Please join us for Mark Janas' 60th B'day Party & Fundraiser. June 9th.

As many readers of this blog know, my friend and musical mentor and teacher, Mark Janas, recently had brain surgery. And we want to support him and celebrate him through his recovery. If you know him or have ever worked with him, RSVP for the party and come on down. GREAT entertainment is planned, including Jim Brochu and myself doing a couple of songs from The Big Voice: God or Merman?, for which Mark helped me edit the score.

Theater review: Potted Potter, the unauthorized Harry experience.

Potted Potter, the unauthorized Harry Experience, which just opened at the Little Shubert here in NY, from several years touring England and Edinburgh, with its original cast of Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner, is the kind of family-friendly/adult-friendly show that is so proud of its silliness, you get swept up in the fun of it all, even if you're a 58 year old man who gave up reading the series at about book four. (The conceit of the show is that they promise to condense the entire series down to 70 minutes.)

When I arrived at Potted Potter and saw that I was surrounded by kids I thought, "Oh, dear. This is going to be a long afternoon." I mean kids and theater? I could just imagine the chaos ahead of me as the kids start running in the aisles or bawling or whining or crying.

Nightmare in Diagon Alley.

I was wrong. And here's why.

The kids got all the jokes. Not only did they get the jokes, along with a few ridiculous references to Lord of the Rings and Mary Poppins, but they were enraptured because Dan and Jeff, the actors and writers, skillfully made them feel like they, the kids, knew more than the adults -- and that if they got lost, the kids would steer them back. And "Potter" is filled with a great many plot complications and heavy themes.

As the two men make their way through the volumes wearing silly dime store costumes and constantly fumbling the storylines, the kids around me were riveted. At one point, when Jeff seemed to not remember a certain complexity to an arcane plot point, a kid maybe 7 or 8 years old, corrected him. Loudly. And Jeff just went along for the ride.

And perhaps that's really what makes this show successful. Yeah, it's a silly as a dog wearing a chicken suit, but it's so eager to please, you can't help but get swept up in the laughter.

We even get to all play a game of Quidditch!

How? Well, why spoil the fun. Let's just say that it's as decidedly low tech as the rest of the show, and by the time they dragged some little kid out of the audience, they had dragged it out of all of us.

Jim Brochu being silly behind British producer of Potted Potter, James Seabright.

Since James Seabright is a friend of ours, I thought perhaps my opinion might have been a little tilted. I always want my friends to do well. But, after the opening, the next morning, there was a brilliant little rave in the New York Times.

Well done!

68th Annual Theatre World Awards.

Brian Stokes Mitchell singing at the 68th Annual Theatre World Awards.

What a pleasure it was to attend the Theatre World Awards, the warmest awards show in town.. We had tickets for the balcony, but we're too big to sit in most Broadway seats very comfortably, so Jim said, "Let's sneak into a box."

Normally, I hate box seats. I want to be out front. You hardly see the actors' faces in a box seat. So, like a scene from a Lucy Show, we crawled into the closest box seat to the stage. The Belasco Theater looked like this from our vantage point:



And then this was posted to Facebook:

Jim Brochu & Steve Schalchlin at the Theatre World Awards.
Photo posted by Xanthe Elbrick on Facebook.
That's actually her in the photo just above us. So, I don't know who snapped us.

I grabbed our camera and, turning off the flash, started taking pics of the stage, which, as you can see, was right below us.

Though we wore a coat and tie, these awards are not intended for the glamorous crowd. It's a very particular award and you can only get it once because it's awarded for the most outstanding Broadway and Off-Broadway debuts of the year. There are no nominations and no stress. They choose six men and six women given to them by either a castmate or someone associated with the recipient.

Meaning, the stories were all personal and intimate. The acceptance speeches, short and also personal.

Philip Seymour Hoffman giving an award to a cast mate of "Death of a Salesman"...

...Finn Wittrock who I remember from "All My Children."
Saw him later at the party and said how much I enjoyed him on that show.

The awards were started 68 years ago by John Willis, who published the essential annual volume, "Theatre World," which contains listings and photos from all the shows in a particular year. Several of the speakers said how they, living as a child in Virginia or the  midwest, would read and collect these like a Bible. One said, "I knew the names of every assistant stage manager of the smallest Off-Broadway shows."

The sly and precocious Peter Filichia hosted.

John Rubenstein giving an award.

Deaf actor, Russell Harvard from a play called "Tribes" that everyone is talking about.

The delicious Josh Grisetti who is in the current cast of RENT.

