right.
- [13:18]
James Marino
Cole Belltower. So tell me these are three short, short song cycles. A song cycle in three part. So tell us.
- [13:32]
Georgia Stitt
That's part of it.
- [13:32]
James Marino
Yeah. What does Bell Tower mean to you?
- [13:37]
Georgia Stitt
Well, this is an album of what I'm calling theatrical art songs. And I will say that in the decades that I've been writing theater music, there's like, this little side passion that I have where I'm still a classical composer. My undergraduate degree, I majored in music theory and composition, and then my master's degree, excuse me, is from nyu, the musical theater writing program, An MFA there. So I have a little bit of that, all of that DNA in me. And the job of being a theater composer is to be able to write in the style of the story. So, you know, if the script comes your way, and it's like Snow Child is set in Alaska, and it's a bluegrass musical. And so the vocabulary of that music is, you know, Americana bluegrass, sort of fused with theater music for storytelling. And then Samantha Spade is film noir and Big Red sun is set in. It's swinging at the 40s, 50s, and 60s. So all the shows that I've written require you to lean into the style of music that's called for. For that storytelling. And then between shows, when I go back to my default, I have this sort of classical, theatrical voice. And a lot of times when I'm not on deadline, I'll find a poem and set it to music and give it to one of my friends to sing. And some of those are scattered in my earlier albums. You know, there's a lot of theater music, and there'll be this one little art song, including the things that Laura Osnes recorded for me on a previous album. And I didn't know what to do with those poems.
- [15:16]
Peter Filicia
And.
- [15:16]
Georgia Stitt
And during the pandemic, there was a lot of available free time. And I thought, well, what do I do with all of these theatrical art songs? And how could I group them together in a way that makes sense? And one of the ideas that I had started playing with was very short songs. So writing songs that from beginning, middle to end were 60 seconds or so long, but told a complete story. And so I started looking for those poems and found them, and then, you know, because everything was online anyway, reached out to the poets and acquired the permissions to use them and set them to music. And I came away with 16 little poems. So there's a song called a song cycle called Small Talk that is these 16 art songs in three parts. And so Kate Baldwin recorded the first part, Ruthie Ann Miles recorded the second part, and Ciara Boggess recorded the third part. And so that's the anchor for the album is these three sections of these 16 songs that make up the song cycle called Small Talk. And then scattered in are the other art songs that I've written over the years. The oldest two I actually wrote when I was an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music. And so those are. I don't even want to tell you how old those are. Decades old. Mark Kudish recorded those two. And then there's one that I just wrote last summer, Fall, I guess summer. And Titus Burgess recorded for me. So that's the newest one. But it's just this body of work that I've created. And my hope for these songs is that the. I call them, like, theatrical art songs for the legit Broadway singer, you know, legit theater singer. The people who, you know, that live in this world of. I studied voice. I did a classical recital, or I am currently studying voice. I did a classical Recital, But I work in the theater. That they will feel like water, you know, in a desert. To those people. It's in the same category as like Ricky Ann Gordon or Adam Guettle or I say Jake Heggy, you know, that Don Upshaw recorded an album several years ago of sort of this crossover music. Some of the Copeland arias, you know, that feel. They feel like storytelling and they're in English and they feel very accessible to theater audiences, but they are actually poetry.
- [17:48]
Peter Filicia
Stop there.
- [17:49]
Michael Portantier
That was a lot to clarify. Are the texts for all of the songs on the album from pre existing poems or only for this song cycle?
- [17:57]
Georgia Stitt
All of them. Yeah, all of them. Some people know me as a lyricist, but I don't have any lyrics on this album.
- [18:03]
Michael Portantier
They are interesting.
- [18:05]
Georgia Stitt
Yeah. The oldest ones are, you know, William Wordsworth, William Blake, Rilke. Let's see, who else? Sarah Teasdale, you know, old classic, older poems, and Dorothy Parker. And then I have some friends who are poets and lyricists that I asked to contribute things. And I specifically looked for some things that were in the public domain, some things that were about a specific topic. And. Yeah, and some people may know the Shakespeare sonnet that I set, Sonnet 29. That's not on this album, but it's in the same vein as that kind of piece.
- [18:44]
Peter Filicia
My question is, here you have a song called that look, based on a poem by Faye Greenberg, the last line of which is, dear God, why did I ever give birth? Did you record this around your house? Did your daughters hear you sing this lyric?
- [19:02]
Georgia Stitt
Sure. Yes. Then they've heard it in concerts. The caveat that I have there, or maybe the safety net that I have there, is that I'm not the lyricist on that one. You can take that one up with Faye.
- [19:14]
James Marino
It's funny because Peter and I are on the same track that some of the songs that I listened to, I just burst out laughing as I'm listening to them. And then after I listened to it the first time, I went back and read the liner notes and. And saw that you, in fact, were inspired to laugh when you were on the subway. So tell that story.
- [19:37]
Peter Filicia
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
- [19:38]
Georgia Stitt
Oh, yeah. Thanks. That's the origin story for this whole piece. So those of you who have been to New York or live in New York, know that every now and then you get on the subway and you take your seat in a crowded subway and you look up and in the midst of all the advertising is a poem. And there's a campaign called Poetry in Motion that the. I guess the transit authority coasts for Just a little breath of fresh air in the midst of your commute. And many, many years ago, I looked up and I saw a poem called Communication by a poet named Alicia Partnoy. And it was written in Spanish and translated to English. Very, very short poem. And I read it and laughed out loud. So I took a picture of it with my phone and I came home and looked it up. I was like, what is this poem? And who is this poet? And I found her. She's alive. She lives in Los Angeles. I wrote her, I told her the story. She was delighted. And I said, I'm a composer. Can I set it to music? And she said, yes, I think it'll be a very short song because it's a very short poem. And she was right. It's 53 seconds long, I think, but it has a joke at the center of it. And so I thought, well, the challenge for me is to set it to music in a way that doesn't kill the joke so that my music doesn't get in the way of the joke, that you still want to laugh at the right moment. And I think I succeeded at that. The audiences usually laugh when I perform it.
- [21:00]
Michael Portantier
And I thought, okay, yet this woman.
- [21:03]
Peter Filicia
Wow, she had quite a life, huh?
- [21:05]
Georgia Stitt
She had quite a life. And it's amazing that this funny little song came in the midst of her history.
- [21:12]
Peter Filicia
Yeah. Because she was involved with Juan Peron in some way, shape or form, right?
- [21:18]
Georgia Stitt
Yes. She was a member of the. Is it Peronist youth movement. Yeah. You know, a resistance. And she became a political prisoner and lived in a concentration camp for several years. And, you know, a lot of her writing is about that experience. And. And even in some of our conversations she talks about that. And this poem, I think, is a bit of an anomaly in terms of what she writes, but she was delighted.
- [21:45]
Michael Portantier
Another song that. That is very funny and has a very, very well placed joke right at the end is, I have to ask you about Alan's dead.
