Musical theater veteran Darren Day will head the cast of the European premiere of The Last Session, featuring music and lyrics by Steve Schalchlin and book by Jim Brochu with additional lyrics by John Bettis and Marie Cain. As previously reported, Guy Retallack will direct the production, which will play the Tristan Bates Theatre, September 25-October 27.
Set in 1996, the musical centers on Gideon, a gay songwriter living with AIDS, who enters into a recording studio intending to make a musical letter of farewell to his partner. An unexpected visitor named Buddy -- who shares Gideon's Christian faith but is thrown by his idol's sexuality -- changes the plan.
Day, who will play Gideon, performed in the West End and national tour productions of Joseph And His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and the national tours of We Will Rock You and The Rocky Horror Show. TV credits include the role of Danny Houston in Channel 4's Hollyoaks.
The cast will also include AJ Dean as Buddy, Simone Craddock, Ron Emsile and Lucy Vandi.
Tom Turner serves as musical director with design by Ruth Hall and lighting by Richard Williamson.
Click here for more information and The Last Session tickets.
All they talked about was his character, even though his other accomplishments in this life were vast.
He had the ears of the world’s leaders in politics, the arts, culture, education and religion. He had collected every popular artistic award possible and probably every community service commendation. He had more than a few iconic songs that everyone in the world knows, and he helped create one of the greatest and, at the time, revolutionary pieces of musical theater in history.
But this was the quote that hit me.
“When you were with Marvin, you liked yourself better.”
Maybe this quality was why, aside from his talent, that he was able to secure all this real world achievement, because performance art needs collaborators, and if people want to work with you because you make them happy to just be around you, perhaps there’s a great life lesson learned there.
But can one even learn this kind of kindness? This kind of innate rejection of the Me, Me, Me Syndrome that so many insist is necessary to make it in this business? Or is it just a magic combination, that genius and character can suddenly make an appearance in a human being. One whose character is as great as his genius when his genius is off the scale?
Here’s a story I heard:
If he detected an unhappy person in a room, he would personally find out how to put them at ease and make them feel included. No matter how small that person’s role in whatever proceedings were happening. He would, himself, go get some water or a tissue or whatever. He’d take that person aside.
He saw other people. In the room. They were as important, to him, as he himself was.
For preacher’s kids like me, this sounds very much like the image that’s presented of Jesus. But this memorial service was a synagogue. I had this same deja vu at a synagogue in Columbus, Ohio.
And now, here in this giant open room, a Manhattan upper east side temple, the person they were describing, if I were Catholic, was a capital-s Saint.
He was a genius who preferred playing to the folks in the cheap seats. To draw them into the arts.
His wife, Terre, told us that if she was stressing over something, and losing sleep, he’d jump up and down on the bed at six in the morning, writing and singing whole musicals about the problem, refusing to quit until both were cuddled together in convulsive laughter. (If I did this to Jimmy, just call homicide. First, for me. Followed by the person who dared me to do it).
The feeling of loss was palpable. It was so sudden. It came so unexpectedly.
Jim and I actually ran into him only a few weeks ago outside of 54 Below. We were headed to the open mic, which means it was Sunday afternoon..
The normally jovial Marvin seemed distracted and stressed; out of sorts. Jim congratulated him on the good word coming out of Nashville -- people are liking his musical adaptation of “The Nutty Professor,” which he is / was doing with Jerry Lewis. He mentioned the Liberace movie and mumble, “lots of work. lots of work.” And then he hurried off.
Jim remarked to me, “He didn’t look good.” No. He didn’t.
Temple Emmanuel-El.
The place was packed. Oy, and what a place.
2500 people at least. Tall 20-story ceiling. Stained glass windows.
When we arrived, we joined our friend Russ Weatherford, and, at the door a boy said to us, “Center aisle.” He handed us a piece of paper. Now, at Catholic funerals, you usually get a little program. Who’s gonna speak, sing, etc.
This looked like a mimeographed copy of some lyrics. Something you might hand out at a 1980 rehearsal. “What I Did For Love.”
I thought, this is perfect. I had heard of a volunteer choir....
We made our way to the center aisle, but there was a line. Then Jim saw some empty seats over on the left, so we went back over the entered aisle left. Got up to the empty seats and there was a rope and security guard. Oops.
Suddenly, a woman we did not know came over and waved us in, “It’s okay.”
What was this VIP seating? No. It was family. How this woman knew our faces or even knew that we were included as family, I’ll never know. It was like a magic trick. Or maybe she let anyone in who asked.
We sat down. Suddenly, Jim saw Donna McKechnie there in the center aisle. He signaled her over. Her face broke out is a big grin and she joined us, me in the middle.
This was the GREATEST place to be.
A Chorus Line. Donna was there at the start of it all. She played an iconic role in his show. She danced an iconic dance.
“Look!” she said, leaning in front of me, Jim on the other side. “I just found this picture.”
I saw people on there I couldn’t identify. 70s style long hair. Clothes a little loud and flowery. Sideburns. Jim named them all. But one I remember.
Michael Bennett. The man who conceived it all. Who died of AIDS before the Crixivan suddenly started saving us. .
