An Equinox "Dream."

It came as an email from Nurse Jackie's Thor, Stephen Wallem, who I spoke of just a couple of blog entries ago. You remember he sang "Rescue" at the Broadway Goes to the Dogs benefit.

Hey Steve! Would you happen to be free tomorrow afternoon to participate in a preliminary workshop that Eve Best and I are doing? We're developing a musical version of "Midsummer" and we need open, creative souls to participate. I will be playing the world's largest Puck as well as taking charge of the musical side of the piece...Eve (or Emily, which is her real name) is THE most positive person you will ever meet...I know this is last minute, but we're having a tough time finding musicians who are willing to volunteer a couple hours...would you be free/interested tomorrow from maybe 2-4 or 4-6?

I had no idea what they had in mind, but my response was quick and to the point.

"I'm in. Tell me what you want me to do."

Eve Best.

Mark Janas at the piano.

Stephen Wallem working with Mark Janas.

Stephen Wallem.

Eve Best.

Mark Janas, Stephen  Wallem, and me.

Eve Best, for those who know theater, is one of the finest stage actors around. If you have seen "Nurse Jackie," you know her as Edie Falco's character's best friend, a British doctor.

I asked him what they had in mind and he said that it was a last minute idea dreamed up by Eve, to gather a bunch of actors at the Player's Club and do an impromptu version of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream," with songs added just to make it all that much more fun.

Knowing he was used to doing this sort of thing with his students from Manhattan School of Music, I called Mark Janas and asked him if he wanted to join in. I mean, I could fumfer around with this sort of thing, but Mark and his students are always taking operas or other narratives and turning them into presentations for schools to teach younger kids about opera. Plus, he's a much more trained musician than I am.

Happily, he was free. So, we met at the community room at the Westbeth Center down in the lower west Village, near the Hudson, and the four of us sliced through "Dream," laughing and dancing and having more fun that human beings should be allowed.

It was all completely mad.

As Mark and Stephen worked, Eve and I started dancing.

The Last Session, Viewed Historically.

Jim was surfing around the other day and discovered a new book covering the history of Off-Broadway in New York.

It's called "Off-Broadway Musicals since 1919 from GREENWICH VILLAGE FOLLIES to THE TOXIC AVENGER" by Thomas S. Hischak.


Naturally, we had to look up The Last Session and, along with a history and synopsis of the show, they Hischak said this:

Of the various musicals about the AIDS epidemic that surfaced in the 1990s, this one may not have gotten much attention but many consider it one of the best. 

The songs by Schalchlin were incisive, potent, and avoided sentimentality, the driving rock music keeping any of them from becoming maudlin laments or angry diatribes. Gideon argued “At Least I Know What’s Killing Me,” Tryshia praised “The Singer and the Song,” Buddy offered the ballad “Going It Alone,” and Gideon and his friends reflected on AIDS support groups in “The Group.” Perhaps the most disturbing number was “Somebody’s Friend” about all the false rumors circulating about a cure for the disease. Musicals about AIDS do not do well outside of large cities, and The Last Session was no exception. Yet the quality of the score is unmistakable.

Wow! What a great write-up.

One thing, though. TLS may not have had a large NUMBER of productions "outside of large cities," but in nearly every single smaller theater where it has appeared -- Norwich, Omaha, Rochester, NY, etc. -- it was not only a smash, but reports came back that it became the most beloved and popular show they'd ever produced.

No brag, just fact. Omaha extended it and revived it, garnering 10 awards. Rochester has done it several times, and the Spirit of Broadway Theater is bringing it back after having only produced it a couple of years ago.

It's producers who assume, because it is about AIDS, that end up rejecting the piece. But when they do produce it, the results are spectacular.  This has happened everywhere it's ever played.

And that's just the truth, kids.  

Thor to the Rescue.

Stephen Wallem singing "Rescue."

They call him Thor on the Showtime series, Nurse Jackie. He’s a nurse, and is one of Jim’s and my favorite characters on the show.