- [21:55]
Georgia Stitt
That's also Faye Greenberg. Faye wrote these two songs. You know, I told Faye that I was looking for these very. Faye is a friend of mine. She's a musical theater writer herself, and she also was. She and her husband are songwriters in Hollywood and they wrote some of the songs for a high school musical, you know, among many other things. But that's one of their big claims to fame. And she. I said, I'm looking for these very short songs. And she just sent these to me. She was like, like, what about these? I honestly don't know whether they were pre existing things that she. She had, like, ideas for things that she might turn into bigger poems or whether she wrote them on the spot for me, but those she sent to me via email and I wrote back and I was like, yep, that'll work.
- [22:41]
Peter Filicia
For those of you, of course, don't know this yet, Alan's Dead deals with a woman who is talking about an old boyfriend, and indeed he's dead to her, but as the last kind goes, just not dead enough. Meaning in real life. Yeah.
- [22:56]
Georgia Stitt
So we wish you were a debtor.
- [22:58]
Peter Filicia
Debtor indeed. Indeed. I noticed Rebecca Lucas on the album. So was this one of the last things she did?
- [23:06]
Georgia Stitt
It was. I mean, I don't know in terms of what she did, in terms of what she did after that, but it was near the end of her life, though she didn't know it yet. And I mean, I. Obviously, I didn't know it yet. It was before her diagnosis, you know, years and years ago. My friend Joel Fram, who's a music director, I think his most recent credit was he's a music director of the Revival Company. He started a program up at Symphony Space called the New Voices Collective, and he did that with Jen Bender and Annette Gilles. And the three of them created concerts and reached out to people who were working as music directors and pit musicians on Broadway who they knew were sort of secretly or, you know, on the side composers. And I'll say 20 to 25 years ago, this happened, and I was one of the composers that was part of that collective, along with Andrew Lippa and Sam Davis and Peter Foley and, you know, many, many Jenny Gearing and many, many people. If you want, I can send over some information about who else was in that collective. But Joel encouraged us to send over songs that were written specifically for the concert, and they would create little chamber instrumentations of them and get Broadway singers to perform them. And Rebecca Luker recorded some of the songs that I wrote for that purpose, and she did them so beautifully that I thought, well, why don't we just go into the studio right now and record these songs? Because as you know, like, a project ends and you move on and you get busy with the next thing. And if I come back to someone eight or ten months later and say, can we record those songs? They'll say, oh, I have to relearn it. It's not, you know, it's not still in my brain. And so we went into the studio and recorded them. And I brought my friend Mary Dorman, who's a cellist, and. And that was fantastic. And then a few years later, I have to remember, three or four years later, she was diagnosed. Is that right? No, I have to look at the dates again. But a few years later she was diagnosed. And then I think. And I knew I hadn't finished this album. I wasn't even sure I was gonna make an album. I just knew I had these recordings and I said to her, should we just release them now so that you can experience that? Should we just release them, like as an ep, these three songs? And we started talking about that in the summer. And her health declined so much that year that before we could finish that project, she was too ill to be able to do it. And she died that same year. So Danny Burstein, her husband, and I have been in communication and he knows that these songs are coming out at last and with her blessing. Yeah, so that's the story. She and I were friends and regular communicators, and it was a joy to be able to write for her voice specifically and to be able to bring these three songs to the world. There are three more Rebecca Luker songs that you haven't heard yet.
- [26:05]
James Marino
Georgia, I noticed that you seem to know a lot of female musicians.
- [26:11]
Georgia Stitt
Oh, interesting. Yes.
- [26:13]
James Marino
Do you have a spreadsheet of them?
- [26:17]
Georgia Stitt
Well, yes, that's by design. I mean, some of your listeners will know this and some may not, but I founded an organization called Maestra, and Maestra is meant to be a feminization of the word maestro. The conductor, the leader of the music department, the maestro. And at the very beginning, when this was all just gestating the idea for this organization, I would type Maestro into my computer and my computer would autocorrect it to Maestro. Oh, you must mean Maestro. And I thought, well, that's the whole point, isn't it, that you can't imagine that this person could be female. So I. The longer version of the story is that I was the music director of the Off Broadway revival of Sweet Charity, and our director was Lee Silverman. And she asked us to hire an all female band specifically because Sweet Charity, you know, has that famous phrase, it's a hooker with a heart of gold. It's about a woman who's like, working as a dance hall hostess and trying to meet the love of her life. And when she's in the dressing room with her, the women she works with, she's safe and vulnerable and reveals her inner thoughts. And then when she goes out into the world to look for a man, she puts on this kind of armor. And Lee said the band is going to be visible on stage, and I want them to be part of her safe space. So it's important to me that the band is all female and all different races and looks and, you know, so it should look as diverse as New York City looks, except it's just this safe space where women behave differently than they do when men are around. And so Mary Mitchell Campbell was working as a music supervisor and orchestrator of that show, and I was a music director. And we put together a list of women musicians. We only had to hire six musicians, and I was one of them. And it was really, really, really hard to find the people that we needed. You know, I reached out to the music contractors, and they were like, oh, yeah, we. There's. Here's a guitarist. We know one guitarist. And I said, well, she's playing a Broadway show. She's not gonna leave a Broadway show to come play an off Broadway show. Who else have you got? And they'd be like, well, we usually just call her. And I thought, there have to be more female guitar players in New York City or bass players or drummers, or, you know, especially the instruments that are. That tend to be perceived as more masculine. And ultimately, we found our band. We found great players. And in that specific case with the guitar player, I reach out to that woman who played the Broadway show, and I said, apparently, you're the only woman on Broadway who knows how to do this, but I bet you know who the other women are. And she said, yeah, of course. And she gave me a list of her subs and her former students and her colleagues and. And. And that began the question of, like, why doesn't the whole industry know who these women are? So people started writing me and saying, I hear you have the list. I hear you have, like, you know, all the female bass players in New York. And I thought, well, I don't want to be an agent, and I don't want to be, you know, I can't recommend these women. I don't really know what kinds of players they are. And so I reached out to my web designers that had built my website, and I said, can we create just a little directory? And I'll ask all these women to, like, put their information in and make it searchable. So, like, if you're like, I'm looking for a bass player, but I want her to be a member of union, or I don't want her to be a member of the union, or she has to be able to play upright analysis, electric bass, or whatever the parameters are. And then their bios come up and their websites and you can go research them, but at least you can see that they exist. And that was the beginning of what turned into the Maestra Directory, which is@maestromusic.org and we have over or just right at 3,000 people, women and gender expansive people. It's grown the women, non binary, trans gender expansive people. And it's global. Like you can search in other countries. I've had people in Southern California say, I went out to music, direct the show, and the artistic director told me that there were no women here. And I showed him the Maestro directory and we found our woman and she was great. Stories like that. And so I think it's having a real impact in terms of our mission statement is that we provide support, visibility and community. And I think the visibility part is like, I just wanted to be able to answer the question that people said these women didn't exist and they do.
