The JRB Weblog

The JRB Weblog http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/ The official weblog of jasonrobertbrown.com: a place for more personal, relaxed and candid messages from Jason to JRBheads the world around. en Copyright 2010 Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:09:05 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss SOUND BLOG #14: FUDDY MEERS previous sound blog, which was about an ill-fated collaboration with David Lindsay-Abaire, today I'll focus on one of my collaborations with David that worked out very well indeed.

After the original production of Parade closed in New York, I was in parlous financial straits and needed to get out of the city for a while to recover. An offer came to be the musical director of a show in Dallas directed by David Petrarca, with whom I'd worked a couple of times.

While we were in the midst of rehearsals, I noticed that he carried a script around with him with the baffling title of "Fuddy Meers." At lunch one day, I asked him what it was. Petrarca told me it was a fantastic new play that he was going to be directing that fall at Manhattan Theatre Club. Without even reading it, I jumped on the possibility that there might be a job involved for me, so I asked whether anyone had been hired to write the incidental music. Petrarca looked at me for a second, then said, "No, and you should do it, you'd be perfect." I love it when that happens.

I then took the script back to my apartment and was surprised to find out that it was more than just a good play; it was a moving and honest and beautiful piece that was also a totally insane and ridiculous comedy. Lindsay-Abaire had managed to create something that was utterly his own voice while still telling a compelling and powerful story. I knew exactly what the music should be.

I envisioned some kind of circus atmosphere, but distorted and disjunct – the defining event of the play happens at a carnival, and it causes the heroine to lose her memory. I wanted something with the spirit of Americana, but as though it were in pieces, like a puzzle that had yet to be assembled.

Back in New York, I called Tony Trischka and asked him if he'd come play on a session for me. I'd never met Tony, but everyone I asked said he was the greatest banjo player in New York, if not the world, so I got his number out of the Union directory and gave him a ring. I then asked the great jazz cellist Nioka Workman to join in as well. And I set up an old Korg T3 synthesizer that I had lying around in storage, and rented a glockenspiel.

For the central waltz theme, Tony and I played the melody in unison (he on banjo, me on glock), while Nioka played a bass figure. I then overdubbed a calliope part while one of the engineers in the studio gently moved the tuning wheel up and down on the keyboard in the range of a quarter-tone.

For the chase sequences, I thought it would be fun to rip off Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn" music, so Nioka and I played a bass line that walks the line between homage and plagiarism and Tony let fly with some fantastic solos.

All told, I wrote about ten minutes of music for the play, but I condensed most of the major material into this little suite that I created for a demo reel. So here's two minutes and twelve seconds of my first professional incidental music.*

"Suite from Fuddy Meers" (1999)
Music by Jason Robert Brown
JRB: piano, synthesizer, glockenspiel
Tony Trischka: banjo
Nioka Workman: cello
Digital editing by Dan Sklar
Recorded at Warehouse Studios, NY, NY, 10/4/99

The day after Fuddy Meers opened, I was delighted to find that the critics agreed with me about how special and wonderful this play was. (I also got a positive mention in the Times, the first time that had ever happened.) The play moved to a commercial production Off-Broadway, and has since been produced a zillion times. I'm proud to have been part of it, and hope that I'll continue to work with Messrs. Petrarca and Lindsay-Abaire many more times. (We did all work together once more, on Kimberly Akimbo two years later, but that'll have to wait for another blog!)

I'll get back to the songwriting class blogs soon!

*UPDATE: Seth Christenfeld correctly notes in the comments below that Fuddy Meers was not in fact my first professional incidental music. Why he knows this, I have no idea.
]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/02/sound_blog_14_fuddy_meers.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/02/sound_blog_14_fuddy_meers.php Sound Blog Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:09:05 -0800 SONGWRITING FOR THE THEATER: Week 2: A Cheesy Melody
Someone yells "D Major!"

I write two sharps on the staff. Okay, what time signature are we in?