His real name is Stephen Wallem and our mutual friend, Ralph Lampkin, introduced us via email last year, because Stephen was moving from Chicago to New York, saying that he’s a really good singer.

Not having heard him, and since we were also making the move to New York, I didn’t get to chance to really hear him until a month or so ago, when he and Nurse Jackie star, Edie Falco, did a cabaret act -- called something like, “The Other Steve And Edie” -- at the Laurie Beechman Theater, near our apartment. (They were fabulous together, and he’s a seriously talented singer and comedian, and writer).

So, last week, I saw his name on a poster for a benefit concert for a rescue shelter program. Called Broadway Goes To The Dogs, I decided to send him the music for “Rescue,” blithely telling him that he should learn it and sing for this concert, which was only a few days away.

I got a note back immediately. “YES!”

I didn’t get to see the concert, but I did get a note saying that it went really well, and that a DVD is being edited. I cannot wait to hear it. But, how lovely that he would so immediately respond.

Adding Insulin.

I love this picture of Jim, doing a Russian pose.

As I sat in the waiting room at the hospital clinic, waiting my turn, a man walked in wearing very silly clothing, balancing a plate on a stick.

He looked over at me and said, “I LOVE THAT BOOK!”

He was referring to “The Island at the Center of the World” by Russell Shorto, a book I cannot put down. It’s a history of early Dutch Manhattan, one that was lost for a very long time due to the fact that the English were at war with the Dutch and they wanted to make it seem as if they invented the United States -- and one that is still be translated from stacks and stacks of old Dutch documents uncovered in recent years.

I was a bit startled by the attention, but the invader went back to twirling the plate on the stick. He was very funny. I whipped out my video camera, but he said he did not want to be posted on the Net. However, I could shoot it just to prove to my friends that I was seeing what I was seeing.

I learned later that he is the clown for the pediatric clinic, and the four women who man the front desk at the clinic love it when he drops by. Usually, the clinic is filled to capacity with people, waiting their turn to see a doctor.

The moment of lunacy and joy is welcome in a place where most people are feeling sick or scared of doctors and institutions.

I have been to this place when it was packed to capacity and tensions are high as people wait for their turn. The women behind the desk all stay very cool and manage to do coordinate everything really efficiently, with equipment that I don’t believe is the latest in high tech design.

When my name got called -- after a waiting period to get my blood tests from my primary clinic -- I met with a very attractive. young female Asian intern (?) who took my health stats and asked a bunch of questions, like what medications do I take.

I hate this question. The list is long and I can never remember the names of everything, not to mention the dosages. I had a list in my wallet, but it wasn’t there.

“There’s the little blue one for blood pressure, but it used to be a different color. It’s a generic”. Or is that the thyroid pill? Actually, they’re both blue and so is one of my diabetic pills.

It can be very confusing to be a walking chemical experiment.

Eventually, after she took some vitals and asked a few questions, “What do you take THAT for??” a rather hurried middle aged doctor came in, but he got a phone call, so he turned me over to a more senior doctor who I immediately fell in love with.

I mean, right out of central casting. He had bushy eyebrows and a kindly crinkle in his face.

She looked down at her notes and began reporting, “The patient is 57, has AIDS, diabetes and...”

He listened to the list and started peppering her with questions. She was clearly trying to maintain control as he corrected her assumptions, or questioned her recommendations, all part of the game.

It was an episode of HOUSE!

The sum of it all was that I was maxed out on pills, that my A1C was now over 9, and too high, and that it was time to start me on insulin injections, news I was prepared for, but not really excited about.

“Start with 10 units. One shot every evening before bed. Test your blood in the morning. We need to get it under 120. Do it for three days, get the average. If it’s still too high, increase the dose by 3 units. And do this every three days until you get it under 120.”

I think my mind started to wander at bit at this moment, though I was concentrating really hard and even repeating instructions back to them, verbatim. Mouth moving. Mind in Miami, thinking about New World Waking and how the rehearsals are going.