- [30:40]
Michael Portantier
Boy, I wish we had like another hour to discuss this particular subject because I find it so fascinating. I'm now, I'm now a tour guide at Carnegie Hall. And they have photos, old photos. And there's one photo of like a hundred women on stage, all harpists. And I, and I noticed if you watch, for example, if you watch the movie Fantasia, you know, which is the, the Philadelphia Orchestra, I believe.
- [31:09]
Georgia Stitt
Yeah.
- [31:09]
Michael Portantier
Back. Back in 1940, the only women are the harpists. And it was like something about that instrument gave the stereotype that, oh, that's a woman's instrument. Yeah, that's which, you know, and if anything, you would think, well, wouldn't something maybe like a flute that would be easier to carry around, you know, so isn't that, isn't that fascinating? You know, how. And, and thankfully, there of course, have been tremendous, tremendous strides in that field, especially in the classical world over the decades. And now so, so many more female conductors when there used to be. Zero.
- [31:52]
Georgia Stitt
That's right. And I think that's all a result of intentional work on the part of people that are doing similar work to what we're Maestra. You know, the, the, the reason that the, there's a difference in the makeup of the orchestras is because they started requiring blind auditions.
- [32:07]
Michael Portantier
Exactly.
- [32:08]
Georgia Stitt
You know, which means the players, they just acknowledged that there's a gender bias in audit in the audition process. And they said, you know, first of all, you know, all the things, well, people will audition behind screens, will put down carpets so you can't hear their footsteps. Women are encouraged not to wear high heels, don't wear anything that smells like perfumes or hairsprays or anything. So that the idea we can really be judged just on your playing like it truly is. Let's take away anything that gets in the way of this possibly being a meritocracy. Like the best player gets the gig. And when you took away that bias, more women started getting hired. You know, there are lots of stories across many industries. You've heard stories about people who submit resumes with different names or artists who use pen names so that they can't be perceived by their gender and how the results change when you can take away the gender bias and so that it's real. It's very important to me when I talk about this, that there's nothing anti male about it. It's very important to me when I hire musicians that I hire a diverse group of musicians. I rarely hire only women, but I do make sure that there are some women in the mix. There are great players everywhere. It's just important to me that we're looking beyond the first call list of like, these are people who've always done it great. They're great players. Who else. Who else could be on that list?
- [33:34]
Peter Filicia
It's very interesting to me that so many of these songs are a minute or less, and yet the 11 o' clock number, if you will hold on to your dreams is more than four minutes long. Hold fast to your dreams. Sorry. And what a nice way to end an album with that type of inspiration. So I thought that was quite. And it's so nice to see Nikki Renee Daniels, who I've known for a long time, doing such a nice job with it.
- [34:00]
Georgia Stitt
Oh, she's wonderful. She's so wonderful. Yes. That poem was a commission. Zoe Johnson reached out to me and asked me if I would write something for her album and she premiered it. It's on her album as well, which is called Beneath the sky. Zoe Allen is her married name. Zoe Johnson was her name when I met her. So she asked me to write that. And again, I looked specifically in that case for something that was in the public domain so that I could turn it around rather quickly and found that poem that is about. I mean, you know, what are poems about? They're what you think they're about. But my interpretation is that it's about a mother speaking to a child about, like, not giving up on your dreams, like, holding on to make sure that you, you know, as you grow and life gets harder and the optimism fades, that you still have a tiny piece of your heart that holds onto the thing that inspired you when you were a child. And it ends musically, it ends sort of fading off into the distance with this unresolved place. And I thought, well, that's how we feel. That's how I feel right now in this moment, in this world is that we can't lose hope. There's not to get too political on this podcast, but we can't lose hope in the world where I think it is the artist, artist's job specifically to remind people of that which is beautiful and the ways that we see each other and have empathy for each other, that that is there. And I'll say that the title of the album is Bell Tower, which comes from another poem that the. It's. This is the Rilke poem and is sung so beautifully by my friend Hila Plitman, who is a Grammy Award winning classical singer. And she. The Rilke poem is translation that was done by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows a few years ago. And they just relooked at the Rilke poems and came at it from a bit more feminist perspective, you know, maybe because they were these two feminist women doing the translations. But the hook is let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell as you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. And I was like, yeah, that is the message that we need to hear in this moment right now. The more you are battered, the louder your bell rings. And may we all be the bell tower. So that's where the title came from. And that's the piece that I asked Hila to record.
- [36:35]
James Marino
So coming up on April 6th, you're going to be hanging out at Cindy Winery. Yeah, there's also, there's also a fundraiser that night. Yeah, so. So tell us about Amplify.
- [36:49]
Georgia Stitt
Yeah, thanks for giving me a chance to talk about it. So, maestro, you know the organization I've been talking about for the, the gender equity organization in the theater, this is our annual fundraiser, Amplify. This is our, I think, fifth or sixth year that we've been doing it. And it is a celebration of the theater that is being made by the women and gender expansive people. And we also have a program called Rise that extends into the backstage crew and basically everyone except actors, the whole industry. And that is, we're building that in partnership with Lin Manuel and Luis Miranda and their family foundation to bring attention to underrepresented people who are working in all aspects of the theater and just again, to give visibility to them. We're not, you know, we're not the ones hiring them. We're just putting them in the directory. And we're saying these people exist and you, you should hire them or at least put them on the list of people you're considering. And so anyway, Amplify is a celebration of the Maestro members and the Rise members. And so we, we celebrate the music and the theater that they make. And I can't tell you the song list yet because we're still finalizing it, but I can tell you that our two co hosts are Betsy Wolf and Hannah Cruz. Betsy's currently in Death becomes Her, and Hannah's in chess. And this year, we are giving the Amplify Award for the first time to Shana Taub, who is the composer, the writer of Stuffs.
- [38:20]
Michael Portantier
Sure.
- [38:21]
James Marino
Yeah. So that is April 6th at City Winery. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. You can check that out if you want to see if you can support Maestra in some way.
- [38:35]
Georgia Stitt
Georgia, I have one more thing I can plug. Can I tell you one more thing?
- [38:39]
James Marino
Of course.
- [38:40]
Georgia Stitt
Singer Kate Baldwin and I are going to be at 54 below in March. We are there. I just really opened my calendar to remind myself, March 13th, 14th and 15th, Kate's on my album. We're not doing those songs at the album because we've actually, I mean, at the concert, because we've actually done them a lot, including the last time we were at 54 below. But we are doing a lot of other things. And she's premiering a new song of mine that nobody's heard yet. So that's 54 below. March Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 13th, 14th and 15th. So maybe some people can come to that as well.
- [39:17]
James Marino
Georgia, have you ever considered going beyond the music and writing a full show, television show, movie, something like that?
