That last song proved to be almost a meditation on our lives during the first year of the COVID crisis. Sondheim’s words perfectly summed up the uncertainty of the time. It was during the pandemic that Errico had the inspiration to do a different album of Sondheim’s songs. One that celebrated the city that she and the composer both lived in: New York City. That album, Sondheim in the City, gets released on Friday and starting today Errico begins a a five-night stand at Birdland Jazz Club in New York in a show entitled A Manhattan Valentine.

Last week I spoke with Errico about her passion for Sondheim’s work, her various collaborations with him over the years and what she learned most from her time with him. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview (which is chockfull of wonderful stories and observations about Sondheim and herself), please go here.

When did the desire to do a second collection of his material start bubbling up within you? 

I think I always knew that I was going to spend much of my life turning to him. I don’t know that I was wanting to record [another album] until the pandemic happened and I turned to him yet again in another crisis. Sondheim Sublime is a very inward record. It’s a lyrical record. I was going through a hard time in my own life. I just keep turning to Sondheim. I think that he is probably the greatest source for me of wisdom and courage. Sondheim worked with me on the creation of that. He had ideas for it. He knew what I was working through. He knew what I was feeling about his work. He was a little embarrassed by the word sublime, because I think he felt it was so spiritual and maybe corny. I think he said it was camp. 

Now the pandemic happened. We lived through that. Maybe we’re coming out of this terrifying time. I was thinking about New York City. I was thinking about how everybody was leaving New York during the pandemic. I was thinking I want to recommit to New York City; it gave me everything. When Sondheim died, the ideas of New York were so rich in my head. When he passed I worried for New York. I thought about his New York. He made New York for me. And for so many of us, he defines it. And he’s a great poet himself of New York. I felt like everything is there again in Sondheim for another chapter of my life. 

There are going to be people who are going to be surprised by some of the material on this album, because I don’t think many people have heard Dawn or Nice Town, But. For those who don’t know, Nice Town, But came from one of his earliest works in the 1950s called Climb High that never got finished. Oddly, he didn’t write about that song in his Collected Lyrics books. What was your process of discovering other songs that maybe the world doesn’t know that would fit the story and the narrative you have in this album? 

Nice Town, But, you’re going to have to wait for the vinyl. That’s not going to come out on the 16th. We’re going to have 14 songs. That is a coda of juvenilia of his youth. That is not going to come out just yet, but I’m thrilled that I’m going to be singing it live at Birdland. It’s a brilliant piece of his youth and it is meant to just be a humorous and energetic finale to all the thoughts that I put into the more classic songs.

But I open with an unusual song which is on the first release, Dawn, which was [for] an unproduced film [Singing Out Loud]. It’s a wonderful song that nobody knows and I’m super excited for people to hear it. I hope that it acts [on the album] as a new beginning of a New York waking up. What is New York at dawn? It’s quiet, but it still hums with life and promise. 

I hope that that means there’s a whole lot of material that we still haven’t heard that we will get to hear, either from you or from other people throughout the years ahead.

There’s more things. I put some cut music on here as well. Music cut from musicals. Jazz fans always love the alternate take. Like Chet Baker did this or Charlie Parker did this one that they didn’t put on the record. I have the same obsession with cut songs and there’s some beautiful cut music from Follies that I included here: Can That Boy Foxtrot? We’ve heard it, but it’s not the most common song. And It Wasn’t Meant to Happen, which I think is a masterpiece.

I think in his Collected Lyrics Sondheim said that was his attempt to do a Cole Porter true pathos song.

I believe he rewrote it in his head when he wrote Send in the Clowns. I believe that it has the same meter, a meditative regret. And it’s about denial. Send in the clowns. I’ll be fine. It wasn’t meant to happen. I’m good. But she’s there. And in the song, just as with Send in the Clowns, don’t bother. They’re here. You can really hear the other person is in the room.

What was the process for you in approaching songs that the world has heard multiple times?

Songs like Being Alive, that’s a young person’s song. I have spent my whole life as an ingenue, singing from a young person’s perspective. And in a way I’ve been gradually beating the ingenue out of myself. So I guess I was thinking about what that song is saying. Maybe when I was younger I was thinking, somebody hold me, I want happiness. I would probably have thought, I want that connection. But I think now I realize she’s not asking for happiness. She’s asking for a kind of pain. Someone to force her to feel alive through the kind of armor of sophistication and familiarity that we put on.

There are a lot of people who have a stereotype of New Yorkers being neurotic. Sondheim himself is quoted as saying, “I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear the rumblings beneath the surface.” You’ve created a New York centric album. Do you think there’s a part of Sondheim in the City that celebrates these neurotic people that Sondheim was talking about?

Oh, yes. I think there’s a kind of jaunty, upbeat quality to my record, because I don’t think it’s a sour and cynical world. Actually, I think if you look closely at Sondheim, there’s a kind of ecstatic pleasure in New York; the rhythm of things. I think Another Hundred People is an ecstatic song. Even Everybody Says Don’t. Sure, all these people are blocking you, but step over them. He’s more than satiric and malicious. I say, ecstatic. I think he was excited by the possibilities.

Once you stop trying to make life makes sense in the literal or linear simple way. Because once you’re allowed to be nuts a lot of problems vanish, a lot of humor and love and complication and emotion and style and laughing and nightlife, so much becomes possible. I guess that’s a middle-aged person speaking justifying ourselves.

Do you think there are reasons, other than the fact that Stephen Sondheim has passed, that his work is being embraced so vociferously and voraciously as it is now?

Because it never gets boring. It’s relentlessly interesting. There’s no bottom. It’s so smart and there’s so much love in it as well. And it’s never dated. There’s so many layers. Maybe we need him more now than we used to. Maybe we understand that his talents and his gifts had some difficulties. At a time that wanted something more cheery or simple or commercial – the British wave and everything that annoyed him – he was looking in the mind. Not everybody wants to do that. And I think now we’re really not afraid.

In the liner notes you talk about going to Sondheim’s house when it was on the market after his death. Was that the first time you’d been there?