10 units. 120. Three days. Three units more. Come back on Friday and a nurse will teach you how to do the injections. This was Wednesday.

On Friday, the nurse strapped this pin cushion to her leg. She took the demonstration injection pen -- I hadn’t needed to bring mine along, though I had it with me -- and dialed it up to 10, then 50 and 100 to show me how easy it is to get the proper dosage.

She handed the pen to me. When you roll it, the numbers fly by and it sticks out more from the end of the pen. It was kind of fun, to tell you the truth. I had this feeling, suddenly, of being more in control of my blood sugars.  

Someone asked me how I keep up such a good face -- and the answer is I don’t think about it. It just is. Also, there is always someone worse off, and I should be grateful for what I do have.

Like Japan, just now, with a tsunami and earthquake. Nuclear plants collapsing. Christ, the entire earth was thrown off its axis.

The images of tidal waves and the reports of thousands of dead. It makes all the stuff in the Middle East seem kind of stupid. In Japan, the earth buckles -- and over in the MIddle East, all the problems are man made.

Those types of problems -- the type that have to do with how human beings treat each other, and who has the most power, money and influence -- can be changed in an instant if, suddenly, everyone just stopped, took a look around, sat across from a table, and came to a mutually and collectively fair agreement.

Peace with justice. Justice with peace.

In fact, in this book about Manhattan, we’ve arrived at one of the moments that changed the course of human history, was when a philosopher named Grotius suddenly put out the idea that man’s natural state of nature was peace, not war. Until then, the author states, everyone in history just assumed that you had to always be at war with someone, always in alliance with some against another.

This was also how the Indian nations around this area functioned. If you signed an agreement for a piece of land, you could live on it, and their tribe could hunt on it, but you had signed yourself up as an ally against whichever this Indian tribe deemed as “enemy.”

For the first time, Europeans sat around a table, decided to end all their wars, which they did, kind of, and went on their merry way.

We know, of course, that that agreement did not end War. But it did prove that reasonable people, if prodded, and with a little faith, can stop shooting each other, at least for a little while. And they can do it by just making the decision to stop. A change of mind.

In Japan right now, they cannot fix things by changing their minds.

And now I realized I’ve gone far afield, but there is a point.

I told Mark Janas, yesterday morning in the cab as we were zipping down to Bay Ridge, where I sing in Mark’s choir at Christchurch Episcopal, that I remembered telling the POZ Magazine reporter, Degen Penner, that I felt sometimes like an old tire being reinflated.

After three days, my morning blood sugar has been testing in the 160 - 180 range. So, last night I dialed up to 13 and tried again.

179.

Hm. I wonder if I should raise the unit level more quickly?

This is on 57th street, but since we're going to Brooklyn...

Jersey looks beautiful this morning, the sun hitting the buildings as it rises.

I want to have a show here some day.

Times Square, going to Christopher Street. I took the 3 train.

We stopped here at 14th Street. I changed to the 1.

Now, I'm back at the Starbucks, sitting in the window.

...reading my book, waiting for Mark and James.

Our choir robes are in these closets.

I think these robes are for a different congregation that meets here.

Mark Janas and Fr. Jeff meet to look through the music.
Lent has started and now the music changes a bit.

There I am looking down at the music.

Flagg Court. Where Jim grew up, across the street from the church.

On the way back home, we walk to the subway on 3rd. We pass these row houses.

Not the biggest front yard in the world, but you work with what you have.

And down into the subway back to Manhattan.

Look! Harry Potter's doing a Broadway musical.
Everyone has been saying that he's really good.

Statue of George M. Cohan in Times Square.

TV and movie star, Maxwell Caulfield, in town doing CACTUS FLOWER,
playing with Steinbeck.

Hell's Kitchen (now called "Clinton.")

Jake Wesley Stewart is growing his beard for a movie role.
We had lunch together at the Polish Tea Room.

Looking out the window of the Cafe Edison AKA the Polish Tea Room.