- [39:34]
Georgia Stitt
I, you know, I collaborate with people who work in TV and film. I have contributed some songs to things that wound up on film. But I. That's really an interesting question. No is, I think, the answer. But I have put that energy into musicals and, you know, in the last few years, since we came back from the pandemic, you know, my musical Snow Child is one of those musicals that there are a lot of stories about things that had a momentum before the pandemic and then kind of lost their way during the pandemic. We had a production at arena stage in 2017 and were deep in the rewrites when the whole industry shut down and couldn't find our second production. And then years went by, and then our director, Molly Smith, retired from Arena Stage and our book writer left the project and other personal things. That came up, but the rights expire. Our rights to the underlying material were expired. And so as we came back from the Pandemic, my agent and I were like, can I get the rights to this book and start over? And so we went through that process and got it. And so I have been taking a crack at writing the book for it with my collaborator, Bob Banghart. And I have approached it like I'm gonna do what I think it needs to be. And at some point, a director will say to me, this is a really solid start. And now we need to bring in a book writer to just help you finish it, but at least to get the structure and some of the pacing and the jokes and the. Just to get that on paper. And so far, nobody has told me no. So it might be that.
- [41:20]
Michael Portantier
That.
- [41:21]
Georgia Stitt
It might be that that gets to the finish line with me as the book writer. And I'm also open to the possibility that I might not be the right person to do that. And then I have this other piece called the Danger Year that is a review of my songs. Several people over the years have come to me and said, can we put together a review of your work? You know, you have many albums and many produced or unproduced musicals. You know, can we create a review out of your body of work? And I've thought, do I trust you to be the person to do that? Are you the person, or should I do that? And so the Danger Year is something that I've developed. That is my take at that. And I actually just recently got an opportunity to do it again next year. And I think I'm actually going to rewrite it and sort of change the structure of it in the hopes that we finally get it right, my team and I finally get it right. But those are the ways that I think about myself as more than a composer, lyricist, you know, as maybe a book writer, maybe a conceiver. But I tend not. You know, I read a lot. I read a lot of novels, and I always open the first page and I think, is this my next musical? Like, is this gonna be the thing? And it's been. There have been very few times where I've then gone to my agent and said, can I get the rights to this book? You know, it's more that someone comes to me with an idea, and I think, oh, I could get into this. That Snow Child, Molly Smith, mailed me the book and said, I think this is a musical. Read it and tell me if you agree. And. And so I read it. I was underlining it and like, with the red pen highlighting, you know, circling things and like, this could be the 11 o' clock number. This could be. Oh, this is a funny scene. Make sure to include this. And so I can think about it structurally when I know that someone's. Someone else is thinking about how this might adapt. I gotta say, the process from thinking of it like, I have an idea for a musical to the finish line, you know, you're sitting at opening night is so long, you know, it's. It's a decade. It's eight to 10 to 15 years, you know, unless you start with the commercial producer attached that it is. It is sometimes hard to think about doing that alone. I think I kind of have to know who my collaborators are from the beginning and at least what my role is at the beginning. Knowing that that might evolve over time.
- [43:43]
James Marino
There's parallels between, you know, creating a work of art and raising children.
- [43:50]
Georgia Stitt
Yeah, you gotta allow 18 years.
- [43:52]
James Marino
18 years and lots of money and things like that. Can I suggest something that maybe you can pitch to Netflix as a limited series?
- [44:03]
Georgia Stitt
Sure. Yes.
- [44:03]
James Marino
Yes. You wrote a piece that I read, and I was raptured. And I kept on coming back and back and looking for updates and things like this. When you lost your laptop at tsa,
- [44:20]
Georgia Stitt
this is my Facebook journey. Oh, wow. Yeah. So is there a short version of this? Probably. I went through security at JFK Airport, and it was one of those things, you know, you have to take your computer out of the bag. And Yes, I was TSA PreCheck, and they still made me take my computer out of my bag. And I had a computer with no stickers on it or any. I mean, there are stickers on the inside, but there are no stickers on the outside. And I went through security, and it was one of those things where, like, my shoes set off the beeper and I had to go back to the back of the line and then come through again. And when I got to the end of the line, my computer was not there. And I waited for a minute. I thought, well, that's strange. And then I noticed that another computer was there and no one was claiming it. And so I called the security person and I said, is it possible that someone took my computer and left this one? And they said, oh, well, you have to go over there and file a claim and all that. I was like, no, but can you just put an announcement over the speaker right now? Because if that happens, they're right here. And it just didn't happen quickly because I was probably the 700th sign that had happened happened this weekend. And, you know, so I lost my computer and every day I posted an update of what was happening and I filed the claim. And, you know, about four days later someone found me on Instagram and said, is it possible that you lost your computer at security? And I was like, oh my gosh, yes. And so this person and I connected and she was the girlfriend of the person who accidentally picked up my computer. And it just began this long journey of getting it back, which I did. I got it back. It was intact. Nothing had. I mean, I hadn't even connected to the Internet since it was taken. It was a good person who had done a stupid thing. And through the process of figuring it out, like, we connected. And I got my computer back and he got his computer back and it was a happy ending. And I think hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of people like followed that story and commented on it. And it really brought the community together. This was really a month ago or so. It brought the community together I think because it was so hopeful and because everyone was thinking, is this story going to have a happy ending and are there good people in the world who are going to do the right thing? And then when that was the case, there was just this mass celebration and relief and it was funny, like all the little dips and the turns in the road and you know, I, I'm not convinced that it's a musical.
- [46:55]
James Marino
No, no. That's why I said or Netflix series.
- [46:57]
Georgia Stitt
I mean,
- [47:01]
Peter Filicia
it's a great story. Let's leave it at that.
- [47:03]
Michael Portantier
Well, it is a, it is a happier story than the story of the woman who just abandoned her dog at the airport because she found out she couldn't bring it on. Did you read that one?
- [47:13]
Georgia Stitt
No, but thanks for ruining my day.
- [47:15]
Peter Filicia
Well, that's right. There have been less what he's here for.
- [47:18]
Michael Portantier
There have been like 450 applications for adoption and I'm sure the dog will be better off where. Where he ends up.
- [47:26]
Peter Filicia
Wow.
- [47:27]
James Marino
So, Georgia, I just want to thank you for spending so much time with us on Sunday morning. Georgia's new album is coming up very soon. Bell Tower will be available. Where finer music is is sold. We can check everything out at Georgia gorgeous stitt.com also Maestra the maestromusic.org maestromusic.org and also Amplify coming up. And Kate Baldwin at 54 below. We'll have to get Michael's review on that after March 15th and see how that goes.
- [48:06]
Peter Filicia
Yeah.
- [48:07]
Georgia Stitt
I hope you like it.
- [48:11]
James Marino
Thanks so much. For joining us. And we'll speak to you soon.
- [48:14]
Georgia Stitt
Thanks for having me. It's wonderful to spend the morning with you all.