"4/4, Common time."

What's the feel?

Several conversations begin at once. Finally, a voice emerges: "Disco!"

Got it. I mark out four measures on the staff, and then scribble in a melody.

All right, there's the first phrase of a cheesy melody. Now we need another phrase that answers it. Who's got it?

A couple of hands go up. One guy sings some random notes in an unknown tempo, someone else starts to sing something then stops after a measure saying, "Ah, I don't know where I'm going with that," another person just sings back the phrase that I've already written. Eventually, we have three options, and two of the three end by landing on the tonic, like this:

I tell the class that if I pick a phrase that ends on the tonic, then for all intents and purposes, the song is over. The tonic tells us we've achieved our aims. Therefore, I'm going with the other option.

Melody%202.jpg

"But that option sounds sort of stupid."

I agree, sir. But the aim of this exercise is not to create a great song. What I'm trying to do is to create a correct song. Let's establish the rules for what makes something right; once we've done that, we can worry about how to make it good.

Now we've got eight bars. Let's discuss what to do with the next section of the melody.

I have a theory about the psychological origins of AABA structure, and it goes something like this: It takes me saying something three times in order for you to get it. So I'm going to say it once, and you're not going to get it. I'll say it again, maybe a little differently, but you still won't get it. If I just go right on and repeat it a third time, you're going to think I'm an idiot, so I have to reframe my point, give it some new context. Now I've built up to it, and you'll understand me better when I go back to my original point. And let's face it, if I've said it three times and you still don't get it, you're probably not going to.

So that's AABA structure, psychologically. Say something once (A1), say it again (A2), find some new context (B) so you can say it one last time (A3).

Therefore, since we're writing a melody that has an AABA structure (and we'll be dealing with AABA structure an awful lot in this class), we're now up to the point where we have to find a phrase that will recontextualize our original A.

What does that mean? How can we recontextualize a phrase of music? And a stupid phrase at that?

There are a couple of traditional avenues that we can walk down here. Let's explore two: First, we can go to a different area tonally. If we've been sitting in the tonic (I) for a long time, maybe we go to the subdominant (IV), like Hoagy Carmichael does in "Skylark." In "Where Or When" (Rodgers & Hart), the B section is in the relative minor (vi). Gershwin goes to the III for the B section of "I Got Rhythm."

We can also change our rhythmic energy – thus far our melody has been very syncopated; maybe we can do something more lyrical and less jumpy. Look at "The Way You Look Tonight" that we dealt with last week – the A section starts with whole notes (semibreves, if you're reading this in London or you're pretentious); the B section goes to half notes (minims). More subtle is Bernstein's melody for "Lucky To Be Me" – the A sections are built on one-bar phrases ("What a day"), and then the B section expands those out to two-bar phrases ("I am simply thunderstruck").

With this in mind, one of the students proposes the following B section for our melody:

Melody%203.jpg

Works for me. Even though all we've got is a single-line melody, I already have a sense of where this B section goes harmonically. And since it ends on the 5th scale degree, it leads beautifully back into our A3.

For our purposes, the first two measures of the A3 are going to be the same as the A1. So it's just a matter of wrapping this thing up. How do we close out this melody and feel like we've made our musical point?

Melody%204.jpg

Perfect. And I love how the rhythm in the 3rd measure echoes the rhythm in the 3rd measure of the B. Very elegant, actually. Far better than this song needs to be! But I'm not complaining.

Now we've got our sixteen-measure melody. It's time to figure out who's singing it, and why.

Melody%205.jpg

(Wanna hear it?)

Stay tuned.]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/02/cheesy_melody.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/02/cheesy_melody.php Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:32:23 -0800 SONGWRITING FOR THE THEATER: Week 1
All the prospective students had to submit a portfolio of four songs, either music or lyrics (or both), and I determined based on those portfolios which students seemed ready and able to handle the frenetic insanity that is the hallmark of my class structure. I ended up choosing six music majors, three theater majors, and one girl who is a double major in the theater and music schools. My intention is that everyone write music and lyrics at some point in the semester – clearly some people will be better at one than the other, but everyone should know what it takes to get the job done.