Brian Stokes Mitchell delivers a great song.

Victor Garber.

Jennifer Lim from "Chinglish."

Broadway heartthrob Jeremy Jordan for "Bonnie & Clyde."
That show closed but now he's in mega-hit Disney's "Newsies."

Unlike the flashier Tonys, this is the most "family" feeling awards show in town. I'm so glad we were able to go.

The great Leslie Uggams.

Crystal A. Dickenson from "Clybourne Park."

Afterwards, Jim talks to John Rubenstein.

Jim Brochu with Broadway star, Le Roy Reams.
Jim is holding the Theatre World volume where he first appeared.

Harvey Evans, Lee Roy Reams, Jim Brochu.

New York Morning Light.

Jim Brochu said, "You know. Whoever does the lighting for this city... Very well done."

Queen Elizabeth is in the Bonus Round

You know, that's the new paradigm for life. You go and you go, do as much as you can. And then, at the end, nice and quick.

That was my doctor today.

Tests were good. A1c down to 6.3. That's good! You were up to 9. Cholesterol normal.

But the kidneys.

This combo you're on, he said, one of the three meds. I call it a poisonette. To the kidneys. Like chemo. In fact, it's just like chemo. The next wave of therapies are going to emphasize empowering the immune system.

Nothing to worry about just yet. Are you hydrating?

I tell him how I make my own sugarfree lemonade with truvia.

Come back in a month and let's look again.

He's talking about changing combos. I hate changing combos. He can tell.

It's nothing to worry about.

You go and you go in life, do as  much as you can. And then, at the end, take a bow wearing a fabulous hat.

 Photo on boston.com John Stillwell - WPA Pool/Getty Image

Jason Mraz in the Bonus Round.

I like how he talks about having stepped up to the edge of suicide, but then thought, well, as long as I'm gonna die anyway, I might as well do everything I can. What's to lose? We all have to learn the lessons in life, one at a time. In the Bonus Round, together we're going it alone.

I Won't Give Up (VH1 Storytellers Sneak) - Music Videos - Live Performances

What A Scene Is About.

As I sat in Andy Gale's acting class, yesterday, I thought about a graphic on Facebook about beloved "Desperate Housewives" actress Kathryn Joost, who just passed away at age 72.

There was a time in this world's history when even LIVING to 42 was considered an accomplishment. That she began her career at that age is truly an example of Living in the Bonus Round. When most people have already set their life's course and have more or less planned the rest of their existence, she decided to begin hers.

I got up to do my "scene." I mentioned it before. It's the last speech in the play "As Is." By a hospice worker. The first time I read it out loud, I bawled like a baby and knew that it was a powerful "read." Half the other actors were also bawling their eyes out! And it more or less gave me hope that I wasn't going to make a fool of myself, starting my acting training at age 58.

But, then, after memorizing it, I stood up to deliver it and it felt pallid. Lifeless. Weak. Small. I still cried a bit, but perhaps because I wasn't reading it and discovering it for the first time, the emotions were gone. I could feel myself say the words, but I didn't feel present. Like a ghost was talking. And I felt physically awkward.

So, Andy had Jake stand up and punch at me while delivering the speech. He said the point of this was to get me to use my whole body when I talk. When I punched back at Jake, while saying the words, they stopped coming from my throat, in a wandering way, and became little missiles fired from my gut.

That exercise was very illuminating but I knew there was more to figure out.

Yesterday, when I got up, I still felt lost. He asked me, "What are you trying to accomplish in this scene? Who are you speaking to?"

Who? What? Well, um, it's the last scene in the play and I'm standing on a stage directly addressing the audience. I guess I'm talking to the audience.

"Sit down."

 So, we, the six or seven of us are sitting around a table.

This is Andy's advanced class. Watching these actors perform their scenes.. No. Watching what the actors do with their scenes after Andy's given them a little focus, a little direction, is magical. Each of them have skills that I know I have inside me, but have never really given much thought to. It's like the old saying, it's not what you don't know; it's what you don't know you don't know -- that's the most illusive thing.

"What action are you trying in this scene?"

I didn't really understand the question. My response was, "To make them understand what it feels like to be a hospice worker?"

"No. Trying to make someone understand something is the point of every scene. That's not an action."

I was confused. I couldn't think of anything.

One of the other actors said, "Well, for instance, an action would be -- not that would work in this situation -- that you're trying to seduce someone. So, the words in the speech are all aimed at getting the person in the scene to go home with you."

Andy's eyes went bright. "Try that!"