- [48:18]
Poet/Reader
The bloom upon the flower, the bloom upon the breast and youth's blind hour.
- [48:37]
James Marino
So, Peter, you got over to 59 East 59 to see a production of Not Nobody. Tell us about this.
- [48:45]
Peter Filicia
This is terrific. It's a play by Brian Dykstra, who's written a number of plays that have shown up here and there and at 59 59th as well, directed by Margaret Perry. They're a couple, and they do great work together. But this is a very different play from him and especially with him in it. He almost. Almost is playing a Danny K. Like character. Almost. What's the situation? The situation starts off he's walking along, minding his own business. Granted, he's in a tough, powdered town, but he's walking along mine in his old business. And a policeman says, hey, can I ask you a question? And he really gets nervous because we are in a time in our lives where in many situations we are judged guilty till we're proved innocent. And he panics. And it's one of those situations where the more he talks, the more deeply he gets into the situation of seeming guilty because he's nervous. Nervous as can be, even though the cop just asks him a perfunctory question. But to be fair, the cop, you know, was also judging him guilty until proved innocent. Also, the cop is with a backup cop, a woman. And both of them are played terrifically well by an actor named Sheffield Chastain and an actor named Katia Maurice Lopez. Both terrific. And they will show up later in various. Various roles. Well, things get much worse, not just for Brian Dykstra's character, but also for the two police people. And I don't want to be too specific here, but things get much worse for them. And Brian Dykstra gets caught in this maelstrom that seems he cannot possibly get out of, even though he has done nothing wrong and has just even tried to help the situation. You know, it's very funny. In Sweet Charity, there's a line about I don't want to get involved. And that really started around 1966. The people didn't want to get involved. You know, the idea of helping somebody was just off the table. And, of course, that was already 60 years ago. But should Brian Dykstra get involved in this situation, his character. Well, we'll see what happens. But a lot happens. As if this isn't enough, you have a tremendous performer by Kate Sian Rigg, who plays, essentially, Judge Judy. It's that type of character who has all the answers, who doesn't take any guff from anybody, really believes that her opinion is the only one that matters, and that's all there is to it. And she's a tough nut to crack. And yet, can any of this possibly have a happy ending? I'm going to ask you to go and see yourselves because it is one of the most gripping experiences I've had in a long, long time, certainly even beyond this season. And the title seems odd, Not Nobody. But I'm telling you, there's a very clever bit of wordplay involved with that that also makes him seem guilty of something more heinous than just walking along the streets. So this is gripping, galvanic, wonderful theater, virtually flawless. I mean, really, I can't even think of anything if. If I'm pressed the name of Flor in it, I. I wish I could come up with an answer, but I'm glad I can't come up with an answer because it's that good. So I hope this is not just the only venue that we see Not Nobody. I hope that Brian Dexter continues to write. I hope he continues to perform. And because we'll have a much better theater if he and Margaret Perry and these wonderful performers continue doing what they're doing.
- [52:35]
James Marino
All right, so not nobody at 59 East 59 is scheduled through March 1st. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. Michael, you were over at where's the Dinosaurs Planet Playwrights Horizons. So you saw the dinosaurs that Playwrights Horizons. Tell us about this.
- [52:57]
Michael Portantier
Well, apparently this is quite a divisive play in production. I was recently discussing it with three friends at the. The West Bank Cafe. They had all seen it that night. I had seen it previously, and I said, well, I'm dying to hear what you all think of this. And two of them said, in rather unconvincing accents that they. They thought that they really sort of liked it overall. And then I said, oh, because I could not stand it. I had a very intensely negative reaction towards it. And then the fourth person said, well, I'm glad you said that, because now I feel comfortable saying the same thing. So, you know, stick to your guns. People don't, you know, it's just you express your opinion. Don't. Don't be cowed, you know, don't be intimidated. And don't feel you have to agree, you know, with someone. As for the reviews, I've read two or three extremely negative ones and One or two very good ones. And Peter said he was under the impression that what he has heard has been largely negative. So I don't know what to tell you. My personal advice is if you. Well, let me phrase it this way. Way, if you react to this the way I did, you're going to regret that you ever went to see it. So. And that is sad because it's got Kathleen Chalfont and Elizabeth Marvel in it, which you would think worth seeing them in anything, right? Well, I wouldn't say in this case. Other actors in it are April Mathis, Kelly McQuail, Mallory Portnoy and Maria Elena Ramirez. The culprit here, in my view, is the playwright Jacob Perkins. What we have is a presentation of a bunch of women at an AA meeting, which, you know, in itself might be considered very well worn material already. The gimmick here, among others, is that the play is written in a very elliptical style. I've heard it described that way, and that is perfect description. The. The playwright attempts to play with time. I. I guess to show that so many people, when you think about it, so many millions of people I'm sure at this point have been through aa, that, that it's bound to be true that a lot of their stories repeat sometimes maybe even verbatim, you know, I mean, just because of the law of averages. I think that's what he's trying to show. Interestingly enough, there's a stopped clock on the wall on the upstage wall of the set, stopped at 2:13pm Some reviewers have looked at this and gone looking to the Bible to see what the verses are like. John 2:13 and Matthew 2:13. I mean, I didn't give it that much. I did wonder why the clock was stopped. Maybe that's supposed to be a comment on the timelessness of aa, that the stories are all the same even though they're different. But that all sounds kind of interesting, doesn't it? I just thought that it was so confusing in terms of the way the elliptical nature of the writing and the fact that he was playing with time. And another confusing thing is all of the characters, except one, has a first name that begins with the letter J. So that gets us to thinking, well, what's the significance of that? Is it just because the playwright's name is Jacob Perkins? I was completely at sea and had trouble getting through the play, even though it's barely more than an hour long, directed well enough by Les Waters under the circumstances, and of course, always a privilege to see Kathleen Schellfilk. And Elizabeth Marvel on stage for me, more so. Elizabeth Marvel only because I see her less frequently. I feel like Kathleen's been working a lot lately, which is great, but that's my extremely negative reaction to it. And be very interested to hear what others think when and if they see it. Oh, one more thing. Have no idea what the title means.
- [57:39]
Peter Filicia
Oh.
- [57:40]
Michael Portantier
Cannot figure out what that could possibly mean. Mean in terms of not all of the women are old. And even if that was what it.
- [57:50]
Peter Filicia
Yeah.
- [57:51]
Michael Portantier
So I don't know. I don't know. And there's two pages of notes from the playwright in the program that don't do anything, as far as I'm concerned, to explain that or the reason he wrote the play or what the story he tells in the notes has to do with the play. So I just am completely confounded by this production. Production.
- [58:13]
James Marino
All right, so that's the dinosaurs at Playwrights Horizons. It's running through March 8, so you have about two weeks to go check it out. We'll have a link to that in the show. Notes. Peter, you got back to Mother Russia. Can you tell us more about this production?