Sunday Morning Starbucks Window, Greenwich Village

Starbucks. Christopher Street. 

The ambulance is there because I think this is where they are more or less stationed at this time of the day. Or maybe they're on break.

I'm waiting for Mark Janas. We're headed to the tunnel and over into Bay Ridge. Jake joins us.

Woman with ambulance.

This guy seemed homeless.
He came inside and started talking to himself.
But at least he's well groomed.

This is me, reading.
This morning, it's "The Island at the Center of the World,"
which sounds like SF, but is a history of Dutch Manhattan.

A Walk Around Times Square.

As winter begins to release its icy grip on New York, these days of suddenly perfect weather -- a cold day, but no wind and a hot sun -- just kind of pop out of  nowhere. So, we decided to pay a visit to Sardi's to say hi to Max and gang, find out what's up and see what the Center of the Universe* looks like.

It started the night before when we went to see a new musical call "The Book of Mormon." It's written by the guys who created South Park, and it's the funniest two hours I've spent in a theater in a long time.

And I was sitting next to Allan Rickman, but I did not disturb him or say anything to him because the only thing I could think of what how much I love the liquidy nature of his voice. And as good as his Snape is in the Harry Potter movies, my geeky heart loved him first as Doctor Lazarus in blessedly overlooked movie, Galaxy Quest. (Blessedly because it's not over-exposed. When it unexpectedly pops on, I stop everything and watch it to the end. He's a world-weary actor dressed up as a reptilian alien -- and he hates it because he's really a Shakespearean actor).

Turns out Rickman really is a Shakespearean actor and director. But, frankly, I wasn't paying attention to him. I was too busy gasping at the perfection of the comic writing and the side-splitting performance of Josh Gad as a the zhlubby side-kick who becomes the hero by fumfering his way through a ghastly sermon he's trying to deliver to a group of African villagers, though we know his character has never actually read The Book of Mormon.

Joseph Smith is accompanied by hobbits, Star Wars characters, I think I saw Uhuru in the crowd of actors in costumes that pop up onto set in a haze of light and smoke -- along with a very unique cure for AIDS, which is so uproariously, outrageously and intentionally over-the-top vulgar that to describe would be to spoil it, even if I could put it into words that wouldn't give my mother a heart attack.

If you've seen a South Park movie or TV show, you know exactly what I mean. The question of whether that same absurdist cultural satire will work in a medium where satire closes on Saturday night is what the marketers and producers will be pulling their hair out over as the show moves toward opening night.

I wrote on Facebook that, after observing the videos on the site's website how free they feel now that they're in an uncensored medium, I wondered if they would prepare a PG-13 version for the road. Call it the Network Version or something.

But the show isn't merely cultural satire. It actually has a throbbing heart beneath all the hilarious rage.

Another aspect of this show that notable is that, for show that has such unconventional elements, the structure itself is right out of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It has a plot, believable characters who learn lessons, and even a show within a show in the second act a la The King and I.

If you're the kind that likes to see everything before the crowds start pressing in, this thing will open soon and it's already the hottest ticket in town.

A visual pun.
I couldn't decide whether to smile. I guess I chose didn't.

I've always loved subway entrances.
This one's at 8th Ave. and 43rd.

I liked this shot of Jim looking at the Spider-Man.
We've not seen it yet, but I think Jim could fix it. Just put Alexandra Billings in the cast.

American Idiot works and has some spectacular moments in it,
but after I got out, I couldn't remember the names of the three lead characters.
I know who Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins are.
Still, I loved this album and the music in the show is done with great integrity.

Cashing in on the brand name of the film. They haven't started yet here.

This is his home. The history of Broadway is in this restaurant.
Today, we sat at Table One, or as Jim calls it, the Alec Guinness table,
where Alec would sit and read between shows on weekend.

Times Square is teeming with life.
We've dubbed it Branson on the Hudson, or BroadwayLand.
"Mamma Mia" is still running. Why is ABBA not touring?

I'm so glad God finally set a date. Geez.