“Do you remember,” Jim asked Donna, (my sides were starting to sweat from the two bodies pushed up against mine, leaning across me), “I was in California and I called you and said I was coming to New York. And you said, ‘I have an extra ticket to A Chorus Line.’ And I asked, “What’s that?’ It was maybe the third performance. After it was over, I couldn’t move! I think you didn’t get the job.” [Meaning her character not getting the job. She played a star auditioning to be in the chorus of a show because she’s out of work and she’d rather just dance in the chorus than do nothing.. In the earliest incarnation, she doesn’t get the job.. They changed it, eventually. Audiences needed to see the win. We love her too much for her to fail.]
I remember seeing an an old archival video in black and white. Well, god bless youtube. This won’t duplicate the experience, but it’s a record of The Number. For readers who don’t like musical theater, you may not get the style of music, but the message and the passion about needing to do the one thing in life that you love the most is universal. In her case, to dance. And watch Donna’s head snaps.
Surrounding us in the side aisles was a volunteer choir of 600. Great people of the theater were in that choir, including Sheldon Harnick, my favorite lyricist in the world.
When they sang, the sound came from all sides. Rich and thick. An aural blanket that became like water, warming us.
It was chilling. It was heavy.
It was angelic.
I turned on my video camera to catch the music. Again, can’t duplicate the experience.
“Everyone who talks about A Chorus Line relives it as if they discovered it themselves.” Heard afterwards.
If that’s not the mark of an effective show, what else is? And now here we were in with an overflow crowd of admirers. But it was a different scene, the day before.
The wake.. I know the term wake, but somehow, I couldn’t remember if I’d ever been to one, even as the son of a country preacher. I tend to forget funerals.
And, since I let Jimmy handle the schedule of events for our lives, i.e. he drags me around as if I were a dizzy professor husband, I didn’t realize we had two separate Marvin events on the calendar.
Marvin Hamlish's casket at the wake.
Marvin Hamlisch’s wake was at a small funeral home on the east side. (We never go to the east side--too many canyons and expensive stores). We entered the small hallway. Men in black suits, white shirts and identical blue/black ties directed us forward to a small gathering room. From the foyer, we could see a room filled with flowers, mostly yellow in color. Several combination bouquets featuring lollipops and rainbows.
Four or five rows of pews faced the casket, which was just a few feet to our right, meaning we were entering the side of the room. The back of the room was to our left, so we walked that way, to the back of the center aisle, waiting for our turn to approach the casket. There was one party at the casket. We were next.
I saw what looked like 10 or so family members sitting in the front row. All the kids were dressed nicely and their hair combed. They seemed like typical kids. A little squirmy, but quiet. At the piano was a skinny young black-suited guy with white skin and a mop of windswept black hair casually playing Marvin’s music.
“Can it be that it was oh, so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?”
(I was puzzled by all this, of course, because I was expecting a huge crowd. Hadn’t I read there was going to be a big service? With big crowds and celebrities?)
Ahead of us at the casket were three ladies. They were huddled together and crying. We were the only ones waiting. (Where’s the big crowd?)
Finally, it was our turn. I noticed that the pews were mostly empty. We walked up the aisle. Two of the ladies had left. The other one turned to us.
I’ve never seen a more radiant face. We met on a theater themed cruise about 10 years ago, Jim and Marvin both did shows. It was Marvin’s wife, Terre. Jim said he and Terre hung out a lot on that cruise, and laughed. Now, they were hugging each other and crying.
I remember meeting Marvin on that cruise, but Jim is the one with the social skills. I think I probably just stared at him, goon-jawed. I feel much more like Barney Fife than Andy Taylor.
I noticed the flowers on the casket. Small yellow buds that cascade together into pile of color. “I like the flowers.” “Oh,” she said. “Yellow freesias. Marvin’s favorite.”
Terre said, “Marvin would have like it if you sat for awhile and prayed. We didn’t really have a chance in L.A. and, well, you know L.A.”
Did she just make a joke? She did. I think I love this woman.
Then it dawned on me. She was greeting everyone and comforting them in THEIR grief.
We took a place in the back pews. I bowed my head and realized I didn’t really know that much about Marvin. Not really. Not who he was. But if who he was, personally, is anything like Terre...
I looked around the room. 10 people. Maybe 15. “It’s early,” Jim said.
We sat and watched people quietly stroll in, after signing the guest book. Some stayed. Some didn’t. Terre greeted them all and escorted them to the closed casket. .
Susan Lucci came in with her husband and they quietly sat in the second row. We knew Susan from having acted on All My Children (my one great screen credit -- a guy with his back to the camera, standing at a ticket counter--a favor from the producer, Jackie Babbin, to my parents who loved watching it at home. Jim was the priest who married Bennie and Donna).
At one point, I saw a man approach Terre. He pointed at the piano. She nodded and they said something to cute, skinny guy. They changed places.
He played a Marvin song. Not ostentatiously. Not with any flourish or pomp. The few of us who heard it listened quietly. After he finished the one song, he quietly got up, and windswept boy returned. I wondered if he was someone famous or of note. He probably was.
As we exited, I noticed a media-looking guy with a video camera, but he didn’t seem to be interested in us.
Jim eventually realize I’m an idiot and he explained that the funeral would be tomorrow.