Yes. Actually, I feel like I’ve been there because I saw that wonderful interview with [composer] Adam Guettel. When I walked in the room, I was so overwhelmed. Oh, my God, there’s the chair. I was so nervous. I didn’t take pictures. I just stood there like, wow.

What has your process of performing Sondheim taught you about who you are as a person and who you are as an artist?

I felt encouraged by him to be a female kind of intellectual person. He encouraged me over a long period of time. I can’t pretend we were intimately close friends. More like a very dedicated, almost a daughter figure. I’ve honored him. My thinking about him so much and applying his stuff for my own personal survival. I find him funny and sexy. And I love going to the shows, even if I’m not in them.

The emails between us were empowering, funny, educational, challenging. He says he hates self-deprecation. That was my most unpleasant quality, he said. So I don’t do it anymore. I don’t think I’ve been self-deprecating today. I try not to. I used to be throwing myself under the bus here and there and he didn’t like that. He said it’s the least attractive quality in all people. He liked to lift you up. He said, Melissa, you’re a lot of things. You’re an actress and a big band singer or a girl singer, like in that old tradition. Keep exploring that. 

We’re trying to learn about ourselves through a master’s music and be respectful and explore it and honor him at the same time as learn. This is me finding myself mid-life. Just don’t press too much. Just be. 

To watch the full interview with Melissa Errico, please go here.

The post Melissa Errico Has a Valentine For New York City appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Playwright Nilo Cruz and composer Gabriela Lena Frank have collaborated so many times it would be easy to assume that their 2022 opera, El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), would be their most recent work.

In reality it is the work that first brought them together more than a dozen years ago. El Ultimo Sueño had its world premiere last October at San Diego Opera. In June of this year it was performed at San Francisco Opera. This Saturday it will open at LA Opera where it runs through December 9th.

Cruz and Frank’s opera finds Frida Kahlo (Daniela Mack) having already passed away. Diego Rivera (Alfredo Daza) is on the cusp of passing away but wants his beloved Frida to come back from the underworld to help him in his transition to the afterlife. She’s very reluctant to do so given the pain he caused her in her life. The opera is set around Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead). Think of the opera as the Orpheus and Eurydice myth reversed with a healthy dash of the animated film Coco.

Cuban-born Cruz is best-known as a playwright. In 2003 he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Anna in the Tropics. His other works include Dancing on Her Knees; Two Sisters and a Piano; Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams; Lorca in a Green Dress and A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. His collaborations with Frank include The Conquest Requiem and The Santos Oratorio and the text of orchestral songs, La Centinela y la paloma.

Earlier this week I spoke with Cruz who was at his home in Florida. During our conversation we talked about the challenges of breathing new life into Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera given how much has already been written about them; the new-found politics that are represented by a character they created for the opera and about the nature of art and creativity.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Is there a difference in the way Cuba, or Cubans in particular, feel about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo that maybe is different than how they are perceived in the States or elsewhere? 

It’s hard for me to know because I left Cuba when I was so young. I left when I was ten years old. But they’re great revolutionaries and they were socialists. A few writers in Cuba have written about them in the theater. I believe they’re embraced by by the island, by people on the island, of course. But who doesn’t love them? Who cares, you know, about their political affinities? They’re just people you want to love because of the art they produced and what they give to the world.

Underneath the acrimony and history that exists between Frida and Diego in the opera, this is truly a love story. What was key for you in realizing the best way to dramatize that love story?

I believe it was when I read that at the end of his life Diego Rivera requested his ashes to be reunited with Frida’s ashes. Talk about a great love story. He wants to be in the in afterworld with Frida. That was so touching when I read that I thought this needs to be a love story and it needs to be a love story in which the Day of the Dead is involved.

They were soulmates. They were kindred spirits. Even though they had relationships with other men and women, they really loved each other. They caused each other a lot of pain. Unfortunately other things happened along the way, but they should have been together from the beginning and to the end. But human beings are full of faults and this is what makes the story so compelling in many ways for an opera and for the theater.

What was most important to you and Gabriela to make this a different way of telling this story or revealing who these people were as you wanted to depict them?

When Gabriela approached me with the subject matter, I had a little bit of resistance at the beginning because there was so much out there about them. But when I sat down and listened to her music, she had a piece that had to do with The Day of the Dead. I said to her, let’s not write a biopic or a biographical opera about them. Let’s go in this direction because they both adored that holiday. I thought this is the way to enter this opera. When I was remembering Orpheus, the operas, and the beautiful myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, I thought let’s do something similar to that.

There have been countless Orpheus operas and most recently there’s Matthew Aucoin‘s opera, Eurydice, based on the play of the same name that looks at this story from her point of view. The musical Hadestown deals with that myth. Do you think we’re living in a time where we all clamor for really great love stories, even if they don’t end up together? 

I think that we have become so cynical that we need something else in order to believe in love again. That’s what we do in this opera. That’s what I’m always doing with my work. Whether the plays are political, there’s always a love story there in between the lines and the lives of the characters.

You’ve collaborated many times with Gabriela well before this particular opera. Of all the collaborations that you’ve done with her, what makes this particular work unique for you?

This is the work that brought us together. Unfortunately it took years for us to work on the opera. In the meantime, we started to work on other things and those projects became preparations for us to work on this large canvas. We were always dialoging, even we were doing other pieces together, about Frida and Diego. It allowed me to become a better librettist. It allowed Gabriela to explore her music and her talents as a composer. So I think we were always preparing for this.

At the time of the opera’s world premiere in San Diego, director Lorena Maza told KPBS that as a creative team you asked yourselves “what are Diego and Frida for us now.” Who are they for you today as opposed to maybe who they were before you started this project? 

Oh, they’re still the same for me. I feel enormous amount of love for the two of them. I think Frida and Diego don’t just belong to Mexico, they belong to the world. So for me nothing has changed. If anything it is more the responsibility of exposing them to more people, even though they don’t need that exposure. They were great artists who gave great treasures to the world. For me it was just honoring them, honoring their love for each other, honoring their beliefs in life and what they gave us in terms of their paintings. 