For the first week, I wanted to start building a basic vocabulary of musical theater songwriting techniques, and to that end, we spent the whole three-hour class listening to and analyzing six songs I had chosen deliberately to represent a wide spectrum of styles.

1. "The Way You Look Tonight" (1936), Music by Jerome Kern, Lyric by Dorothy Fields
It's not from a stage musical, but on a quick flip through my iTunes, this was the song that jumped out at me as the most perfect and clear example of a classic 64-bar AABA song. The melody is both surprising and inevitable, as Kern so often is, and one of the students remarked on the fact that during the A sections, all the melodic jumps are downward (all those plunging fifths and octaves) whereas the B section has that fantastic jump upward at "tearing my fear aPART...". I'm also in awe of the lyric; that "Lovely" that starts the third A section, just a simple declaration, so unexpected and so conversational. A wonderful song on every level.

2. "Some People" from Gypsy (1959), Music by Jule Styne, Lyric by Stephen Sondheim
It was fantastic watching students who had never heard this iconic material get totally blown away by it. All the internal rhyme, the totally out-of-left-field dissonances of the "I had a dream" section, the pure thrill of hearing such quintessentially "show-biz" vocabulary used in such aggressive and uncompromising ways – the theater kids knew the song cold, but the music students were utterly surprised by it. I talked about how well the song is tailored to Merman's specific gifts, the way that first "But I at least gotta try" must have been so unimaginably satisfying to an audience waiting to hear Ethel do her patented belting, but prepared so dramatically and effectively. Parenthetically, I mentioned the orchestrations, which give the impression of being brassy and busy, but are in fact very restrained because of the need to support an unamplified voice; I realized that if I were orchestrating it now, I'd use a lot more of the saxes and trumpets throughout to accent the vocal, and it would be infinitely less effective.

3. "Finishing the Hat" from Sunday In The Park With George (1985), Music and Lyric by Stephen Sondheim
For people who think of musical theater as congenitally corny and declamatory, this piece comes as a shock. Experiencing Sondheim's utter mastery of form and structure in the service of such quintessentially personal content is humbling and inspiring. Look at the four times he uses "window", and how they build inevitably to the last one, the breakthrough, the catharsis – "It's the only way to see." Years ago, Lippa and I were listening to the show while driving home from Goodspeed, and at the end of this song, we turned to each other with tears running down both of our faces. I've had twenty-five years to deal with it, but there's something cruel about showing this to students who are just beginning to write for the theater – you can't help but realize that you're never going to do anything this good.

4. "Some Girls" from Once On This Island (1990), Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyric by Lynn Ahrens
A virtually perfect song from a virtually perfect musical. "This is the benchmark," I told the students; "The bar is set right here." A deceptively simple melody (with some gorgeous harmonizations), serving a lyric that carefully, methodically sets up a devastating punch. This song is what can happen when two extraordinary talented people know the rules backwards and forwards and can deploy them with lethal precision.

5. "Here I Am" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), Music and Lyric by David Yazbek
I love everything about this score, especially because I know how unbelievably difficult it is to pull off something that sounds so breezy. So much musical theater comedy material is campy and overblown, and the music is usually simplistic to the point of non-existent – but Yazbek is amazing in his ability to write lyrics that get actual laughs and wrap them in music that's not just harmonically sophisticated but dead-on for the character and the setting. One of the students was impressed with the simplicity of the setup; a door opens and this character that we've never met just starts singing, and within four lines, we're entirely with her. I remember sitting in the theater and hearing Sherie hit "This nice sincere Sancerre" and just wanting to throw shoes at the stage.