- [58:31]
Peter Filicia
I sure can. And what's really interesting to me as well, I was watching it somehow, even though it takes place in Russia as opposed to the Soviet Union, it did occur to me that there does have parallels with what happened in our country after slavery was abolished, that suddenly these people who had been treated fairly and unfairly suddenly had to be on their own. And they weren't used to it, and they didn't know what to expect. So the question here is, is the government, you know, better than the government? You don't know, because we're in a situation where. Takes place in St. Petersburg. It's 1992, no more Soviet Union. And suddenly these people are trying to figure out what to do next. Everything has been taken care of in one way or another. Again, not necessarily fairly, but nevertheless. So one guy, Dimitri, is somebody who is sneakily trying to get dirt on people or exonerate people. We're not really quite sure, but he's doing a lot of taping and. And he hires, you know, Janie, who's. Who's a man who's looking for something to do. He's. He really is at sea. He has no idea what to do with his life.
- [59:58]
James Marino
And.
- [59:59]
Peter Filicia
And he asks for a job. And even though Dimitri certainly does not really have an organization that supports an employee, he takes employees on. Now, also, what's interesting is they are very, very concerned with a singer. She. She had A success, but she hasn't a success in a while. Her name is Katja and she is. She's writing a song. And the song will be a song that you will know. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I guarantee you, no matter what walk of life you're in, no matter what you listen to, whatever your favorite is, Hawaiian music, religious music, whatever. It doesn' know this song. They don't. But we find out why she's been writing this song. There's also a lot of stuff about. These guys are crazy for McDonald's. They can't believe that the. The wonderful taste that comes from McDonald's which leads us to believe that, wow, what is Soviet food? What was Soviet food like? What is Russian food like under these circumstances? But is it just a novelty of McDonald's? Filetto fish is what they call it. They don't know the word filets or the contraction of the O, so. But boy, do they dive into it. And they really take it very, very seriously. And it's really something for the rest of us who won't go near a McDonald's to see people just literally, literally lapping up the crumbs on the wrapping. So nothing is too far gone for them to do. The play is written by Lauren Yee, who's shown up here and there off Broadway and has done very, very well for. But what's really fascinating to me is David Turner. David Turner plays Mother Russia. He's all dressed in red and, you know, he's got that type of face that could pass for an older woman's face. No, he's very, very covered up. His. His head is wrapped around so you don't see hair or anything like that. But he really does a terrifically convincing job of being this woman who's the spokesperson for Russia Talk. The past, the present, possibly the future. And the character is very, very endearing. Very well written, caustic when she needs to be, but nevertheless, more often than not, great fun. And really the highlight of the piece. Teddy Bergman did the direction, did a very nice job with all four of the performers. I should make a point of saying that the woman is played by Rebecca Naomi Jones, who we've certainly seen From Oklahoma to other Things too. Adam Chandler, Berat with a mustache, which does him proud. He really looks good with a mustache, is the employee. And Stephen Boyer, who we know from Hand of God, who had to do all that amazing work with puppets way back when a few seasons ago, is the employer who even has more zest when it comes to eating McDonald's. So I really was very engrossed by this play, and I think it said a lot to say about the fact that you never know what's going to happen when changes are made. And while you hope for the best, well, who knows what that best is or what it can be or should be, or who's going to let you have the best that you can possibly have? But as good as they all are, wow. David Turner gives that performance. You know, of course, you will look at him and you will say, that's a man. I'll grant you that. I'll grant you that. But, you know, so many times when you see a male performer play a woman, you say, oh, that's a man. You say it immediately. But I dare say if I. If you didn't hear me talk about this, there would be a second where you weren't. You wouldn't be so sure. And that's what's really quite wonderful, that he really inhabits the character so. So well. So. So, yes, I can. I can recommend this one quite highly. I laughed a lot, by the way. A lot. And I really love.
- [64:14]
Michael Portantier
Several people have told me that it was one of the funniest things they've seen in a long time.
- [64:19]
Peter Filicia
Oh, good.
- [64:20]
Michael Portantier
Yeah, can't wait to see it.
- [64:24]
James Marino
So Mother Russia over at the Signature here in New York, not in D.C. virginia is running through March 15th. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. Michael, you were in the Village a little bit west of where this show is centered around.
- [64:51]
Michael Portantier
Correct.
- [64:52]
James Marino
So you saw Rent at nyu. So tell us about this production.
- [64:57]
Michael Portantier
Yeah, as I mentioned, I was really looking forward to it because I do think it always helps when you see Rent performed by a very young cast. In this case, it was students of the vocal performance program at NYU Steinhardt. Not the Tisch School, the Steinhardt School. And I mentioned that Tim Weil, who was our guest on the podcast a few weeks ago and who is the original musical director of Ren on Broadway and Off Broadway, originally was going to be there for the talk back after the final performance, which I attended. So that is when I attended. And that was great to have him there and to get to hear some of the cast talk about the show. It was a wonderful, wonderful production. Let me give my praise first to the director, Dr. Eric Hood, who didn't do anything strange or wild with the show. I mean, he just trusted the material and. And the few innovations he made, I thought were subtle and just really wonderful. One thing he did, he decided to have the whole show performed as if it's the framing device of the. Of the AIDS support group, Life Support. So when we walked into the theater, this was at the Low theater, by the way. The relatively intimate space on West 4th street wasn't at the Skirball or at their new space. There's another new space that they have. This was at the Low, where I. I have. I had classes there back in the day, so I had a little bit of PSD when I was walking, but, you know, I got over that. And. Yes, so as you walked in, there were lots of chairs and, you know, and like a blackboard or a whiteboard on the stage because it was supposed to be the setting of the life support group. And. And the show started with the entire ensemble on stage in the chairs. And then, then Mark Cohen came out and started his narration. And then it sort of. So as if the whole thing was sort of being told as a story to the people at the life support group. And then the. Of course, those people became the chorus. And it all worked really well without any kind of a sledgehammer effect. I thought it was a very, very smart, smart thing to do. And then the other thing that he. That the director did, which is just a little thing, but it was so beautiful at the end of. The very end of the show, what normally happens, of course, angel, the character of angel dies in the middle of Act 2 somewhere. And Mimi does not die in Randall, as opposed to La Boheme, but she comes close to dying at the end. And then she. She comes back from death pretty much almost. And then the cast sings a reprise of no Day But Today. And then there's a curtain call. And usually, actually, I guess right before the curtain call, right at the end of the reprise of no Day but Today, the way it was staged on Broadway, is that angel runs back on at the very last minute minute of the reprise, so that it's as if he's rejoining them. Well, here he.
- [68:41]
James Marino
He didn't.