There’s only one true duet between the two of them in the opera. Was that an intentional part of the structure that this moment became so emotional that this was the only time where these two would sing together? 

We thought that politics would bring them together. Especially when they started to look at the world around them. That, in some ways, made them reflect on some of the things that they loved in life. They wanted the universe to change. They wanted things to change in Mexico and all over the world. That, of course, caused us to write a a duet. It’s really the moment in which they almost come close to each other, but somehow they don’t.

Do you think that passion was equal to the passion they had for each other?

I think that passion, their love for each other, art and politics were all intertwined when it came to Frida and Diego.

Tell me about the creation of the characters of Katrina (Ana María Martínez) and Leonardo (Key’mon W. Murrah)?

Katrina is the keeper of the dead. She’s the gatekeeper. She was very helpful to navigate between the two worlds. Then Leonardo, who possesses the male and the female in the way he presents himself in life, I thought would be very interesting to do. He’s an artist luring Frida back to the world. I didn’t think that Frida would come back to the world just because of her passion for Diego. I think it needed to be something more, and it had to do with her passion for art.

It’s a very consuming art form. I think that all artists are this way. It’s not the time that we spend working on our art, but all the time we spend away from it. We’re also thinking about it. For her, because she was such a passionate painter, I think there needed to be another artist to convince her to come back to the world. Of course, Katrina was sort of the antagonist in some ways because we needed an antagonist as well. These were the things that were circling me when I was writing the libretto.

When you started working on this opera you probably didn’t think that the idea of a drag character would become a political statement. But given everything that’s going on in the United States has Leonardo turned out to be a political character? And when something like that happens to a work that you’ve created, where it takes on a different meaning now than you intended, how does that land with you as an artist?

That’s the beauty of art: that it continues to grow throughout time. When we saw it in San Diego and later in San Francisco, I started to see that character in a different light. With everything that’s happened, what was happening, what is still happening, especially since I’m in Florida, I thought, how wonderful that we chose this character that not only has a role to play in this world of Frida and Diego, but also for our modern times as well. Being such a beautiful character, such a generous human being who is passionate about life and the world. Even though he’s probably, or they, I should say, gone through difficult times, there’s still this love for the world.

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine brought the interior and the exterior world of an artist’s life on stage beautifully in Sunday in the Park with George. John Logan did the same thing with Rothko in his play, Red. What are the inherent challenges for any writer who is also an artist to bring both an artist’s exterior and interior worlds to vibrant life on stage?

Sunday in the Park with George was very inspirational for me. If you think about it my source of inspiration’s really the paintings by both Frida and Diego. Usually those who write about artists, especially if you’re writing an opera or you’re writing a book – unless you’re writing a non-fiction book – I think one needs to tap not only into the the biography of the artist, but you also need to tap into your own imagination and your own take of what the role of the artist is in the world. I think art can save and I think art can offer possibilities.

Is it important for you to see yourself in the people that you’re writing about?

I think there’s always something of the personal in my work. There has to be somehow. I think plays are like children. They are pieces that we create, and, of course, they inherit some of our sensibilities. I don’t mind that at all.

There’s a real economy of words in your libretto. Late in the opera Diego sings “To paint is to remember” and Frida responds “To paint is to relieve the hurt.” How would you describe what the act of creation is for you?

I think it’s a struggle. It’s a struggle to find the word. Sometimes writing is about not finding the word, but what you encounter in between your search for the word. So it is a struggle. It’s almost nightmarish sometimes, too, because you ask more of yourself and the piece asks more of you. You don’t want to repeat yourself. And if you repeat yourself, you try to repeat yourself in a different way or with different colors. So I think the art form is very, very demanding. But more than anything, that it’s not to impose yourself on the piece, but to learn from the piece and what the piece is asking of you as an artist. To be in that state of mind and to be open to it.

Main Photo: Daniela Mack and Alfredo Daza in El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego by Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz at LA Opera (Photo by Cory Weaver/Courtesy LA Opera)

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Both lead actors play two roles in the show. Act One depicts painter George Seurat’s intense mission to finish his masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. His muse and mistress is Dot. In Act Two, which takes place one hundred years later, a descendant of Seurat’s, also named George, is giving the world premiere of one of his works. Joining him for that premiere is his grandmother, Marie, who claims to be Seurat’s daughter and that her mother is the woman featured prominently at the front of his painting.

This is Alabado’s first time in a Sondheim musical. She’s appeared on Broadway in Mean Girls, American Idiot and American Psycho. On tour she’s also appeared in Spring Awakening and Evita.

Earlier this week I spoke via Zoom with Alabado about the dual roles she’s playing, specific lyrics of Sondheim’s found in the song Move On and about her experiences working with David Bowie on the musical Lazarus. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

As Dot you sing in Move On, “Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new. Give us more to see.” How does playing this role allow you to see more of yourself as an actor and a singer?

This is my first time, in my 15 years of doing this professionally, of being able to tackle Sondheim. Which didn’t come out of not wanting to, but rather just the way that my career has gone. It just has never taken me in the path of Sondheim.

Also, I am a Mexican Lebanese woman. I think that, in the last five years maybe, this is the first time that we’ve seen different types being cast in these beautiful, huge Sondheim shows that possibly didn’t have that kind of accessibility for somebody like me in the past. So I feel very privileged and honored to be tackling this work. 

I didn’t know Sunday in the Park very well. Every time I sing those lyrics in Move On I learn and find something new in them. I feel like I am changing as an actor, as a singer, as a performer with the incredible messages that Dot is trying to relay to George throughout the piece and the messages that Sondheim and James Lapine are trying to give us as the artists interpreting them. It’s been very moving for me.

When you’re tackling the work of Stephen Sondheim it’s obviously different than tackling Mean Girls. Not to belittle Mean Girls, but they don’t aspire to be the same thing at all.

What’s great about musical theater is we have so many different types of musicals. Sondheim is, as we all know, a complete genius in the art form – possibly the greatest musical theater composer creator that has and will ever have lived and touched all of us with his incredible work. I think tackling this is completely different than tackling Mean Girls.