6. "Shiksa Goddess" from The Last Five Years (2002), Music and Lyric by ... um, Me
Because they're stuck with me all semester, I wanted to make sure the students knew something about the kind of work I do, and how it fits into the musical theatre continuum that we'd been discussing all day. "Shiksa Goddess" is a good example of the kind of stuff that makes me tick: the large musical structure supports the storytelling, and the units within that structure refer to each other but also drift independently; the lyrics rhyme only when they have to, and the flow is conversational, unapologetically specific, and always directed to another character; and the show itself speaks to something personal and real and honest. I don't always meet my own standard for what I want my work to be, but I'm never more fulfilled than those moments when I feel all the elements of a song coming together in a quirky but organic and genuine way.

It's an idiosyncratic selection of songs, to be sure, but I think it's a good indication of the sort of musical theater songwriting we'll be studying and, I hope, aspiring to. And most importantly, it's a selection that demonstrates my faith in The Song as the building block and the most essential element of a strong piece of musical theatre.

Next week: the writing begins! With tales of a garbage man, a lonely teenage wallflower, and a tap-dancing eight-year-old.

]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/01/songwriting_for_the_theater_we.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/01/songwriting_for_the_theater_we.php Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:45:04 -0800 A SPECIAL "LAST FIVE YEARS" BENEFIT IN L.A.
Earlier this year, in May, East West Players presented a somewhat unconventional production of my musical, The Last Five Years. I say "unconventional" because East West Players is a Los Angeles-based company whose mission is to produce "outstanding works and educational programs that give voice to the Asian Pacific American experience."

The Last Five Years is a musical about a Jewish writer and an Irish-Catholic actress in New York City. Those are the only two characters. It's about as Asian as burritos. I figured East West was doing the show as some kind of gimmick.

It was no gimmick. What emerged was a heartfelt, powerful and honest production directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera, and performed beautifully by two sensational young performers, Michael K. Lee and Jennifer Paz.

That production has been nominated for four Ovation awards, one for each of the stars, one for the director, and one for Best Musical.

Last month, I got an email asking if I would give permission to do a one-night-only "revival" of the production, as a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. I said that not only would I give permission, but that I'd be honored if they'd allow me to accompany the performance myself, both as a way to be part of this fantastic company and as a way to thank East West Players for believing in the universality of my work.

And so, on JANUARY 9, 2010 at 8 pm, I will be sitting behind the piano at the DAVID HENRY HWANG THEATRE in Los Angeles, playing for Jennifer Paz and Michael K. Lee as they recreate their perfomances in THE LAST FIVE YEARS as a benefit for BC/EFA. We may offer some additional tunes after the show as well, you never know!

Will you come join us? The website for information and buying tickets is http://www.eastwestplayers.org/BroadwayCares/index.htm, or you can call (818) 358-2730. It's a great cast, a great cause, and (oh, I can say it) a great show.

Here's the blurb:

Emchaviel Productions presents

The Last 5 Years

A one-night-only event benefitting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS

Starring
Michael K. Lee and Jennifer Paz

And

Jason Robert Brown at the piano

Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown

Directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera

Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown (Parade, 13, Songs for a New World) joins 2009 Ovation nominees Michael K. Lee and Jennifer Paz in this one-night-only performance of his critically acclaimed, Off-Broadway gem The Last 5 Years. This poignant and profound musical follows Jamie and Cathy through the last five years of their relationship, from beginning to end, and from end to beginning. 2009 Ovation nominee Jon Lawrence Rivera returns to direct this unconventional telling of boy meets girl.

Proceeds will benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation's leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, since 1988 BC/EFA has raised over $175 million for essential services for people with AIDS and other critical illnesses across the United States. BC/EFA is the major supporter of seven programs at The Actor's Fund - including The AIDS Initiative, The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative. The Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic, The Dancer's Resource and three supportive housing residences. BC/EFA also awards annual grants to over 400 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide.