I must have looked absolutely lost.

Use a description of a hospice patient to seduce someone?

He designated one of the other actors to be my scene partner and I was to seduce him.

It's hard to know what I felt at that moment. I was thrilled with the idea of trying something. Anything new! It didn't hurt that my scene partner, Emanuel Abruzzo, is unbelievably talented and attractive. I feel like I was awkward doing it, but I started to get the point.

In the scene, the hospice worker expresses a great deal of pain and anger. People who experience pain and anger need comfort. My scene partner, Emanuel Abruzzo, who recently danced in the Jack Cole Project, was great helping me with the scene and trying to respond to my tentative line readings. Still, I felt like I had only skimmed the surface of what was supposed to happen.

But I saw it in action when a girl, Christine Bruno, who I hadn't met previously, did the same type of exercise with a scene she had chosen for that week. Again, with Emanuel. The writing was very poetic, and when she read it, as Andy finally remarked, it felt like we were at a poetry reading. (It was about time, and how time feels different to different people, depending on their life circumstance.)

So, Andy had her do the scene again, but this time, as a person who's on the verge of committing suicide, and who is reaching out to someone at that moment. And, suddenly, not only did the words about the meaning of time come alive, but the actress came alive. It was stunning. Absolutely mesmerizing.

Yeah, she wanted to be "understood." But why? In order to find a reason to live.

I love the Bonus Round.

54 Below is a Cut Above.

Credit: Karsten Moran for The New York Times

It was just a trial night, not even a soft opening. Some drinks were available; a sampling of (delicious) finger food. And a kick-ass band trying out the new stage, with its expert lighting design and perfectly balanced sound system that managed to be fully present without being too loud to hear every word and every syllable of the singer.

And when the singer is Terese Genecco and her Rat Pack era swing band (piano, bass, drums, sax, trumpet & slide trombone--The Little Big Band) expertly kicking ass, you don't want to have to worry about whether you can hear her. Or whether she can hear herself. You don't want the brass overwhelming the piano or the singer. And, by Jove, they've made a perfect listening space.

This night, Jim and I were just a few of the friends allowed to sit, watch, eat and drink in "54 Below," a stylish and sumptuous new cabaret space about to open, yesterday profiled in the NY Times. (Go there for more great pictures and to read more about the room).

It's my one bone to pick with most of the cabaret spaces and clubs in this city, aside from most of them being too expensive for regular show folk to hang out at: They simply weren't designed with music in mind. You either can't see or hear the band properly. The entertainment and stage area always seems to have been the very last thing they thought of. As if, all they were thinking about were table cloths and the bar, and "Oh, yeah. Why don't we put the band over there in the corner?" (At Feinstin's, for instance, the room is so narrow, the more than 2/3 of the audience is to the side and back of the performer).

But the owners of this club hired Broadway designers (Tony Award winning John Lee Beatty, designer; architect Richard H. Lewis) to both lay out the room and do the lighting and sound. The minute you walk into this place, you feel like you're in a movie set come to life.

As if a speak-easy from the Prohibition era had suddenly been liberated and given a once-over. The walls are filled with black and white photos of flappers and prohibitionists. Even the men's bathroom was black-tiled and filled with illustrations and cartoons from the 20s.

The rich woodwork and leather gave the room a comfortable, warm feeling. So much more welcoming than the industrial coldness or Japanese spareness that leaves you feeling like you can't lean back without breaking something. Oh, yeah. And the chairs are comfortable and padded, just like the table tops. No clinking of glass or noisy tops here.

Why doesn't every club owner think like this when they open a place? Why would you spend all the money it takes to launch a new club, and then neglect the one thing the people are coming there to see, the show? Because restaurateurs are used to thinking about the food and beverage service. It's what they know. For too many of them, they think of the entertainment as being that annoying part of the night where it's too loud to hear the customer's asking for more drinks. We're not even as important, to them, as the signage.

Credit: Karsten Moran for The New York Times

So, you see, for me to be talking atmosphere and design is something. I know it counts. But, as a musician, the only thing I was concerned about was the band. The sound. The lighting.

And if I had only seen the stage and heard the band, that's what I would have imagined the club's owners to have most thought of. For instance, the ceiling is high enough that the band is elevated. You don't have to look around someone else to see the singer. No heads in your way.

Behind the band, is a textured wall with lights shining up, able to cycle through every color in the spectrum. There are lighting instruments in front, on the sides and providing back-light.