I caught Jim Brochu talking to Marvin Hamlisch backstage,
after a performance of Zero Hour.
Here, they posed for a picture.
Jim told him, "Joan Crawford said to always be on the right when you have your picture taken."
Marvin asked, "Why?"
"Because it means you always get your name first in the caption."
At which point, Marvin playfully wrestled his way past Jim to get on the right.
Marvin Hamlisch, Jim Brochu.
So, back at the funeral.
I sitting about halfway back in the huge spacious synagogue. I got Jim Brochu on one side. Donna McKechnie on the other. Down the row is Brian Stokes Mitchell -- who sat in our living room 16 years ago and heard the score from The Last Session -- I see Leslie Gore. Susan Lucci again.
I look up. It’s the biggest, most beautiful sanctuary I’ve ever seen in my life. (Is sanctuary a Christian term?) It manages to be majestic and restrained all at the same time. Every inch of the elaborate ceiling was detailed. And no pillars. No obstructed view, like in the big Gothic cathedrals.
There are two pulpits. One on each side. They look like balconies.
Everyone hushes at once. A rabbi steps out on one and sings mournfully in Hebrew. (I sang Hebrew when Michael Sugar took me to his synagogue in Los Angeles. They give you the lyrics written out with the English alphabet. I pronounced them like Spanish.)
Then, a rabbi on the other side says, “Our first speaker is president William Jefferson Clinton.”
Really? What? On video?
Nope. He walked into the room. He was right there. Took his place at the podium quietly and described the kind of person that’s rare in our world. A genius/virtuoso with a true heart. A humble man who walked with giants. A man who never said no. A genuinely kind person. “The rarest of combinations.”
Person after person got up, but my favorite was the family rabbi. “Marvin’s mother brought him to me when he was 15 and said, ‘My boy is gonna be the biggest composer in Hollywood.’” He continued, “She underestimated him.”
He loved talent. He nurtured talent. He gave money for music education, helping thousands of students. The room felt warm. I nodded off. Donna punched me awake. I’m glad she did. Hey, I got AIDS. I fall asleep a lot.
The choir sang “What I Did For Love.”
Everyone stood. There was no attempt at a master of ceremonies. We all just did it together.
“Love. Love is never gone
As we travel on
Love’s what we’ll remember”
Now, everyone’s singing. None of them are using the lyric sheet. They know the words.
I put my arm around Donna.
The song ends. No applause. Total quiet.
“Jews don’t applaud at a funeral.” -- Heard afterward. (Also heard that it’s not necessarily true, that it’s not a hard and fast rule). Well, it was this day. And no one gave us any rules..
Oh, people tried. Once or twice some, no doubt, Christian or heathen clapped. But it was met with deafening silence. I kept trying to control my own self.
Several weeks ago, they applauded at Celeste Holm’s funeral, in “the little church around the corner,” Episcopal. People loved Celeste, too. They told funny stories and laughed together. But, then the priest, at the end, invited us to give “One last ovation for Celeste”. It felt good to do that. To exult in the midst of the sadness.
But there was something very moving and profound about maintaining silence, too. I loved how the whole crowd seemed to know.
Looking around me, and judging from the stories, I think everyone was still in shock. It was the kind of mourning you have for someone who is so good, and so wonderful, and who is always so “unrealistically” positive, you take them for granted.
I mean, let’s face it. Someone that genuinely kind and good. Makes you feel a little guilty that you aren’t that way. And, yet, you so want to be them, that just being around them makes you feel you’re doing it.
They don’t announce themselves or parade themselves around. So, when they slip quietly out the back door, it’s only then that you realize what you’ve lost.
Being sweet and kind and nice. That doesn’t make good TeeVee. That’s why the Desperate Housewives make more money than anyone else on TeeVee.
He had a moral value, they said.
“He never said no.” He said yes to every charity invitation. Every appeal for money, presumably.
“You liked yourself better when you were around him.”
Idina Menzel sang “Everything Is Beautiful At The Ballet.”
Again someone tried to applaud. A loud, ringing smack that got stopped dead in its tracks.
Eventually, the casket was hoisted by six guys and brought down the aisle. The family and close friends followed.
We filed out. It was raining.
We saw friends. We saw celebs being interviewed. Chris Matthews.
But there was no fanfare. No TA DA!!
Just mourning. Just silence.
The silence left by a man who was admired for his musical legacy and who was dearly and deeply loved.
A dear friend of mine is going through an unimaginable situation. The kind that would wilt and destroy most of us. And he's doing it with dignity, grace and more than a little piss and vinegar. Reminds me that what most of us consider "tragic" has nothing at all to do with actual tragedy; but is, rather, an annoyance we've inflated well beyond its actual nature.
This past Friday, in a major New York City ER with a kidney stone.
We arrived about 6. The pain came on all of a sudden. We had been meeting with Bob Bartley, the director of Character Man, Jim's new show.
A nurse, who resembles Nurse Jackie, whom we had met before was at the intake desk. Said it was a very busy night, but escorted us right in.
"Your pain level is worse than that girl's toenail."
A guy jumps up and runs over to Jim and says he is a huge fan! He asks for pictures to be taken. We assume it’s a theater fan who saw Zero Hour. But no...