- [68:41]
Michael Portantier
The director did something a little different. He didn't have angel join them again, which, you know, is not, you know, exactly appropriate, because, of course, he's not. He's still dead. He, you know, he's not alive again. But what he did was he had angel the cat, the actor playing angel, walk through the audience, and he had Tom Collins, who's Angel's lover, notice him and like, sort of, you know,
- [69:11]
James Marino
make
- [69:11]
Michael Portantier
eye contact with him and reach out to him. And then he walked off around the side of the stage. So I thought those are two examples of really, really good direction for this production. And the cast was wonderful overall. Roger Logan, Pavia Mark, Joe Cotti, Benny Sanju E. Banks, Tom Collins, Malcolm Holmes. Holmes Angel, Luis Acevedo, Mimi Sophia Bryant, Maureen Sienna Feldman, and Joanne Miriam Zammi. And just the whole ensemble was excellent. And also larger, you know, as tends to happen with amateur and school productions, the ensemble was considerably larger than what we got on Broadway. And that really made a difference for the choral numbers. In fact, I went with our friend Kevin McEnarney, and he. The choral work in this was absolutely beautiful. And I said, I agree with you. I said, but a lot of it is just because there were so many more of them. And so that was another excellent aspect of the production, I have to say. This was the only. Well, let's see. I saw Rent once off Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop, twice on Broadway with two different casts, and then maybe, gosh, I don't know, maybe five or six other productions at various other places. And I've always been moved by the story, but this was literally the first time that I literally had tears in my eyes. So they really must have done an amazing job. And what's even more amazing about that is that unfortunately, the day we went, they were having huge sound problems through most of the first half of act one, to the point where I really thought they were going to stop. I thought they were going to have to stop all these. The mics going out and making all these very loud popping noises. I don't know what happened, but they just soldiered on and they never stopped and they kept going and eventually it cleared up somehow. So I think that, you know, I. I didn't get a chance to actually say anything in the talk back, but I would have congratulated the cast on their. Their perseverance and, you know, going through that without. Without seeming distracted and. And, you know, and still. And still making me cry at the end. So I'm so glad I went. And I. I urge, you know, again, I urge all of you to. It's kind of hard to keep tabs on these college productions because apparently they. They have limits as to how much they can advertise themselves, especially if we're talking about. In Manhattan, you know, the licensing organizations give them all these restrictions, so you. You kind of have to out what shows they're doing, but you can if you, you know, if you just spend some time Googling.
- [72:17]
James Marino
So I listen to Broadway radio.
- [72:20]
Michael Portantier
Yes.
- [72:21]
Peter Filicia
Yes.
- [72:21]
James Marino
Because it's not like you haven't mentioned this 10 times, you know.
- [72:25]
Michael Portantier
Yes. And as I. And. And on top of everything else, as I think I mentioned, the top ticket price for this was $20, and the lowest ticket price was $5 for. For, I think, seniors and alumni and people like that. So how, you know, how can you. How can you go wrong after spending
- [72:46]
James Marino
$250,000 on an NYU education? I can get a $5 ticket.
- [72:51]
Georgia Stitt
Yeah.
- [72:52]
James Marino
Excellent.
- [72:52]
Peter Filicia
That's something.
- [72:53]
Michael Portantier
I think so.
- [72:54]
Georgia Stitt
Yes.
- [72:55]
James Marino
Perfect. All right, so as Michael mentioned, Rent at the Fredericklow Theater was a limited product production, but we'll have a link back to NYU in the show notes. Peter, I have nothing pithy to say about the title Meat Suit. I'm just not sure what to think about that. But there is some sort of production of Meat Suit that you saw. So tell us about this.
- [73:28]
Peter Filicia
Well, Meat Suit, which is at a Second Stage production, but Second Stage has abandoned its theater on 43rd Street. So as a result, now they're at the Signature Theater as well, in a. In a very different space, I'll grant you, than obviously from. From where Mother Rusher is. So this is in. If you go in there, you're going to assume you're going into the big theater. Yes and no. Once you enter the big theater, you'll be shunted off to the side. There is temporary seating, about maybe 10 rows. No center section. Well, all center section, if you will. I mean, there were no aisles or anything like that, so. Aya Ogawa has written and directed a play called Meat Suit, and the subtitle is or the Shit show of Motherhood. Okay. Now, at first, I really thought this was going to be truly, truly, truly, truly terrible, because it came. The first person who emerged was a parody of a woman. They're all women who are playing the parts, but none of the parody of a woman with enormous breasts and silly Valley girl, that type of Persona. So I thought, oh, this is going to be a long 95 minutes. And there are a lot of observations that really ring true. But they may be frustrated for a lot of people because the costumes are so outrageous, including one in which a woman wears a hat, cat, which has a penis in one testicle on its. Atop the beanie that she's essentially wearing, there's a lot of phony breasts. There are a lot of organs that are sticking out of the body, a lot of things like that. But midway through, suddenly the women drop all these strange characters and characteristics. They start talking as real people. People as. Unless this is really fiction. We get the impression that each woman is telling us her own story that I'm guessing that Aya Ogawa found women who had interesting stories about becoming a mother and how difficult it is to be a mother. The fact that when you are. These are not necessarily the perceptions that you hear in the play, but the type of thing like when you, when you become a parent, you're giving birth to your own eventual judge and jury. When you have a kid, you're working for somebody else. When you have a kid, you have to watch with everything you do because children will listen. So the meaty part of the play is really terrific when they just drop all these very stylized characterizations and just become real to us. And I found that astonishingly effective. So if you're the type person who doesn't like stylization and you, you're a subscriber, wind up going to this show and you, you, you get a headache before too much time has passed, I say don't walk out. Stay with it. Because when these women become real, that's when it becomes real. And nobody can deny what they're saying has a lot of truth, a lot of resonance. And anybody who's been a parent will certainly find themselves nodding their heads. And those who aren't yet parents might find to want to rethink the enormous commitment you're making when you do become a parent.
- [76:55]
James Marino
Okay, so Meat Suit is just opening at the Perishing Square Signature Center. As Peter mentioned, it is a second stage production and we'll have a link to that in the show notes. Finally this morning, Michael, you are over at the Met to see the Amazing Adventures of Ken Cavalier and Clay. So tell us about this.