Next week, they open with Patti LuPone. If you are one of her many ardent fans, I would tell you to fly across the country to see her here. You will feel like you're in her living room, like she could lean down and whisper in your ear. 

They're also planning late night music with no cover, no minimum. Meaning, working show folk can drop in after their own shows, and can afford to come and hang out. In fact, the bar area is situated over to the side, so that you could have a great conversation with someone and never interfere with the entertainment or people trying to listen to the entertainment.

Because the club is situated right below Studio 54 (where the wonderful old Jimmy Stewart vehicle, "Harvey" is playing starring Jim Parsons from "The Big Bang Theory"), it's in a perfect location. West side. Theater district. (Too many other spaces are stuck over on the East Side, where most show people don't venture).

The other secret weapon in all this is programming director Phil Geoffrey Bond. He brought the Laurie Beechman Theater to great heights, and knows who all the most talented people in this town are. But the Laurie Beechman, while I love it, too, is small and a bit cramped with a tiny stage. 54 Below is wide and tall. You never feel you're underground. There's air to breathe! And world class performers!

So, why am I telling you all this? Because New York City needs great cabaret performance spaces. That's why. It's an artform in flux, because today it encompasses so much more than just the classic American songbook. It's a place where songwriters who write words that matter can be heard.

Or, more, it's where audiences LISTEN. It needs great listening spaces.

I want people to come to this and hang out, and see shows. I want it to survive. Hell, I intend to play this room. As much as I loved Therese, what I really wanted to do was jump on that stage with a band and kick some ass. So, I will! (They're going to be featuring "up and coming songwriter" nights. Sign me up!)

Born For Broadway.

Steve Schalchlin, Tony Goldwyn.

When Jimmy told me that the benefit he would be doing last night would be hosted by Tony Goldwyn, I was, like, all in. I just think he's one of the most interesting actors alive. And he can sing! So, in the holding pen for all the performers after the show, I made Jim shoot this one. The tie I'm wearing is called an Endangered Species tie, and it was in a gift bag at another Christopher Reeve Foundation fundraiser Jim directed back in L.A. (There were a bunch of gift bags left over, so we went around taking the ties out of them.)

Christine Andreas, the great Broadway star, Jim Brochu, director Marcia Milgrim Dodge, and Sarah Galli,
who produces the evening in honor of her brother, who is quadriplegic. 

 Jim and Christine sang "I Remember It Well," with a few lyric changes to recall Chris and Dana Reeve. They're both gone now, sadly. Tony mentioned, in the prepared remarks, that when Chris and Dana began their foundation to study nerve damage to the spine, the field was all but empty. It was just assumed that there was no way to "fix" the spinal cord. But research has proven otherwise -- and their their foundation that has funded so much this research.

Members of the cast. Can you name them?

 Jim and Christine, btw, left not a dry eye in the house.

Robin Gibb.

When I was a kid, it was totally -- and I mean TOTALLY -- uncool to like the Bee Gees. Long before their disco days, they were considered to be Beatles-Lite. Their unapologetically sentimental love songs were for, you know, girls! So, of course, I LOVED them. Especially this song, from one of my favorite records of all time. I probably went through three of these:

Donna Summer, Freddie Mercury and Musicians.

A straight friend of mine, online, sent me a link to Freddie Mercury and Queen singing at Live Aid, said he put it on, dimmed the lights and just played it loud. At the same time, I read Bob Lefsetz latest newsletter about how "the musicians" knew how good Donna Summer was. He writes:

They're testifying online about "I Feel Love", the Donna Summer hit from 1977. So I decided to play it. And instantly realized this sounds just as modern today as it did when it was cut, that this is the sound filling the Sahara Tent at Coachella, making the little kids go wild while their parents stand still in front of stultified rock acts on the main stage.

Yup, we've got a white concert business and media marginalizing the exploding EDM scene, ignoring music that has a direct lineage to the hits of twenty five years ago.

But the musicians know.

Doing a little research, I found out that Bronski Beat covered "I Feel Love" in 1984, that everybody from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Madonna to Blue Man Group have done the song.

In other words, the musicians know.

But too much of the audience did not.

The musicians know.

So did the gays. The club scene of the late 70s is reviled these days because it was a non-stop party that got reckless, as people get, who are liberated from a life time of imprisonment.

Remember that first season of "Survivor" when the contestants got their first big meal as a reward challenge? I think it was, like, hot dogs and other crap. That night, they puked their guts out, making themselves sick. But food! They hadn't had food in ages! And drink! Beer! Cokes!