He and his grandmother, back in Winslow Arizona, had seen him on “Millionaire.” Jim asked him his name and he replied, “Rhett Butler.”
We follow the yellow line through two sets of doors, past multiple desks in a very big room. The cubicle/rooms for incoming patients surrounded the room. The doctors and nurses and staff were on islands in the middle.
They took us to the same booth where Jim’s toe was previously looked at. On the gurney next to us was the body of a black man, his head and face covered. He was lying on his side, cradling a small pink tub filled with a clear green/black fluid that had obviously come up from his stomach. Floating in it was black islands of matter. It made me nauseous, so I turned away.
A dead guy next to us? We kept looking and peering to see if there was any movement.
Jim took a chair at the foot of the bed very patiently. He had the NY Times crossword puzzle in his hand. I had my own book, “Thunderstruck,” a true story from London, early 1900s, partially about a maker of potions who knew nothing about medicine but was a practicing medical expert, doling out elixirs, and some famous murder and Marconi and the invention of the radio.
I was doing everything I could to not think about how much pain I was in.
A woman came in immediately, pushing a tray with a computer on top. She got all of our relevant info, insurance, etc.
Then, we waited.
The doctor arrived. A very attractive young woman in blues. She asked me what was going on and I told her I knew all the symptoms. I’d had kidney stones four times before. We don’t have to do any imaging and I’m in a lot of pain.
I was also angry because we were going to debut a new musical piece I’ve been laboring over, Kyrie Tremulare. It’s the most complex piece of pure composing -- as opposed to songwriting -- I’ve ever done. And since Mark is out of town, and I wanted Stephen singing tenor, I decided to conduct the piece myself.
I had already spent the afternoon making 20 copies (4 pages, front and back). I had also been, here in the early morning hours, been standing up, headphones on, conducting it.
I know I’m a total spastic while conducting. I’ve never really done it except for a brief summer in Dallas when I was 19, from which I ran, screaming back to the safe arms of my band, waiting for me back in Jacksonville. I had no capacity to work in the adult world at that time. I probably still don’t.
But I had, on the spot, conducted a rehearsal the week before. And I was forgetting simple things, like giving pitches, how to run parts, etc. It all felt so overwhelming, which is why I started practicing in the dark. (It was pretty fun).
So, to be lying here in agony, knowing I’d have to cancel Sunday, I couldn’t bear it. No! I HAVE to be there!
The doctor agreed we didn’t need imaging, but they needed some pee. Of course, I had none. I had been furiously peeing, and drinking water, from the moment I felt the first bolt of pain hit me in my back and run down to my testicle. In fact, at first, I thought I had just sat on one.
I gave her my printed out list of the many medications I’m on, plus the names and phone numbers of my doctors. She loved me for that. Loved me.
“A nurse will be in soon. We’ll hydrate you and relieve some of that pain.”
We waited about 15 minutes when another woman came in. She was also a doctor, looked at my charts, agreed with the previous doctor. She was cute. Younger. Said the nurse would be right in, but that they’re suddenly really busy tonight. I said I understood.
My task was to get some pee into the flask. Jim went and got me a bottle of water. So, I drank. And I read. Marconi was just this kid, living with his mom in Italy when he got the idea about transmitting waves through the air. He was now in London and all of London scientific society was against him. How dare this kid come from some backwater in Italy -- a foreigner! -- trump the greatest work of the Royal Society. He didn’t even know the basics of electricity!
I peed. I peed more. Little trickles. But I was guzzling (not too fast) and going. Eventually, a couple of inches in the cup.
But where’s the nurse? We have the curtain open and are watching it all. The staff seems very efficient. They’re walking this way. That way. Sometimes they look at me. Something they don’t.
Jim asks me what state did Springsteen name one of his albums. I said Nebraska.
We notice the dead guy. The sickening tray of viscous green/black.
I’m reading. I’m drinking. I’m peeing, little bits, every few minutes.
Out of the corner of my eye, something jerks. It's the dead guy. He's alive.
Jim gets up and leaves for a moment. I pick up the puzzle. I immediately see the pun solution to one of the big riddles: The Shod Of Iran.
For three hours we do this.
But somewhere in the midst of all that, during one of my peeing sessions, I suddenly felt less pain. Had this been like the first stone I ever experienced, I would have killed myself waiting three hours. I remember dividing each second into micro-thousands watching the nurse slowly approach with the pain medication that time.
But, am I feeling a bit better? I hurt, but the intensity is gone.
Dead guy moves more. He's rather attractive. An attendant comes in and tells him he's being moved to a room. He doesn't seem to comprehend very much.
We wait.
Three hours. I tell Jim let’s get out of here. We’ve been abandoned.
He says no. You can’t do that.
So, I notice that both doctors are down the hall, attending to someone who is obviously in dire need. I get up and walk over, steadying myself on a desk. The person behind the desk sees me, but doesn’t stop me.
I watch the two doctors rushing to save a woman. They have monitors hooked up to her and are looking at some image I find indecipherable. They’re quietly and quickly doing everything they can. I just want out. But I don’t want to interrupt. Occasionally, each one looks at me. But they don’t stop what they’re doing. I think, Okay, message sent.
I go back to the bed and wait, watching the fluttering curtains as they dash in and out.