I did American Idiot and Spring Awakening, all these different types of musicals. There is a density of this material that requires a different piece of you. You have to give yourself to it differently. Also, my brain has to activate in a certain way that takes a lot of focus as an actor as well. Not that I’m not focusing in those other shows, but this is a little bit of a different muscle.

I looked at an interview that your director, Sarna Lapine, gave to The Interval New York in 2017 when this production appeared on Broadway with Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. She was talking about the arc of the show as, “The mistress is the muse in Act One and she becomes the teacher in Act Two.” Did you and Sarna have any conversations about that way of looking at these two women that you’re playing?

Not in particular like that. But one of the things that we and Graham have always been in conversation about is what does Dot get from George? What does George learn from Dot? What does Marie teach George act two? What does George teach Marie in turn? How are all of these people still helping each other?

Dot and George have a harder time because they both want different things that Dot knows deep down she can never get from him and he can never get from her. [That’s] why it’s such a heartbreak what ends up happening for George and Dot. Me and Sarna had many conversations about the wisdom which Marie gives to second act George and where that comes from. It comes from the song Children and Art. It’s this idea that all we can do is learn the lessons from the people that we have passed, that have passed through us, that have come through us. 

Do you think that her approach might be different as a woman and that she may have brought different resonance, different tones, different ways of depicting and telling this story?

Yes, absolutely. Sarna saw the original when she was eight years old. She talks about that. She talks about how deeply important this piece is to her, to her family, but really her personally. 

What’s beautiful about reviving shows or trying them in different ways is that the show originally was interpreted so specifically by these two people that created it. The beautiful lesson that we all get to take when we revive or try shows again later on is that this gift was given to us, which is the original interpretation. [That] also involved Bernadette and Mandy. Everything about the original was crafted with this group of people so specifically. Then our job as interpretive artists is to find our way and new ways into it. How is the world different? How are we different? How do we interpret art differently? I can’t wait to see what Sunday in the Park with George interpreted in 2050 would be.

But as a woman with a woman director, which I don’t get to do very often either, we’ve had incredibly deep, wonderful conversations. Me, Sarna and Graham have really been so connected in this process. I think that Sarna, interpreting it through the eyes and lens of a woman, has given us wonderful new ways to see things and try things.

She’s given you new things to see. You get to do things in a new way. You’re living out what Sondheim wrote, aren’t you?

Right because that’s all we can do as artists.

I read an interview that Bernadette Peters gave thirty years after Sunday in the Park with George. She was talking about singing Move On and she said that it, “got to be like meditating. It was so healing and uplifting.” What do you experience when you get to that moment in the show?

The first couple of times we sang it I could not help but sob through it because it’s just cathartic. It’s oddly a release, but it’s a release in the most peaceful way, which is why the song to me is so incredible. The wisdom that is given to us in those lyrics, and that Dot gets to impart on George, is so moving. It’s what all of us desperately need to hear as actors, artists, creators. It’s, I agree, a meditation, a self-healing moment for me personally, for Dot or George, for Graham, for our company, for the audience. And it feels like this big moment of what we all need to hear right now. So I find it to be very healing in that way.

I do want to ask you about one new musical that you did, because I am a massive fan of another genius, a gentleman we used to have on this planet called David Bowie. What was the process like of working on Lazarus with, in and around David Bowie? 

That’s a for a whole other hour of talking. But in short, it was one of the most unexpected, incredible things I’ve ever gotten to do in my life. When I was thinking I was going to do musical theater for a living, did I think I would get to work closely with a legend like that? The whole thing from start to finish was magical and zany and so unexpected and just so cool.

I started my career doing more rock musicals. So I was in that world. But then being able to find this with David and with the creators of Lazarus, with Ivo van Hove the director, what an opportunity and memories that I will never, ever lose because he was such a good person. And he loves musicals, which I didn’t really know about David until we were working on it. He was so grateful that we were all doing it. Everything he wanted was to write a musical and to have it performed. So it was just really important to him and, in turn, important to us.

We recorded the cast album on the day that he died. We didn’t know. It was a very interesting time. I hold it very dear to my heart in many, many ways.

I want to finish up our time by going one last time to Move On because it has my favorite lyric that I think has ever been written. “I chose and my world was shaken, so what. The choice may have been mistaken, the choosing was not.”

That’s my favorite lyric of the whole show.

Does that thinking play a part in how you move through your career, in your life, not only during Sunday in the Park with George, but for whatever else comes after that?

If anyone wants to know what it’s like to be an actor it’s that. Everything that we do feels like a little leap of faith. You never know what’s happening. I find that to be why my life is so rich and full of experiences and emotion. I could never be the person I am without having done this.

What we do is complicated. It can be very, very challenging, very hard. And it can also be really complicated to find levity in a business that sometimes can feel really difficult. I think that lesson in itself is why I love what I do so much. You do just have to choose. You have to take a leap.

You maybe made what could be interpreted as the wrong choice. But doing it is what was the right choice. All we can do is just keep going. I think that will always stay with me moving forward after this show, because that’s one of the hardest things I find as an actor is choosing and making choices and not being afraid of that. I think Dot is trying to teach us, and teach George in that moment, that just choosing and going forward is all we can do. We can’t know if it’s right or wrong, but all we can do is do it.

To see the full interview with Krystina Alabado, please go here.

Sunday in the Park with George continues at the Pasadena Playhouse through March 19th.

Main Photo: Krystina Alabado and Graham Phillips in Sunday in the Park with George (Photo by Jeff Lorch/Courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)

The post Krystina Alabado Moves on With Dot and Marie appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Life is a roller-coaster of a ride. Just ask Bobby Conte. The actor/singer has appeared on Broadway in A Bronx Tale where his mentor and friend was Nick Cordero, the actor who passed away due to COVID in 2020. He recently appeared in the revival of the musical Company as P.J. That musical was written by Stephen Sondheim who passed away a week after the first preview once the show was able to return after Broadway started to re-emerge from the pandemic.