Saturday, January 9 at 8pm

East West Players
David Henry Hwang Theater
120 Judge John Aiso Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tickets $45, $55, $65
Click here for tickets or call: (818) 358-2730

Happy New Year to you all!
Jason Robert Brown ]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/12/a_special_last_five_years_bene.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/12/a_special_last_five_years_bene.php News Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:28:10 -0800 SOUND BLOG #13: [TITLE WITHHELD ON ADVICE OF COUNSEL]
The original rights-holder of this cartoon character had approval of the entire creative team, so before I could be officially hired, I was asked to write two songs that might fit in the show. In order to get paid to write those two songs, I signed an agreement stating that, in essence, if I ended up not being hired for the show, I could retain ownership of the songs but would never be allowed to state that they were written for this particular character. Because of that agreement, I am not using the character's name anywhere in this post. I think you will need about fifteen seconds to figure it out, but my hands are clean.

By the time I met with this producer, the wonderful writer David Lindsay-Abaire had already written a wickedly funny and fantastically creative treatment for the musical, and it had been approved. Since I had already written the music for two of David's plays, I knew that working with him would be a joyful and exciting collaboration, so I decided to write the two songs.

Equally important was the fact that just by reading the treatment, I knew what the show should sound like. Since it took place in a Manhattanesque city in the middle of the Depression, I heard a kind of squonky cartoon jazz, like early Duke Ellington crossed with Carl Stalling; and [character's name redacted on advice of counsel]'s speech patterns and dialogue were sufficiently distinctive and idiosyncratic that a lyric style for the show became obvious fairly quickly – I imagined Yip Harburg as the perfect person for the job, so I tried to ape his style as best I could. (As it happens, I'm very distantly related to Yip Harburg, so I feel especially close to his work, even though our writing styles couldn't be more dissimilar on the surface.)

I looked through the treatment and picked two moments that seemed particularly ripe for singing. At the end of the first act, [character's name redacted on advice of counsel] decides to run for Mayor, and her campaign speech is so rousing in its sincerity and optimism that the populace overwhelmingly votes her into office. And in the second act, [character's name redacted on advice of counsel] is performing her nightclub act (in the midst of her term as Mayor, of course) and marveling at the good fortune that has brought her from life as a nobody to her current stardom.

(An explanation about the second song: Throughout the play, another character - we'll call him Dingo - is constantly dodging the owner of the nightclub, and in this song, Dingo hides on the bandstand itself, which requires him to take a clarinet solo in the middle of the song even though he doesn't play the clarinet. As his solo comes to an end, the nightclub owner sees him and he runs off the stage. That clarinet solo was played on this demo with exquisite ineptitude by my own gorgeous wife, Georgia Stitt, which I suspect she doesn't want me to publicize. Oops.)

David liked the songs a lot, as did I, so I went into the studio with the sensational Nicole van Giesen to record them. Almost immediately, I heard from the producer: the rights-holder and all of the producers loved my songs! I got the job! I was going to write a big Broadway musical comedy about [character's name redacted on advice of counsel]!

And then I got fired.

I don't really know what happened, and the producer who had originally approached me was never very clear with me about what went on (I think there was a power-play with the rights-holder and one of the other producers), but I know it wasn't anything I did, because I hadn't written anything yet. I had two meetings with David, where we came up with a lot of great, fun ideas for the show, and then I got a call saying it was over. They hired another composer, then David quit six months after that, then the producers started over with yet another writer and composer, and then I saw an announcement last November (five years after my involvement) that there was a whole new creative team (which sounded totally bizarre).

So whatever. The songs are fun, Nicole sings them beautifully, and you get a gloriously bad clarinet solo by my wife. And to the producers who fired me, after I had turned down other work and cleared six months of my schedule at their request to write the show, a very hearty and well-deserved [expletive deleted].