The orderlies roll the dead guy out, who, by now, has been on his feet and then back down again.
Finally, I see doctor one, rushing my way. Not to me, but in my direction. I raise my hand and just give a tiny signal, hoping she has two seconds. She disappears. Then suddenly appears.
She gives no sense that she’s annoyed with me.
I tell her, “Look. I just want to go home. The I.V. nurse hasn’t arrived. It’s been three hours. If you would just prescribe me some pain pills, I’ll be out of your hair. Cased closed.
She said, “I need to run your urine. I’ll get the nurse to do it right now. If there’s blood, showing evidence of the stone, then yes.”
I think it took 15 minutes, max. A nurse came in and opened up a foil package. Big white pill. “Just open your mouth.” She shoved it in. I was so happy.
“I also have an injection for pain. Where’s the I.V.?” she asked.
I replied, “It never came.”
She said, apologetically, “I thought Christine had done that.”
I was too happy to be going home to raise any objection to the fact that we had been deposited there are forgotten. I’m sure they would have noticed me if I had started screaming. Which I didn’t. I made it through the night.
I was never so happy to be home, in my life.
I went to bed, crossing my fingers, hoping the stone had truly gone away.
Next day, I was sore and weak. But fine. I would get to conduct my song!
We even went to lunch with the Isers, friends of ours from Los Angeles, involved in theater there. We mourned the death of a dear friend, Joan Stein. Jim said she was one of the producers of The Last Session. Or had something to do with the production.
It’s a huge loss for the L.A. theater scene.
I was getting tired. So, we came back home and I laid down on the couch and just slept. Slept all day long. I could tell that my body had suffered a great deal of trauma, enduring all that pain for so long. The last time I had a stone, it lasted, I think, two weeks. Ever since then, I’m the most hydrated person on the planet, and that’s probably what saved me.
I’ve left Marconi, meanwhile, on the bluffs in America, winds knocking down the poles he erected to send a signal across the ocean, a feat the British scientists said was an impossibility. They were wrong.
The doctor with the potions, his wife has left him, though he's better off for it.
And I’ve written my first serious composition. I’m not Beethoven, by any stretch of the imagination. But, I think, for a first effort, it’s not bad.
The piece is in Latin. Translated, it’s someone begging for mercy.
I was certainly begging for a little mercy on Friday night. And how wonderful that it was granted.
As a diabetic, one of the few cereals I could enjoy was Special K Protein Plus. The sugar level was 2 grams. (I'm not supposed to eat anything above 3 grams). It was one of the few cereals featured on low carb websites.
So, yesterday, I grabbed a box without looking at it.
BIG MISTAKE.
When I got it home and started to open the box... I saw this little strip across the top: NOW TASTES EVEN BETTER!
I'll be truthful. I agree that it wasn't the best tasting cereal in the world. But if I needed it to be sweeter, it was easy to sprinkle on some Truvia or Splenda. Taste problem solved. And it didn't take much.
But as soon as I saw that NOW TASTES EVEN BETTER! banner, I knew I was in trouble. I looked at the side and, sure enough, sugar content: 7 grams. More than THREE TIMES the sugar as before. Which puts it completely out of my diet.
The Last Session-London Music Director Thomas Turner with composer/lyricist Steve Schalchlin
If it's not officially registered in the Book of Mormon as a sin, it outta be.
To sit in a room with a ridiculously talented stranger who's singing and playing your music at you. Thomas Turner has a reedy, affecting tenor and seems incapable of singing without meaning it.
It shows in his playing, too. He has genuine soul.
Our job, this day, was to run through the Sam French (which licenses plays and musicals) score of The Last Session, talk about some of the moments and make a few corrections. And also, to insert new piano arrangements which I have recently completed.
We also discussed the casting. It seems we are getting all our first choices. I can't say anything official yet. We'll wait till after the Olympics. Plus, all the paperwork needs to be completed, etc.
But what I can tell you is that the experience of sitting and listening to someone sing your songs at you is just the greatest and most terrifying thing -- for both parties. They're always so afraid of doing something "wrong" or badly. And I never even think in those terms. All I ever care about is whether they are meaning it.
Do you see what I mean? Even if this person doesn't have the greatest of voices, I'd rather hear that person than someone who can nail every note, but who isn't fully embodying the song itself. This is not opera. Technique is a consideration, but it's secondary in the overall scheme of things. Or should be. Maybe even in opera.
However, when you have someone who has a truly beautiful instrument -- and who has spent many years developing that instrument -- and who is a gifted actor, there's nothing like it. Everything is transcended.
Anyway, that's what we did. I snapped a picture of us, above.
MORE INFO:
I've been asked to write a more fleshed-out version of how the score came to be. And what specific things we were looking at -- and why we were making any changes at all. So, this is long, but it's informative. For aspiring composers and playwrights, here's how this show score got put together.
Let's start by saying that I didn't sit on a hilltop with quill and a piano, and write it down, note for note. As a matter of fact, at the time I had never really written any music down. In the pop world, where I come from, you don't write out a score. You make a demo. In fact, in L.A. and Nashville, writing out the song is a pointless exercise. If you don't have a demo, you don't have a song.
I could read music, but it's like being a person who can understand Spanish but not be able to speak it.