Conte is not one to sit around waiting for something to do. In 2020 he released a solo album entitled Along the Way. It’s a mix of Broadway, pop and standards that was born out of a cabaret act he started writing in 2015 and had started performing.

On August 15th, Conte will be performing a revised version of his original cabaret show at Birdland in New York. Those revisions reflecting the incredibles highs and lows he’s been experiencing. But through it all he’s taken everything in stride and maintained a tremendous sense of gratitude. As you’ll see in this interview.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation earlier this week that have been edited for length and clarity. To watch the interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

The album came out two years ago. How has your personal journey mirrored or diverged from the one you sing about on the record in the two years since its release? 

It’s a great question. The more time that goes on I’m able to look at it more with a bit more perspective. The context of the show and of the album is that it’s charting three specific relationships in my life. The dynamic of one of those relationships has significantly changed since the pandemic. So in re-writing the show a bit for Birdland, I had to do some editing to see how that relationship has evolved.

One of the songs has changed: in the place of Love to Me [from The Light in the Piazza] I’m now putting in What Can You Lose? from Dick Tracy that Stephen Sondheim wrote. For a very practical reason, it’s important when I tour this show to have a song from A Bronx Tale and I have a song from Company. 

Really, the big thing is that Nick had died. Nick left before I was ready to say goodbye to him. It’s all very odd. It’s a little overwhelming to think about every now and then when the reality hits. So that’s how the show is a bit evolved and changed over the past two years.

Do you feel like you’ve been confronted with a lot of this a lot sooner than you thought you would be?

I start this show by singing Blame It on My Youth to try to acknowledge to the audience right away that I’m aware that I know nothing in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t make my feelings and my experiences insignificant, but there’s a lot more life to live. You can move on to the next chapter with that sort of sigh of relief in your breath to say there’s so much more awaiting you. 

Within this album there’s a song from Pasek and Paul’s song cycle Edges. There are also songs from Anyone Can Whistle, The Light in the Piazza, the aborted Honeymooners musical and also She Loves Me. Does the selection of those songs not only give us an idea of your perspective of relationships, but also the kind of shows or perhaps the specific shows you would like to do in the future? 

The list I have of dream roles is endless. So yes, those are some. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Because I’m such a nerd with this there would be an endless number of them that I’ve read and I fall in love with over the years that I would love to do. It’s more that the lyrics of those songs served a specific function in a story I wanted to tell.

I also love digging into these composers now that we know so well and really have hit the zeitgeist. They’re really figuring out who they were when they were trying to figure themselves out in a way. The show very much is about a young person trying to figure out who he is as he’s entering a more adult world. So it seemed to have just fit better in that context. But yes, you’re not wrong and, digging deeper into it, maybe this show is a bit of the musical interests that I have.

What have you learned yourself about yourself as a performer during the multi-year journey of Company? 

I’ve learned that I have totally given over to the Marianne Elliott mindset of what theater is supposed to do. When you are dealing with entities that are so beloved and have been held on a pedestal by many people for so long, your way to honor that legacy, and that the annals of history that you’re now entering, is to do an unapologetic, unabashed take that’s in service of the writer and in service of the original intention of those people, but make it palatable and accessible for an audience who has never seen the show before or perhaps have never been to the theater before.

If we don’t engage that kind of audience, then our art form is going to die on the vine. So I’ve stepped more away from my sort of purist mindset in the musical theater and that’s what I learned.

Your answer reminds me of the lyric from Move On in Sunday in the Park with George. “Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.” That’s a lesson we can all learn. I think that whole song is a masterclass in lessons we can learn. 

I think there was some interview years ago [with] James Lapine [bookwriter and director of Sunday in the Park with George original production] and it was when the revival had come back that used all that computer digital animation [2008]. They were looking back at the lyrics and I think James said, “It’s like we wrote ourselves a message in a bottle.” It’s this thing that we can always come back to when you’re in the pits of despair or in writer’s block or just not figuring out what’s the point of doing anything in the first place. Do I have anything of value to even put out in the world? Especially when you could think it doesn’t matter what we put out into the world because we’re so insignificant.

Have you have you seen these amazing pictures that NASA came out with a couple of weeks ago? If that doesn’t give you perspective or make you feel so meaningless, I don’t know what does. But yet it’s our job to find meaning in whatever our actions are, even if in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter or as I would say in A Bronx Tale all the time, “like nobody cares.” But just because nobody cares, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to find meaning and purpose in what you do in your daily life or else you’re just wandering aimlessly.

Earlier this year I had the privilege of having a conversation with Matt Doyle about his experiences in Company and he told me that Sondheim was around a lot for rehearsals. Can you tell me about your experiences with him? 

So the first time he came in we were running You Could Drive a Person Crazy. We were figuring out what those ad libs were before Manu [Narayan – “Theo”] starts singing “When a person’s personality is personable.” They used to be very explicit. They used to be very biting and it was a little intense and overwhelming. So we didn’t pick them up, but we made it more palatable language.

I remember just in the moment going, “What are you so afraid of” and then going back and doing the fun choreography. That made him burst into laughter, which I will always remember.

He came to the first preview and then held court at the back of the theater for a couple hours. More times than not I’m a pretty private person. When I’m around people that I respect so much and intimidate me, in some ways your job, I’ve learned, is to shut your mouth and open your ears. I was just listening as intently as I could. There were definitely questions I wanted to ask. But I thought I’ll see him at opening or I’ll see him in other contexts, it’ll be fine. Then sadly he passed a week later. So it’s not too dissimilar to Nick. It’s continuous examples of when you are fortunate enough to have the people you love around you, you should make as full a memory and as full an experience as you can with these individuals while they’re still here. 

So what would you have asked him? 

Well the rumor, I think even Matt had told me back during the pre-pandemic, was that PJ and Theo were names of ex-boyfriends of Steve’s and that’s where they got the names for these boyfriends. So I wanted to go up to him and say, “Can you tell me who P.J. was?” 