"[Title song from show about cartoon character whose name is redacted on advice of counsel]"
from [Title withheld on advice of counsel] (2003)
Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
[title character]: Nicole Van Giesen
JRB: piano, tap dancing, backing vocals
Recorded and mixed by Jeffrey Lesser
Recorded at RPM Studios, NY, NY, 7/1/03

"Goin' My Way"
from [Title withheld on advice of counsel] (2003)
Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
[title character]: Nicole Van Giesen
JRB: piano
Georgia Stitt: claminet
Recorded and mixed by Jeffrey Lesser
Recorded at RPM Studios, NY, NY, 7/7/03

]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/10/sound_blog_13title_withheld_on.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/10/sound_blog_13title_withheld_on.php Sound Blog Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:35:50 -0800 ASK JRB: ARE YOU A BIG FAT LIAR? Wiley DeWeese asks, in hundreds of increasingly desperate emails over the course of the last month:

In your blog a few years back you mentioned that the script of the Donmar production of Parade would be the only version available to license starting in 2008; however, the MTI website still lists the 1999 touring version as the production available to license. Did the switch to the Donmar version ever happen, and if not, will it possibly happen after the LA production closes? I have an interest in doing the show, but lack the resources to do the larger production.

And JRB, shielding his eyes from the blinding shame, responds:

Ugh, it's true, it's all true, I LIED. It's right there in this entry:

...Starting in January 2008, the only version of Parade that will be available for license is this new one; we are withdrawing the earlier version, though we may make "Big News" available separately for those companies who have a Britt Craig that they really want to show off. Don Sebesky and I are also going to revise the original orchestrations so that you can do the show with the small band or the large one.

But here's the thing, okay, before you nail me to your cross, hear me out: It was a lie borne of enthusiasm and ignorance, not of malice. I didn't mean to mislead you, okay? I just got excited and talked out of turn. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, if I could take it back, I would. Please, please forgive me.

As Monk would say, here's what happened: just as we were in the middle of preparing the materials for licensing, we got an offer from the Mark Taper Forum to present the Donmar production of the show. And so the Donmar called us, all the way from London, and asked us (the authors) to hold off on licensing the new version of the show so that the Taper production could be called the American premiere of the revision. In fact, they asked us to suspend all productions of Parade in the United States and Canada until the Donmar production. That seemed a little excessive, and MTI in particular wanted us to get the new version out in the world, but as a professional courtesy, we agreed to keep the original script on offer for the time being (with certain regions being declared off-limits so as not to compete with the production in Los Angeles) and not release the new one. So we've been in a holding pattern with the licensing until the Taper production is over; and even then, if this production tours, we've agreed to keep this version of the show off the market until such time as it makes sense to let other companies do it. I should have updated that blog entry months ago, but I've been paralyzed by embarrassment. I feel better now. Thank you, Wiley, for giving me the opportunity to bare my soul.

Meanwhile, I'm currently sitting in a tech rehearsal at the Taper, and this show is going to be magnificent, an ever richer experience, I think, than it was in London. I'm sorry I was a big fat liar, but at least I write good musicals.

To whet your appetite, check out this gallery of photos of the production in London, courtesy of our sensational lighting designer Neil Austin. Previews start in a week!]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/09/big_fat_liar.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/09/big_fat_liar.php Ask JRB! Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:43:53 -0800 ASK JRB: PIANO STYLE R. M. Kennedy asks:

I'm going to be playing the piano in an upcoming production of Last Five Years, and I have a few questions. First, in No. 3 [See I'm Smiling], you mark that two passages are to be "vamped," under spoken text. In the first instance, the bar after the vamp ("...I think we both can...") forms the end of a phrase, but if the instructions are followed, there will be an odd number of bars in the phrase. Should I jump on the first bar of the vamp to even out the break, or should it be odd? Before the "rant scene," there is another vamp followed by a 1/4 bar. Should I jump on the third beat of the second bar, or should the last bar be as a 5/4? Also, in No. 4 [Moving Too Fast], you mark several chords with "fall-off." Does that signify a glissando, or something else? I've never ventured out of classical repertoire before, so that direction is unfamiliar. I would appreciate help.