So, how can it be that a person can have a musical and yet not be able to write it down? Let's walk down that path a bit.
First of all, this was 1997 and, in case you're new around here, I didn't write these songs to be in a show. I wrote them as musical therapy. Writing them kept me alive. I was barely able to hold my head off the pillow, sometimes sleeping for days at a time. A "musical" was the last thing on my mind. Mostly because I didn't come from that world. I was a pop songwriter.
When Jim wrote the book, and we did our first workshops, the cast members and I just made up the harmonies on the spot. I was playing and singing. We were more like a band than a show cast.
This tradition carried forward into New York to Off-Off-Broadway where the new producers asked me for the vocal arrangements. Vocal arrangements? You mean we can't just jam? No. This was no longer a workshop.The actors actually need to know what you want them to sing. In professional theater, you can't just say, "Here. Make it up."
I did, at the time, have some rudimentary charts written. (No computer score writing program was available). They looked like something a 6th grader might write out, but they did reflect, for the most part, the basic songs.
I don't think I had ever even seen a Broadway show score, much less knew how to write one out. Luckily, they hired Michael Gaylord, who did a spectacular job for not a lot of money. In fact, at the time, he might have even done it for free, hoping it would move on so that he could get paid later.
As for the piano, the main instrument in the show, when we cast Bob Stillman, a Princeton/Julliard graduate and Broadway veteran who can sing and play circles around just about anyone in this city, and who is a songwriter in his own right, we sat together going through the songs, and listened to the demos I had recorded.
I would show him what I played and he would "get it." But he was essentially playing the songs as I had written them. He also improvised intros and little musical moments. Eventually, these extras became set in stone.
Still, with all that, when the actors sang the score, they had permission to also improvise. Bob would play different things every night. The singers sang as any rock band might sing. Absolutely live. It's one of the aspects that makes the show so believable. They might be "playing" a band, but they really WERE a band!
But, over time, Bob had begun adding a level of sophistication that was beautiful, but felt kind of wrong to me. I didn't know how to articulate it. But it felt less like Steve and more like Bob. And I'm not criticizing Bob here. He would often ask me if I liked something, and I would more or less assent.
What he didn't know was that I felt intimidated by his, well, awesomeness. And I had no experience dealing with this.
Anyway, we moved up from Off-Off Broadway to Off-Broadway and hired John Kroner as musical director.
At the first new rehearsal, I heard all my chords back in place. Like, out of the blue. So I nudged John and asked him what was happening. He said, "I listened to your demos and I liked those chords better." I said to him, "Oh. I thought I had played those chords because those were the only chords I actually COULD play." He said, "Hey man, you're better than you think you are. Have a little confidence."
Again, Bob never did anything wrong. He was totally asking me and I was encouraging him. Trouble is, I was too timid to say anything. And wouldn't have had the words, even if I had.
When Sam French came around, offering to license the show, they needed a whole score. By then, the cast members were so familiar with the material, every night was a new night. Once again, everyone looked at me and I felt like a complete idiot. Plus, how do you capture something like that on paper, when it's never the same show twice? I suddenly understood all the Deadheads, taping every show.
And that's kinda how this problem got solved. They taped a show and hired someone to listen to it and transcribe everything he heard, including Bob's improvisations and any particular riffs the singers sang. And THAT is what got frozen onto the page. I remember, at one point, wanting to make a correction to something, and was told that, no, Sam French wanted exactly that performance. Or maybe I imagined someone said that. I don't know. It was all very confusing. I was totally overwhelmed by the process.
A score was printed.
Later, after I didn't die, I was asked to perform the role of Gideon. It was my first time to really confront the score as a musician. Well, over the several years, in schools and in colleges and universities, I had sung and played these songs, solo, thousands of times -- and I now had more specific piano arrangements. I was more aware of what I was doing.
And I began writing out the music. Writing out what I was actually playing. At first, it was really hard. But, slowly, I was figuring it out.
One of the songs I changed significantly was "At Least I Know." I changed the piano rhythm almost entirely. We had changed it, already, when the show moved from New York to L.A. To a more rockabilly style.
So, now the score has totally new piano arrangements for "Save Me A Seat," "Going It Alone," and "At Least I Know" and we've eliminated the vocal improvisations. I just told Thomas to let the singers find their own improvisations.
I am so excited, now. I hope they are able to record a new cast album.
The “Out of The Silence” project was born in late January, 2012, when Sally Penley attended a PFLAG*-sponsored event in Olympia, WA. The concert featured The Righteous Mothers and Steve Schalchlin, a New York-based singer/songwriter. Sally was so moved by Steve’s lyrics about his own life experience, The Righteous Mothers’ messages, the plight of gay youth and, more specifically, the issues of bullying and teen suicide, that she decided on the spot to figure out some way to help and lend her voice to the cause. She knew she couldn’t be silent.
After the concert, Sally approached Steve and told him she’d like to organize an art exhibit featuring his lyrics and some meaningful quotes on the issues, translated into powerful visual art. He liked the idea and contacted her when he returned to New York, suggesting that she meet with Gabi and Alec Clayton, parents of 17-year-old Bill Clayton who committed suicide after a gay bashing. Gabi and Alec were warmly receptive, gave their blessing to the concept and offered to help guide the effort as we move forward.