- [77:23]
Michael Portantier
Yeah, I just wanted to mention it briefly because I had gone to see the opera earlier in the season, but I had to leave it in admission because I was ill that night and I started to cough towards the end of the first act and I didn't want to cough all the way through Act 2. And I really regretted having to leave because I liked what I had seen so far. So I went back and this is really kind of a phenomenon of a highly successful new American opera with music by Mason Bates, libretto by Jean Shear, based on the book by Michael Chabon, the Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, set in the World War II era and just before. And it's about two cousins, one of whom who escapes from Poland, comes to Brooklyn where the other one lives, and they wind up collaborating on a comic book with a superhero called the Escapist. And there are all sorts of metaphors and references to obviously the situation of people who are caught up in the war and trying to escape and people who are looking for a hero like that. Very much a Superman kind of a hero, except that his primary achievement is that he escapes from things. So it's a really. Apparently the novel on which this space is quite popular and now the opera, I think it might be almost unprecedented in terms of popularity of a new American opera, certainly within the past several decades. When this premiered in the first fall, it did so well that they added four performances for the spring. And that's when I just went back to see one of those added performances. The Met would normally be dark right now, and in fact, they're dark for the rest of February and they open again, I think, the second week of March. So I really loved it. I don't generally like new operas because I find the music for many of them is either extremely minimalist and. Or sometimes very, very dissonant and spiky. And often the music doesn't seem to have anything to do with the text. But none of that is true here. The music by Mason Bates is very dramatic. It's spiky when it needs to be and dissonant and. And hard to, you know, almost hard to listen to when it should be. But there's also a great amount of melody in it. And I think the text is set well to the music and the storytelling is excellent. Directed by Bartlett Shearer, by the way. So I. They. They have now done their final performances for this year. I would not be surprised. Well, actually, no, I. I'm sorry, they did. They just announced. They just announced next season at the Met and will. It will not be in next season, but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back the season after that and hopefully with some of the same cast, all of whom are excellent. The good news from the Met, in my view, and the view of apparently thousands and maybe millions of other people, is that Peter Gelb will be leaving at the end of his. His new contract, which runs to 2030. This news came out just about two days ago and I have. And every single comment I have read universally said this is very, very good news, which is astonishing. Not one. I mean, almost anything that happens in the world and in the theater and in performing arts, you can. Someone's going to have an opposite opinion, right? But it seems like everyone is very happy and relieved that this person is going to be leaving the Met because the general opinion is that he's almost running into the ground. So hopefully it will still be here in 2030 when he goes. And hopefully they will get someone really, really on the ball to run it thereafter.
- [82:09]
James Marino
Boy, the Met really does things on long timelines, you know, I mean, you know.
- [82:18]
Michael Portantier
Well, I guess it's, I guess it's not that long to sign a new contract for basically five, six years. Right. Because he just, the new contract was just resigned and 2030 is. Yeah. So it was probably a five year renewal.
- [82:37]
James Marino
All right, so the Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay is at the Met. I'll have a link back to that in the show notes. All right, so I had a, just, just a few minutes. We're running very long, but just a few minutes of quick questions for Peter and Mike. Michael I know that you guys don't watch a lot of television, but have you gotten caught up in heated rivalry? Michael?
- [83:10]
Michael Portantier
No, no. Only because I don't have access. But it sure is a phenomenon, isn't it? And as I'm sure you're aware and maybe about to tell us, there was already a music musical theater parody of it that's about to be presented as a. But just for a few performances, as a, I guess as a workshop or a reading. And I'm told it's already completely sold out.
- [83:37]
James Marino
Yeah. So Heated Rivalry is an HBO series. The first season is out six episodes or so about two hockey players who fall in love. And I thought for sure this morning in the men's Olympic finals there would be, you know, two of the hockey players on the American side who would come out and decide to get married at the end. But that has not happened yet. Yet. It did happen in the women's. It did. The women's hockey team also won the gold the other day and. And the captain of the women's team announced her engagement to somebody else that was ice skater or something like that.
- [84:25]
Michael Portantier
Oh, okay.
- [84:26]
James Marino
So not on the hockey team. So there's a big snowstorm hitting Broadway right now as we record. It's going to go through tonight and tomorrow and there's tons of cancellations already. 54 Below has canceled for the next two days or so. Oh, I know that a bunch of Broadway productions have already canceled for this afternoon, this, this evening. So everybody stay warm and be safe. And that's about it. Before we get on to our brain teaser and our musical moments, I want to remind everybody that you can subscribe to these broadcasts by going to the front page of broadwayradio.com there's a subscribe link that way each and every time there's a new episode of this week on Broadway Broadway be automatically downloaded to Apple Podcasts for you. Of course, you don't have to listen to us in Apple Podcasts. There's many ways to get us. One way is Patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com BroadwayRadio is one way that you can support all of Broadway radio shows as well as get us a little bit early, have a few extra bonuses. Listen to us on Sunday mornings as as we record with our pithy banter. Contact information for Peter from Michael and me can be found in the show notes@broadwayradio.com as well as links to some of things we've talked about today. So Peter, do you have an answer to last week's brain teaser?
- [85:47]
Peter Filicia
One of Elvis Presley's early movies that was tangentially based on a Broadway comedy had him singing a melody that would show up at a Broadway musical only a matter of months later. It then had new lyrics by a lyricist who many years earlier had written an Oscar winning song that we can all sing word for word. He gave it a completely different title and lyric. The composer didn't mind. Well, the composer didn't mind because he was Jacques Offenbach and he was dead.
- [86:11]
Michael Portantier
So.
- [86:11]
Peter Filicia
But in the film G.I. blues, Elvis's 1960 movie inspired by the 1933500 performance play Sailor Beware, Elvis sang Tonight Is so Rightful Love, which had a melody by Offenbach. Levi Harburg wrote the lyrics to the Oscar winning Over the Rainbow, took this melody and turned it into Adrift on a star for his 1961 musical the Happiest Girl in the World, which used other Offenbach melodies too. Sean Logan was first, followed by Paul Witty, Stephen Sokoloff, Tony Janicki, Brigad Ingrid Yammen, and David Robinson. This week's Question this musical that was set in the 1930s has a song whose title someone in the early 1940s might say when greeting a group of people associated with the military. Hint. The musical received only one Tony nomination, but that one nomination did result in a win. What's the song in the musical from which it came to? Whom would it be aptly addressed?
- [87:17]
James Marino
If you have an answer for this, email us@triviaroadrayradio.com we'll let you know if you're on the right track. So Michael, what do we have in this week's musical moments?
- [87:29]
Michael Portantier
Well, we have two selections from Georgia Stitt's new album Bell Tower. It was interesting to me that she herself described these as art songs. I've never been a hundred percent clear how one defines an art song. But I think there's a few things. They tend not to have very traditional structure of pop songs such as aaba, you know, verse, chorus. They tend to sound more like. Like sung dialogue. And I mean, this is the huge generalization, but I think that's the case. And they also just tend to have a more of a classical sound to them than a pop sound. And I think all of the songs on this recording are described that way, although there's a great variation in different types of songs. Some are very funny, some are wistful, some are more dramatic. The two selections we chose, the opener is a song called what Lips My Lips have Kissed. And the closer is the song which we discussed a little bit, called Alan's Dead, which is from a song cycle that's included on the album, Small Talk, a very short song cycle. So please enjoy these two wonderful songs by George Style it.
- [89:01]
James Marino
Okay, so on behalf of Michael Portantier and Peter Felicia, this is James Marino saying thanks so much for listening to Broadway Videos this week on Broadway.
- [89:11]
Michael Portantier
Bye bye bye. Alan's dead
- [89:23]
Poet/Reader
well, he's dead to me. Which is not the same but it ought to be. I was betrayed and the break was wrong. Alan's dead Dead, dead, dead, dead. Just not dead Enough, enough.