The new Times Square people plaza sports works of art.
There used to be tables and chairs.

A great star. A true star. Back in his home town after wowing them in Florida and DC.

I couldn't help myself. I had to go back to the doomsday guys.

I look at that sad face and wonder, who is his kid and who told him to stand there with that sign? Does he really believe this?

I did a little research and discovered that it's some radio preacher behind all this. His website is on the other side of this sign; I refuse to give him any advertising. But I do have to ask whether this is the wisest way to get donations? I understand he had declared that "the Bible guaranteed" an earlier date, which turned out not to be the case since this sad creature is still here to advertise the next day that Jesus is coming.

Maybe it got Reverend Righteous a lot new listeners and more cash. Maybe he's trying to get up enough publicity to get his own reality show on some weird Christian cable version of Bravo. He and Fred Phelps can have the Doomsday Hour. Glenn Beck could host. Ah, but Network did it all back in the 70s.

So many lost souls.

This overlooks Times Squre. You can see Disney has opened a new store. Lots of video above.
It's perfectly bright even in the daytime. Now the old signage looks worn and old-fashioned.
Next to Disney is a sign that takes an image of the street. Then it does funny things to the you
as you stand looking at yourself, like circling you down a drain.

Nothing's much changed. It's still P.T. Barnum's world.

I need to walk around Times Square with a sandwich board. First, I need a design...

My Composer Page Has Gone "Live"

What do you look for when scouting for a new song? What helps you make your mind?

Today, I am celebrating because my Watchfire Music composer page is up, and now I want to make it as interactively friendly as possible. Right at the top is my big face, followed by a composer description:

Award-winning composer Steve Schalchlin writes Gospel, rock, theater and country style songs of healing. They alternate between intimate, emotional storytelling songs featuring real characters and stories from today, and soaring congregation-friendly anthems that encourage audience participation. These provide an exciting emotional uplift or prayerful meditation, depending on the need.

Even if you don't buy sheet music, if you're a good editor, especially if you're excessively anal, click through to the songs and look it over for me and see if you catch any mistakes or missing pieces of music.

Available for each song is a lyric sheet, a sample mp3 (sometimes a vocal demo, sometimes just an instrumental derived from a midi readout of the score -- I'll be adding more of these-- for those who want to sing along with the sheet music ), and a sample of the pdf.

Even if you're not a singer, you might find it fun to follow along like that. You can use it to teach yourself sight reading!

It's very exciting to see it all laid out with variations of each song. Notice, on My Thanksgiving Prayer, there are six (6!) different versions to choose from in three different voice ranges -- plus I included all the chord names for guitarists to play along.

There is a pricing system and business plan. You pay for the pdf of the sheet, print it out yourself and then the license allows you to make two copies, one for yourself and one for your accompanist. The choral numbers are individually priced lower than the solo offerings because they need to be able to make copies for everyone.

We fully realize that this is totally on the honor system, and that people can make illicit copies, but Watchfire is finding that most people are happy to pay when they know what the rules are. If you break the rules, nobody's gonna come after you with an ax, but the guilt will lie in your belly like a brick until it develops into an alien that bursts out and kills you.

And, really, nobody wants that.

If you do contact Watchfire, they actively engage with customers. You remember consumer service. It's that thing they used to do back in the stone ages.

Anyway, I want you to look at it, but especially if you're a singer or musician, or event coordinator. Let me know if the site is friendly to you and let me know if there is anything I can do to make it more accessible.

Your friendly neighborhood songwriter.

Gene Therapy, Possible AIDS Treatment for PWAs

Original article here.

In a bold new approach ultimately aimed at trying to cure AIDS, scientists used genetic engineering in six patients to develop blood cells that are resistant to HIV, the virus that causes the disease.

It's far too early to know if this scientific first will prove to be a cure, or even a new treatment. The research was only meant to show that, so far, it seems feasible and safe.

Auditions for "The Last Session" in Indiana

The Theater Within is producing The Last Session in Indianapolis.

Go audition!