Breakfast Dates, Mrs. Q, and Writing Musicals
Today I had breakfast with Stephanie Shaw.
These are Stephanie Shaw's legs.
You're welcome.
It was two hours. We were the first customers at Baker's Square, and we gabbed nonstop from 8:30 to 10:30, then stood out in the windy parking lot and gabbed some more.
Topics under discussion?
Columbia College Chicago. My alma mater, where we met, because it is there she teaches solo performance and musical theatre in the theatre department.
Families. Hers, mine, teenagers, parents, siblings, and what books we should all be reading. I think her kids will like Scalzi's Redshirts. But they may just be about to start a Pratchett kick, and far be it for me to distract them.
Cavan Hallman's wedding. Briefly. I cannot go. This is a sadness. I should reply to their invitation before it gets lost. Has that already happened? Yikes.
Michael John LaChiusa. I mean, she's been in the same room with him. She owns the same pair of BOOTS as he does. She says he's a natty dresser. She said that he came and did a talk-back for Bernarda Alba at the college. (Stephanie Shaw played Bernarda Alba. I know. I was there. I saw.) I was sitting across from a woman who knows for a fact that he is KIND. And knows what tune he hums under his breath when starry-eyed students are lavishing him with praise.
So the way Michael John LaChiusa comes up is this.
I'm telling Stephanie about my day with my long-lost brothers yesterday, as we're all gathered in the living room chatting. And I ask if I can read to them from this musical adaptation of The Tale of Two Cities that I'm working on. The book, the lyrics, what snatches of tune that are wheeling about in my head like frantic hamsters. (Oh, help, I need a REAL MUSICIAN.)
And how, not only were the brothers patient about the whole thing, but totally engaged. Like, it started out just being Jeremy, but then Desi, and then Declan drifted in, and STAYED. And I explained the story, and where the songs I'd written fell, and a bit of the larger vision. And getting to read/sing it out loud to them re-fired me up about the project, which I'd put aside to finish my novel. And now all I want is a week off and a log cabin and a copy of this book to mark up and my notebook and computer, and OH, YES A COMPOSER. But we'll get to that once the book and lyrics are done, right? I mean, you can't go composer shopping without a pocketful of ENTICING LYRICS, right?
So Stephanie asks me, "You know a lot of musicians, right?"
And I say, "Sure, but not the right KIND of musicians."
Meaning no offense to my amazing musician friends, but they are singer-songwriters - folk and rock and blues. And what I need is someone with ORCHESTRAL ARRANGEMENTS in its head. And I need it to be in love with musical theatre. And I need it to be kind of a genius.
Because Dickens and I deserve that, I think!
She asks, "Which musical is most like the sound you're looking for?"
And I say, "Well, there are three things that I am examining."
I will stop doing this dialogue thing, 'cause I'm not getting it verbatim anyway.
1.) In the musical The Secret Garden (composer and lyricist BOTH WOMEN, by the way), what you have is a series of songs that are completely different, each from the other. All completely singable. All of them ear-worms. You have lyrics that both stay true to the text and also elevate it. You have music that utilizes colors of voices, ensembles, solos, duets, all in the way they should be used if you got 'em. And musically, brings in threads of Indian scales and modes a few times, in acknowledgement instead of erasure of Burnett's bent toward British imperialism.
But, perhaps, The Secret Garden is too soft at the edges, too incandescent, too... hmn... family-friendly to be entirely what I want.
2.) The musical The Scarlet Pimpernel is almost exactly the opposite of what I want. Gosh, is it fun to listen to! And aggravating! The really good songs? Are REALLY SWINGING. And that composer? He's popular. Everyone sings those songs for auditions. I may not like them, but they are sung.
Unfortunately (at least in my opinion) there are songs in it that... I don't even know why they're there. What possible purpose do they serve? Ballads for the sake of showing off? That in no way serve the story? Also, thematically, The Scarlet Pimpernel is the opposite of Tale of Two Cities, being pro-aristocrat, all rich people are innocent and did nothing to deserve the Terror, and all poor people are ignorant, brutal louts - when they aren't clowns.
There is a song Madame Guillotine in that musical that any actor/singer worth their salt would just die to sink their teeth into. It is histrionic. It is bombastic. It needs big choreography. It is full of throbbing vibrato.
One of my goals with my musical is not to write any song remotely like it. Everyone wants a Mob-at-the-Guillotine song. I may even have one. It may even be called "The National Razor." But however it comes out, I want it to make people afraid to sing it.
I am afraid to sing LaChiusa.
3.) Bernarda Alba, by Michael John LaChiusa. It is hard to sing. It is discordant. It has percussion that induces panic attacks. It has close harmonies in near-acappella that would daunt The Roches. It never goes for the easy rhyme. It never does what you expect it to. You pull out of the musical feeling a bit beat up, challenged, sweaty, on the verge of tears, and yet... More, somehow. You were not pandered to. You were put through the meat-grinder, and somehow coming out the other end again, changed but alive, is its own reward.
And those are the things I am thinking about. And Stephanie Shaw is the sort of person who makes me think about them.
She said today, "You don't play tennis with a worse player than yourself."
And she said also, "LaChiusa is immersive. He would bring the revolution to the music."
HE WOULD BRING THE REVOLUTION TO THE MUSIC.
That.
That is what I want.
It's always been very obvious to me that Stephanie Shaw is a tennis player who'll always be a few lightyears ahead of me - and that's OKAY BY ME. She's one of my whetstones.
...Well, she's her own piece of steel too - and she's so sharp, she cuts herself if she's not careful.
...But when I'm being steel, she's one of those that makes me sharper, and any two hour breakfast with her is NOT ENOUGH.
That's all.
***