Watch people, even non-starving people, around a free food buffet. I remember working on the SS Galileo, and at the 4pm dessert fix, people would pile their plates high, as if eating a full meal. But instead of steak vegetables, it's lemon meringue pie and cookies.

That's how it felt back then, once I left east Texas. Free at last. And the buffet in front of me was irresistible.

A buffet that included music. And I remember when Donna Summer was the best singer, and most cutting edge leader of music in the world. And yes, as a musician, I generally hated disco. H.A.T.E.D. I.T.

But Donna. She could rock. But she didn't get her due. Not really. Because disco sucks, remember? Is she in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? If not, and she died not there, then what's the point of a Hall of Fame? (I just googled it: She was not inducted this year, and the Hall of Fame has issued an apology.)

As for Freddie Mercury, the truth is, as I joked to my friend, I was more interested in what Brian May was playing. Pick up a guitar in front of me and I'll fall in love with you immediately. Real Musicians (ahem) don't really care about front men. They're just there to distract the fans and look good on the magazine covers. I remember Dwight Franklin -- the late lamented guitarist from the Golden Triangle in southeast Texas -- once said to me, in class at Buna High, "What does Robert Plant do anyway? He just sings and blows the harmonica. Big deal."

Musicians are weird.

But musicians know when someone's good. And Donna was good. That's why the electronic music the kids are listening to now is all Donna based. She was the Beatles for ten minutes.

(Jim met her once out in California through friends. When he walked into her house, she was under the sink fixing something.)

Oh, but back to Freddie Mercury, musicians don't know everything. Brian May without Freddie is, well, "just" a guitar player.

Sometimes you just need a gay man in your life.

Obama's Evolution.

The wisest response, I've heard, to Obama's endorsement of gay marriage is that many people who currently are victims of both psychological and physical abuse at home were just told by their president that they have an ally and friend.

Yesterday was the 17th anniversary of the death of Bill Clayton, who I wrote about in New World Waking.

These voices usually go unheard because they are hidden behind a wall of violence, where silence equals death.

I come from a conservative Christian family, and though I was terrified to tell them my Horrible Secret, they've never treated Jimmy with anything but total respect and full acceptance. 

I try to steer clear of politics these days, because I feel like we can't really know anything. But what I do know is that words matter.

Oh, and that my friend, Richard Skipper's picture was on the Fox News graphic. He gets everywhere.

In The Bonus Round, You Never Stop Learning.

This week, I challenged myself to write a new choral anthem for the upcoming Ascension Day services on May 17. I went online to the Episcopal liturgical calendar and tried to find something that would inspire a song.

(I don't think I've ever just pictured a choir and tried to write for them. Instead, my process has been to just write a basic song at the piano, and then do an arrangement of that song. This was more like painting with music, repeating the same phrase over and over again, almost like a chant.)

I found my lyric theme in the Psalm -- which is not too surprising, given the fact that the book of Psalms is, essentially, a song book. There in Psalm 93 is a phrase about how the waters lift up the voice of God. IOW, that if you look all around you, you can't help but be in awe of nature. David was writing that these things ARE the voice of God.

So, putting it into first person, I took that fragment and started with a simple melody, repeated it, harmonized it, flipped it around, changed keys a few times, and ended on a big pretty note. Nothing Beethoven wouldn't have done. Very short. Simple. An anthem to be enveloped into the service itself.

So, we'll rehearse it on Sunday and perform it on Thursday, May 17 at Christ Church in Bay Ridge.

(Reader, if you are musical and would like a pdf of the song just to look at -- or if you have a choir and you want to try to teach it to them, write me a note and I'll send it to you. Soon, I'll post it at my Watchfire site.

Out of The Silence. A School Bullying Project.

I'm very excited to announce a new project, Out of the The Silence, that was conceived during my concert in Olympia. I was approached by a well known calligrapher named Sally Penley who told me she was very moved by the evening, especially Gabi's Song and other stories about GLBT kids who were bullied. So, she put together an idea for a traveling exhibition featuring great calligraphers making works of art out of both my lyrics and the words of kids who were victims of violence.

So, now they're raising the money for the project through Kickstarter. I would encourage you, reader, to go to the site's page and help us put this together. It's very exciting, and I'm honored to have inspired this kind of passion. 

Monkey Helpers

h/t: Andrew Sullivan

I'm Singing Sunday night for St. Clement's Cabaret

Come out and support the wonderful work of St. Clement's Episcopal Church. I'll be singing, along with a whole list of wonderful performers.