You were on quite an emotional whirlwind with this show: not being able to open on Sondheim’s 90 birthday, having the pandemic happen, re-opening, Sondheim passing. I guess the bright spot was that you got to perform the show and then the acknowledgment Company received at the Tony Awards. Given how emotional this whole experience had to have been for you, to use one of the songs from from your album, does time heal everything?

Absolutely it does. I’ve always viewed that song in the context of relationships, but I have no doubt it can relate to the context of being in a workplace. But I don’t know, man. There are undeniably some sorry and grateful aspects to the whole experience. That was many of our favorite songs backstage that we would hear every night. But I’m a person that, just to find some sort of sanity in a world that has no control; when you and I have to exist in the art, entertainment, artistic world, where if wanted control of our lives, we’d go be accountants elsewhere, I know I need to choose gratitude when the pendulum swings at the end of the day – even in these hard situations. 

We were one of the shows that got to come back after this pandemic. We had many colleagues for whom that was not the case. Even though Steve died, he got to see our show as the last piece that he had written on Broadway in this new context. He adored it and was lauding it and wanted his work to be seen in an ephemeral, malleable context, because that’s what theater is in many ways. What a blessing that is that then I got to work with the dream team of theater monsters and the American musical theater for even for these nine months, even if it was over the span of three years. I choose to look at it in that way.

In a 2017 Stephen Sondheim interview that Lin-Manuel Miranda did, Sondheim said, “It stimulates you to do things you haven’t done before. The whole thing is if you know where you’re going, you’ve gone, as the poet says, and that’s death.” Once this Birdland show is over and behind you and with Company behind you, what would you like to do that you haven’t done before? 

There’s an endless number of things. But what I’ve learned a bit more – and I’ve been now in the city for up to eight years soon – is to give in to the unknown. To give in to the silence or the quiet space or the hesitancy is a good thing because Company, A Bronx Tale, funnily enough, came from that space. I was leading a full creative daily life. That’s what I try to do every day – find things within my control to service that and the instinct within me.

The easiest way to do that is to make material of your own, to build a show like I’m doing at Birdland. Then I’ll tour across the country. That’s the easiest way to fulfill that because I’m not reliant on other people giving me that opportunity. But when these opportunities like A Bronx Tale and Company fall in your lap, it’s because I have wonderful people that work for me to get me in those doors. But it’s serendipity, it’s luck, it’s total happenstance or law of attraction or whatever you want to say. My job is just to meet that with diligence, non-complacent hard work. So all I do is continue putting in that hard work and then seeing what serendipitous things happen to land in my lap. 

Bobby Conte will be taking his show around the country. We will update you when dates are announced.

To see our interview with Bobby Conte, please go here.

Main Photo: Bobby Conte (Courtesy of the Artist)

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Last night we saw Eleri Ward at Joe’s Pub in New York City. It will sound like hyperbole, but a star was indeed born last night. During her 70-minute set she held the audience fully captive in her hands with beautiful performances of songs from this album and also her first-ever performance of Another Hundred People from Company. Plus she was joined by Eden Espinosa and Donna Murphy. So when she returns to Joe’s Pub or anywhere else grab a ticket as soon as you can!

No one is more surprised at the success of her recordings of the songs of Stephen Sondheim than Eleri Ward. Born out of posting online videos, what started out as a lark become a full-fledged album on Ghostlight Records called A Perfect Little Death.

On her record Ward sings songs you might expect like Being Alive (from Company), Losing My Mind (from Follies) and Send in the Clowns (from A Little Night Music). She also chooses some less commonly recorded songs like Loving You (from Passion), Sunday (from Sunday in the Park with George) and Every Day a Little Death (from A Little Night Music.) The last song includes a lyric that gave Ward her album’s title.

The style of Ward’s performances mixes Sondheim’s songs with the alternative-indie style of Sufjan Stevens. The end result has prompted multiple people to comment on how this is just the right music for our troubled times. As Ward told me when we spoke via Zoom last week.

What follows are excerpts from my conversation with Eleri Ward that have been edited for length and clarity.

Does the reaction you’ve received to your recordings of these songs surprise you? And that people say this was the music they didn’t know they needed but are glad they have?

It is surprising because I guess this is just how my brain works and this is just kind of how I have heard things. And so it feels natural to me. I suppose it does make sense because when have we ever heard these songs and in just a way where it’s acoustic guitar and vocal? It’s so crazy to me that that is something that multiple people have said to me. I’m like, that’s awesome, because this is how I want to make them. 

Do you think part of the response you’ve gotten is because of how complicated the last 18 months have been?

Given the past year and a half, it does make sense. It’s like everyone obviously loves Sondheim and like these songs are iconic and amazing, but when you’re in the middle of a pandemic do you really want to hear the Sweeney whistle blowing in your ear like problems?

When you started posted videos online of these songs was the goal to make an album?

I didn’t even really realize that this is what it was until I set out to record the album. But to take these songs that obviously are universal and strip them back and kind of make them raw and even more naked was something that I was like, what is that like? What can these songs say when they are truly just like bare bones? When it comes to the original orchestrations of all of these songs they are quite complicated and full and huge. What can those stories also illuminate when they are simple? And so that’s kind of like what my my take on them has been.

The recordings seem so effortless. Do you believe in the idea of the artist as a vessel? That the work came through you?

Creativity grows in a garden more lushly when there’s a fence around it. If you take that fence away it can just spread out and it is not as dense. And I feel like within this situation, I had a very clear fence around my creativity. It’s like these are not my songs. So I automatically have very little ego about certain parts of it. So it was very selfless in that way. And then when it came to arrangement, it’s like, OK, the melody is the melody, like that’s what I’m sticking with. And now the arrangement can just like flourish off of that confine. And so I feel like having those boundaries around my creative process is what allowed me to be the vessel and not have really any part of me be glued to it. It’s it was a very freeing situation. 

Have you seen Sondheim’s shows?