As HIV-infected adults live longer, they are increasingly affected by such chronic illnesses as heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease and osteoporosis, common problems among many older people.
But studies suggest that those with HIV may be at higher risk for some of those illnesses and may get them earlier than usual.
HIV causes the immune system to fight the virus, and that inflammatory state continuously damages organs, even when antiretroviral medications are taken, researchers said.
The process of rebirth/renewal isn't a one-time thing. It's what we do every single time we decide to open our eyes. Every day we make a choice to live or to die. How many walking dead people do you know?
No wonder zombie shows are so big now. People love looking into the mirror.
Until they hate it. And then they'll switch back to vampires. Or fantasy heroes.
Meanwhile, they'll wake up again and make that choice. But how do you start? How does one start over even if you wanted to?
Well, it starts with that choice. Once you make it -- really make it -- the things you need will appear. You will find them.
We live in an age in which every possible piece of information is available on a simple touch screen.
If you cannot find it, it's because you haven't really chosen the reboot switch. You may want to have made it. You may have even told yourself that you want it.
But it means changing. Changing your habits. It may be as simple as deciding to not just clean the house, but to create a schedule that forces you to keep it that way. Over and over and over.
The choice isn't merely in your head. It's in your fingers and your feet.
My new anti-virals will be Sustiva and Epzicon, which, I think, is the technical term for a sound effect for the TV show, Wipeout .
"Sound an Epzicon when the giant hand hits the fat lady into the water!"
The bad news is that, upon follow-up, there is still blood in my urine. Dr. Tony says it's time to change my HIV meds, which will happen this week. I've been dreading it because I've been successfully using Atripla -- a three-med "cocktail" -- since it first came out. But, as I blogged before, one of those ingredients, though effective against HIV is, in his words, "a little poison dart to the kidneys."
The new combo will be two pills. One containing two meds and a third in the other pill. The thing about these pills is that they are a continuous form of chemotherapy. The side effects of which are slightly different for each person. I don't know how they'll react in my body. I dread it. But it's inevitable.
In DC this week, for the first time, the International AIDS Conference is in the U.S. -- held back all these years because of some stupid law (enforced by the evil of a racist, homophobic bigot American legislator named Jesse Helms, who had an ongoing affair with a black woman, who has now been removed from this planet by the God he pretended to follow) that prevented anyone with HIV from entering our country. A policy that lingered long past his overdue demise.
But the good news is that my blood sugar levels plunged down to normal range. My endocrinologist said it can take up to a year for the A1C to do that well. Mine went from over 9 to just over 6 in only a few months. He told me, "You're my best patient."
I love being the best patient.
When I started to write this blog, I realize I haven't posted in almost a month. For that I apologize. But during these dog days of intense heat and humidity, it feels like there's little to report except that I've been eating as well as I can, exercising... not at all. My one failing.
But... I've been writing music and lyrics. Writing and writing and writing. Putting myself through boot camp, almost. Every morning, focused intensely on learning, learning, learning.
Also, with the announcement of the revival of The Last Session in London, the producers have been furiously casting, and sharing with us, the possibilities. We will have news soon. It should all be tied up within the week.
So, think about me ingesting these new meds, even as I think of the many in this world who do not have access. Send a little prayer our way. And while you're doing that, I'll ask forgiveness for my ugly thoughts about certain southern dead legislators. It's never a good thing to cast negativity into the world. But I'm as human as the next person and sometimes it's better to just get it out.
The Andy Griffith Show was as much a part of the landscape of my youth as the front yard. Sometimes I thought it was boring because nothing much happened, but if Barney and Andy were in a scene, magic.
Not just because they were beyond funny. But because the warmth was palpable. The feelings of love and respect the characters had for each other was completely believable.
I felt that love in my own home, growing up. It's not that we lived the Andy Griffith Show. It's that it felt familiar and comfortable and true. People are that gentle, kind, honest and sweet.
And "No Time For Sergeants." Where he manages to make an outrageously Southern yokel character not just believable, but like the only sane person in the world.
Later in life, I discovered "A Face In The Crowd."
Relentless in its exposure of celebrity. A character with no redeeming qualities. Even down to his harsh laugh, which irritates and yet still takes over the room.
An indelible career. A great artist.
If I had a TV network, I'd run these two movies back-to-back, all day long. They are as American as Mark Twain. And maybe just as profound.
Steve Schalchlin & Jim Brochu attending, and performing at BACKSTAGE at 54 Below,
the hot new night club's Sunday afternoon show.
Photo credit: Russ Weatherford.
Jim Brochu performing at BACKSTAGE at 54 Below,
the hot new night club's Sunday afternoon show.
Photo credit: Russ Weatherford.
Steve Schalchlin performing at BACKSTAGE at 54 Below,
the hot new night club's Sunday afternoon show.
Photo credit: Russ Weatherford.
Today, I'm laid up with a sore throat. Luckily, I was able to slide into my doctor's office between appts. to get a test and a prescription. So, all is well. I just have to stay still, warm and quiet. But, I was feelin' a big down when I saw this:
That adorable face belongs to a Rufus, who lives with a friend of mine, J.R. Stuart, an acting coach at Indiana University Southeast, an actor, producer, director and god knows what else -- we ALL have to be all of those things in this business. Apparently, Rufus loved it. He commented, particularly, on sweet insouciance of the binding glue.