And JRB responds:

Thanks so much for writing, and best of luck on playing the show! If you've never played gospel-style piano, and you've never played musical theater, The Last Five Years is certainly going to be a challenge. But I've heard a lot of pianists rise to the task of bringing this score to life, and I do think all the sweating and cursing is worth it. The pianist in this show is as much an actor in the play as the two lead performers, and the amount of discipline and energy required to get through a performance is rather greater than most other musicals.

Let's look at the three places you asked about, one at a time:

Ex. 1:

If you've only ever played classical repertoire in your life, this probably looks like a lot of hieroglyphics. Measures 46 and 47 are marked as a "VAMP." That means that they are to be repeated until the conductor (which, in this case, is probably also the pianist) gives the cue to move on. But the key to your question is the marking above measure 47: "JUMP on CUE."

The reason I gave that instruction is that I wanted as little time as possible to elapse between Jamie saying "What's your address?" and Kathy singing "I think we both can see what could be better." If that "JUMP" instruction weren't there and you heard Jamie say his line while you were in the middle of bar 46, you would be stuck playing the rest of that measure and the whole next one before you could get out of the vamp – six beats during which the actors have nothing to do and there's nothing interesting happening musically. Therefore, as soon as you hear the cue, you JUMP to measure 48.

The questioner above, however, is asking a more nuanced question: If you play the whole vamp and then play measure 48, you'll end up playing an uneven phrase. It's sort of unmusical, and any pianist worth their salt is going to resist being unmusical in that way, just instinctively. Here's how you deal with that problem: you don't. The audience isn't paying attention to the phrase lengths, they're paying attention to the story, and if you get stuck in a vamp, you're stopping the story from going on. I'm grateful and appreciative of the fact that good pianists don't want to let things become unmusical in the process of playing a show, but the drama wins. Especially in this case when the music is really just a groove with a bass solo going on. So when you hear Jamie's cue, you should JUMP on the next downbeat to measure 48. It may even be appropriate to jump on beat 3, in the middle of a measure – I certainly did that a couple of times during the run of the show in New York. It becomes a question of taste and comfort. If you think the band is ready to follow you, and you're ready to throw the cue, then throw it. I wouldn't, however, recommend jumping on beat 2 or 4; there is a limit to how unmusical you can be. (Wait for the next example.)

Other pianists might well be wondering what those slashes are in the piano part – after all, if it's a piano part, shouldn't there be notes for the pianist to play? The slashes indicate that the pianist is to make up his or her own part in that measure. (Each slash represents a beat of music – since this section is in 4/4, there are four slashes in each bar.) There are two pieces of information included to guide the pianist on how to make that part up:

The CHORDS written above the staff explain what the harmonic makeup of that measure will be. The fact that there's a different chord written over the fourth slash means that the chord changes on the fourth beat. Any musical theater pianist should know how to read chord symbols, it's an essential part of the gig. Some chord symbols can get aggressively arcane, like a F7+(#11), and some composers use different symbols than others – in this case, an A2 means that there's an added second in the chord (a B natural). Sometimes this replaces the third, sometimes it doesn't – that becomes a matter of taste.

The word COMP says that this section is not meant to be a SOLO. "Comping" means just playing a groove, something that supports a soloist harmonically without drawing attention to itself. Here, you're supporting a bass solo, and that's happening under dialogue, so it's all gotta be pretty low-key.

Why didn't I just write out a piano part for those two measures? Because the vamp goes on for rather a long time (about a minute, if I recall correctly) and it would get distracting for the audience to hear the same exact pattern repeated for a full minute – the slashes give the pianist permission to alter the pattern and improvise some ideas (lightly and tastefully!). It's also a lot less boring for the player.