I have definitely seen Company. I’ve been in Company. I’ve seen Sweeney Todd multiple times. Company and Sweeney Todd are my favorites shows. I’ve been in Merrily We Roll Along. I’ve seen Merrily multiple times. Follies I’ve seen. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about this. I think that might be it. Oh, and I’ve seen Sunday in the Park with George.

The reason for asking is that you’re too young to have seen some of his shows. I’m wondering what your thoughts are about audiences embracing them years after their original run more than they did when they were first produced?

I think his honesty can manifest itself in a very raw, dark human way that prior to him, I don’t know if I can name that many writers or shows that offer that darkness just as it is. It’s dark, but it’s human and like I know you’re thinking it, so why not just accept it? Anyone who is a pioneer in their path is always going to be met with skepticism and distance at first because it’s new. And on top of that his orchestrations are not something that you just turn on and like have a pleasant little cup of tea, too. He’s spot on. He’s totally right. And I feel seen and I feel heard.

What has A Perfect Little Death and its success revealed to you about who you are as an artist and as a person?

It’s emotional to me how much it has kind of enlightened my life. I don’t make folk music or acoustic music and yet now I do. I didn’t know that my sound would be kind of identified by this, like breathy yodel-y thing that I do. And now I think all the things that I’ve done with this album are very true to who I really am, but I have never given the spotlight to or given the chance to fully embrace all of them. I think it’s allowing me to be surprised by myself and allow all of those surprises to be valid and embraced. I don’t have to question any of them or, you know, denounce any of them or distance myself from any of them or try to be humble about any of them. It’s like this is all who I am. I might not have known that all of these things were who I was meant to be X amount of time ago. But they are now and I can’t deny it. And I’m not going to deny myself the things that I’ve surprised myself with. I think that’s the biggest thing is it’s been full of surprises in terms of learning about myself, not only as a person, but as an artist.

Photo: Eleri Ward (Courtesy Ghostlight Records)

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As they sing in the second act of this stunning musical, “Art isn’t easy. Every minor details is a major decision.” All the details and decisions that led to the creation of Sunday in the Park with George are revealed in Lapine’s new book, Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park with George.“

To celebrate the release of the book, Christine Baranski will moderate an online conversation with Lapine, Sondheim and the musical’s two stars Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. The event is being presented by The Town Hall and takes place on Tuesday, August 3rd at 7:00 PM ET/4:00 PM PT.

If you’re wondering why Baranski is involved, she appeared in the off-Broadway production of the musical in the roles of Clarisse and Blair Daniels.

Trivia note: Kelsey Grammer and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio also appeared in that production but did not participate during its Broadway run.

I saw the original production, but just after Patinkin and Peters had left the show. (Though the show was filmed and their performances have been captured in all their splendor for generations to view.) The leads when I saw it were Harry Groener and Maryann Plunkett. I also saw the 2008 revival at Studio 54 and found it even more moving and emotional than I did during the original production.

For any Sondheim fan, this is essential viewing. I strongly recommend it.

There are two ticket prices to watch this conversation. A $45 ticket allows US residents to see the show and get a copy of the book. A $25 tickets allows anyone to stream the event without receiving the book. Foreign residents can get both the streaming event and the book for $60. Ticket can be purchased here.

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The show combines two one-act monologues. Sea Wall, performed by Sturridge, was written by Simon Stephens. He’s the playwright behind Heisenberg and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (for which he won  Tony Award.) The play finds Alex, a photographer in his early thirties, who has found stability with his family (a wife and a daughter.) A tragedy befalls him and he struggles through the monologue to come to an understanding of why this has happened to him.

Sturridge received a Tony nomination for his performance in Orphans in 2013.

In A Life, written by Nick Payne, Gyllenhaal plays a new father facing two possible tragedies. Having not read the play I cannot tell you more, but reviews have indicated that the premise here is more about unspoken words than it may be about which tragedy (or both) he must face.

Payne wrote the two-character play Constellations, which opened on Broadway in 2015 which starred Gyllenhaal with Ruth Wilson. Constellations was seen in Los Angeles at the Geffen Playhouse in 2017 (with Allen Leech and Ginnifer Goodwin).

Gyllenhall, who also produces through his Nine Stories company, most recently appeared on Broadway in the 2017 revival of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George. He, along with co-star Annaleigh Ashford, will reprise their roles in a London production of the musical at the Savoy Theatre beginning in June of 2020.

Carrie Cracknell directs Sea Life/A Wall. When the show opened at The Public Theatre it garnered a Critic’s Pick  from New York Times critic Jesse Green.

This is a limited engagement that runs through September 29th.

For tickets go here.

All photos by Max Vadukul/Courtesy of DKC/O&M

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Currently the best way to see Groener is by going to see Paula Vogel’s play Indecent at the Ahmanson Theatre. Indecent, which was Tony nominated for Best Play, tells the story of Sholem Asch and how he created the play God of Vengeance in 1906. The play was performed regularly, but when it made its way to New York in 1923, it was deemed obscene and shut down.

Groener, who was not part of the cast in New York, plays multiple characters in Indecent. He’s also a founding member of the Antaeus Theatre Company* in Glendale. He was a regular on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and has appeared on Broadway in such shows as Cats, Sunday in the Park with George and Crazy For You.

All this means we had a lot to talk about when we spoke by phone last week on his day off from Indecent.

Before getting cast in Indecent, how familiar where you with God of Vengeance?

Not at all. It’s only subsequently that I realized I have friends who actually did a production of God of Vengeance at ACT in Seattle. I think Williamstown did God of Vengeance when Michael Ritchie was there. We read it during the rehearsal. I didn’t know anything about the story. [Michael Ritchie is the Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group]

How did you respond to that play?

It’s an amazing piece written in 1906 and he writes about the love between two women. He’s way ahead of his time. That’s what works for me is that he’s brave enough to put that on stage. And they were brave enough, as a company, to put it on stage. And how accepted it was by many audiences until it got to New York, he re-wrote it and they closed it down.

What made God of Vengeance controversial in 1923 seems not too far removed from what might be deemed controversial today. What does Indecent say about how far, or not, we’ve come as a nation.