With the renewed attention coming to TLS by the London production, I'm starting to get more and more inquiries -- especially from people in college towns. TLS has great educational value about AIDS and does it in a humorous and entertaining, almost family friendly way. Maybe not for young kids, though I remember the 10 year old in Laguna who sat in the front seat, riveted.
When Rob Harris asked me what I "saw" for a London production, I told him he could do it on a street corner with a banjo, if that's all he had. Meaning, spend as little or as much on the physical production as you want. Or as famed songwriter Marilyn Bergman once said at an ASCAP musical theater workshop, when a writer was describing how the stage would move, and where the lighting would hit, "Don't talk to me 'set!'"
It's about the words and the music, and the great characters -- and, finally, the actors themselves, who will take it away from all of us every night, transforming it through their eyes. It's very exciting to even think about!
I remember, back in L.A., I was being interviewed by a writer for a local AIDS newsletter. When I told him that not only did I survive by writing these songs, but that the show would be opening in New York in a few months. His jaw hit the floor.
He said, "Do you know how many people have drawers full of plays that have never been seen on a stage? Who've been writing for years. And you're opening in New York?"
At the time, it seemed like such a natural progression, I hadn't really thought about it like that. Doesn't EVERYONE get their musical produced in New York, Off-Broadway? I think I was too sick at the time to give it that much thought.
But the highest honor is knowing Rufus found us chewy delicious.
People forget that HIV decimated the immune system - but people actually died from the opportunistic infections. These "OI"s were something out of Dante's Hell. So many drowned to death from pneumocystis. Or they would develop hideous KS lesions, or extremely painful neuropathy (my "buddy" screamed once when I brushed a bedsheet against the tip of his toes), or CMV where a friend of mine had to inject himself in the eyeball to prevent going blind, or toxoplasmosis, a brain degenerative disease where people wake up one day to find they can't tie their shoe-laces, and their memories are falling apart. Within the gay community, 300,000 deaths amounted to a plague of medieval dimensions. Once you knew your T-cells were below a certain level, it was like being in a dark forest where, at any moment, some hideous viral or bacterial creature could emerge and kill you. And for fifteen years there was nothing to take that worked, just the agonizing helplessness of waiting to die, and watching others get assaulted by one terrifying disease after another.
300,000 deaths. No immune system. Death coming in the form of an unknown virus or bacteria that might suddenly arise.
Pneumocystis is what nearly killed me. My t-cells, where "normal" is 1200, were at about 40. Or less. It's hard to remember. After 21 days of I.V. pentamidine, which ruined the taste in my mouth and had me nauseous the whole time, usually lying in a zoned-out daze until the day Jim took me home, hardly able to stand -- a barely animated skeleton, I had to relearn how to walk.
But that's not the story. The story is about the resurrection, the comeback.
In The Last Session, the character of Gideon wants to end his life. It takes place in 1996, just before the drug cocktail. There were few therapies that would work, and for a few months. He is exhausted from the fight. All he wants is control over his life. Control over when to bow out. Though he's hiding this decision from his friends, it's hard not to think that he called them together for more than just a goodbye session.
For me, I never felt suicidal. Not like that. I credit my friends for this. They simply wouldn't let me go.
But how sad to imagine that if I had been like Gideon, if I had killed myself, I wouldn't be here to have seen The Big Voice or Zero Hour or, not, this hot new production. I am so anxious and excited to see that they will do with it.
People have asked me how much involvement Jim and I will have, and the answer is very little. Since Rob Harris, the producer, told me he saw the original production, he understands the piece. He'll keep it on track. I feel totally safe with him involved.
I also had a great meeting with Tom Turner, the young musical director. He is a brilliant pianist and singer, himself. In fact, he came and sang with us in the sanctuary choir at Christ Church Bay Ridge, while he was here. And I couldn't tell you about any of it! He and I had a great chance to thumb through the songs, and he was terrific. He seemed to "get" the style immediately.
That leaves Guy Retallack, the director. He's going to be approaching this from a totally fresh perspective. He and the others have asked us a few questions about how we approached certain moments -- and I sent them all additional notes about the characters, but we told them to feel free to follow their own vision. My sense is that Guy wants to make it as real as possible, perhaps eschewing some of the theatrical conceits we've used over the years.
IOW, a grittier, more real type of approach. And I say go for it. Try anything. Put it in front of an audience and see if it works.
Truth is, I've been involved in many bare bones productions where we did much the same thing -- mostly because we had no choice. Sometimes, all we had were a few lights and some music stands. It will be interesting to see this choice done with a first class lighting and production team.
Because The Last Session was born from truth.
You don't have to pretend. Just play it and the people will respond.
They always have.
And, best of all, (for me, anyway), I'm here to see it!
Musical theater veteran Darren Day will head the cast of the European premiere of The Last Session, featuring music and lyrics by Steve Schalchlin and book by Jim Brochu with additional lyrics by John Bettis and Marie Cain. As previously reported, Guy Retallack will direct the production, which will play the Tristan Bates Theatre, September 25-October 27.