I think it reminds us that we haven’t come as far as we should. There are so many themes in it:  antisemitism, censorship; you realize we’re going backwards in many ways. I think this production reminds you are of the work that still needs to be done. We can’t let the progress be destroyed by people who want to take away the progress we’ve achieved. There’s still a lot of work to do.

Being part of the cast of Indecent allows you to, more than most plays, truly be part of an ensemble. What makes this experience unique for you?

Not only do you get to tell this great story, but you’re playing all these different roles and you’re fit into this wonderful mosaic of staging and blocking. It’s just heaven. Yes you get to play all these roles, but it’s the result of it; the result that we can feel from the audience that is gratifying. You’re part of this storytelling to make the audience feel the way they do at the end of the piece. My short experience has been consistent. It has been silence at the end of the play. Then they are standing and yelling. To know you’ve helped to make that happen is very gratifying.

I first saw you as Mandy Patinkin’s replacement in Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. What do you remember most about doing that show?

First of all, I never thought I’d get to do a Sondheim musical. When I went up for it it was to audition for Steve and James. This is an opera – this is never going to happen. I got the call, I’m just out of the shower completely naked and they said “you got it.” Now I had to do it.

Because it was that show and it was a Sondheim musical and a dream come true for me, I wasn’t scared at all. I was in a beautiful fantasy and dream. It was the best feeling. You are on the stage and you hear those notes and you almost burst into tears. It was four months I got to do it and they brought Mandy back to goose the audience. 

One afternoon I had a session with Steve and he came to the theatre. I asked if he’d mind if I recorded it. He said sure, so I have that on a cassette. It was a whole afternoon with him working on the score and him giving notes. He said the best thing to me. “Look, I know that you are concerned about the singing and doing it right and making it sound well. Yes, I’d like the score to be sung as written. But, if you ever feel you aren’t going to hit the note or it won’t be right, just act it.” That gave me so much freedom. I can’t tell you how appreciative I was.

From Sondheim to Buffy to Indecent, you’ve done a wide range of work. What perspective do you have on your career?

I’m very happy with the way the career is going. I’m doing exactly what the goal has been. My life has been to do everything – as much as I can. I love doing it all. Both my wife [Dawn Didawick] and I feel very grateful we can do what we love. How lucky are we? That’s the measure of success – whether people know your name or not – that you’re working in the business and don’t have to take a job outside that. I’m really aware and grateful and honored that in my career I’ve been able to do just that.

Main Photo:  Harry Groener in “Indecent” (Photo by Craig Schwartz/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group)

Cats and Sunday in the Park with George photos by Martha Swope/Courtesy of the NYPL Archives

For tickets to Indecent go here.

*Antaeus Theatre Company’s next production is Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. For information go here.

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Sondheim and Lapine were inspired by the Georges Seurat painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. What Sondheim noticed was that none of the people in the park in this painting were looking at each other. Not one person. So he and Lapine pondered what would have been going on in their minds that afternoon. And what was going on in the life and mind of Seurat himself.

Act One of this beautiful musical takes place as Georges (Marc Ginsburg) is trying to complete the painting while maintaining his relationship with his muse, Dot (Alyssa Simmons).

Act Two takes place 100 years later. Georges and Dot’s great-grandson, also named, George (Ginsburg), is an artist relying on technology for his work. It’s the debut of his “Chromolume #7” which celebrates the work of Seurat. Joining him for the debut is his 98-year-old grandmother, Marie (Simmons).

The musical is an incredible depiction of the life of artists, what it means to be an artist and it depicts the challenges of finding your voice – whether your are an artist or not.

Sunday in the Park with George first appeared on Broadway in 1984. There have been two revivals since then, including a terrific production that originated at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. The most recent revival starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford.

Amongst the songs found in Sunday are “Finishing the Hat,” “Move On,” “Children and Art” and “Color and Light.”

Thomas James O’Leary is directing the concert with musical direction by Doug Peck.

Sunday in the Park with George is an ambitious show and a one-night-only concert is equally ambitious. No doubt they are taking Sondheim’s advice by tackling this production, “bit by bit, putting it together.”

For tickets go here.

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Based at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, Musical Theatre Guild celebrates musicals that didn’t succeed as much as other musicals have. They focus on shows and scores that just haven’t found their way into the popular repertoire.

During their 25 years, Musical Theatre Guild as performed such shows as Sugar, State Fair, Sweet Smell of Success, Triumph of Love, A Catered Affair, A New Brain and Once Upon a Mattress.  Their very first show in 1996 was Say It With Music.

What’s interesting in combing through their production archives is that many of the shows that they have performed later found new life or were rediscovered. Falsettos, which will open soon at the Ahmanson Theatre (and previously played on Broadway in 2016-2017), was performed by MTG in 1998. On the Twentieth Century, a musical they performed in 1998, had a Broadway revival in 2015.

Musical Theatre Guild is the only organization in town that gives audiences a chance to hear songs and see shows thery’ll likely never hear anywhere else.  Will there every be a Broadway revival  of a show like Redhead? Irma La Douce? Fanny?

In May, MTG will present Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George on May 5th at the Alex Theatre.

The cast for this celebration will include  Eydie Alyson, Eileen Barnett, Teri Bibb, Matthew Braver, Jill Marie Burke, Melissa Lyons Caldretti, Bryan Chesters, Will Collyer, Melissa Fahn, Joshua Finkel, Tal Fox, Anthony Gruppuso, Pamela Hamill, Barbara Carlton Heart, Kristi Holden, Paul Keith, Damon Kirsche, Carol Kline, Marsha Kramer, Ashley Fox Linton, Kevin McMahon, Glenn Rosenblum, Alyssa Simmons, Shannon Warne, Susan Watson, and Robert Yacko –  actors and singers who have lengthy Broadway and National Tour experience.  What they may lack in name value, they more than make up for in talent and passion. A passion for musicals that don’t have helicopters, animal costumes or jukeboxes as their inspiration.

MTG: Rewind is directed by Joshua Finkel.

For tickets for MTG: Rewind go here.

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