Ex. 2:

Okay, this all looks pretty familiar from the last example. The only difference is that wacky 1/4 bar that you have to jump to. The reason I wrote it like this is that the music in that 1/4 bar is an important transition into the next section, and that transition has to happen in exactly that amount of time and no longer. If I had written it as a 4/4 bar and just put that transition on the last beat, you'd have to sit for three beats of not-very-important music just to get to the gesture I need. Therefore, what I've written is for the pianist to sit in the vamp until you hear the cue and then JUMP right to a 1/4 bar. Again, the question above is about whether it should be unmusical. Do you jump on beat 4 and make the measure sound like a 4/4 bar (and therefore comfortably musical) or do you just jump wherever and grit your teeth through the weird feeling that you've added or subtracted a beat of music?

Again, the drama wins – jump as soon as you hear that cue. When I was conducting the show, that cue came on every possible beat over the course of the run; the band was always ready to jump to it whenever I threw the cue. It's great having a band that's flexible and comfortable enough to do that; if you're a little less secure, I'd suggest throwing the cue on beat 2 or 4 and making it feel even. But no matter how gifted you are, don't try to do it on the eighth notes in between!

Ex. 3:

I had an idea years ago to write a guide to my particular style of playing the piano, explaining all the thumb runs, rolloffs, finger slides, aleatoric fills, the crazy crap that comes perfectly naturally to me and feels to most other pianists like abuse. I never did get around to writing that guide, but maybe this is the first chapter.

Fall-offs are a pretty standard tool in a jazz or gospel player's repertoire. Basically, it's a fast glissando. The notation is a little misleading, however – almost anyone is going to do that gliss with their thumb, which means that the fall-off comes from the lowest pitch in the chord, not the top. In this specific fall-off, here's what I do:

On the beat, I hit the chord – my thumb is hitting both the G and the A. Almost immediately, my thumb and my second finger BOTH start downward glissandi. My thumb will ultimately make it about an octave down – the second finger will have lifted off by then. As the name suggests, there is a natural diminuendo that takes place – by no means would I accent the end of a fall-off. This all happens very quickly – my hand is off the piano by the second eighth-note of the beat. A fall-off should feel sort of like a sigh, or maybe a shout. There are exceptions, but they're usually marked as such: "Long fall-off" or something like that. I'll write that for a horn player, but I don't think I've written it for a pianist.

Okay, that was officially the wonkiest entry in the history of this blog. I hope it wasn't too patronizing. Anyone who's read this far, please feel free to ask further questions about how to play my piano parts accurately – it's always good to find out what other pianists consider difficult in my work.

We're currently working on a re-design of this whole site to make it easier to navigate, but in the meantime, there are some other wonky pianist questions answered in this entry and especially this one, so feel free to dig around the archives and see what you can find.

]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/08/ask_jrb_piano_style.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/08/ask_jrb_piano_style.php Ask JRB! Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:41:04 -0800 JRB in Vancouver 8/21, and in the movies!
Two exciting items for you today. First, this coming Friday, August 21, I'll be heading up to Vancouver, British Columbia, to check out Not Another Musical Co-Op's fantastically-reviewed production of Songs for a New World, and then right after the show, I'm doing a solo concert right on the Pacific Theatre stage. So if you're in Vancouver, you can check out the show AND the concert starting at 8 pm Friday night. You can click here to buy tickets online, and you can go here for more details about the production and the cast. I'm looking forward to checking out the show and meeting all of you Vancouverite Brownies!

And secondly, I'm delighted to announce that my song, "Someone To Fall Back On," is heavily featured in the new movie Bandslam, co-written and directed by Todd Graff. I haven't gotten a chance to see the movie yet, but the reviews are pretty friggin' awesome, and you can pick up Aly Michalka's very cool rendition of my song right now on iTunes. It's really exciting that my song is finding a new audience, and even better that it's in an actually GOOD movie.

Plenty of other stuff going on, but I'll get into more detail on the blog later this month. Meanwhile, let me just say that we started Parade rehearsals yesterday, and y'all better get your tickets now. It's gonna be on FIRE.

Peace out, my peoples, and I hope to see you in Vancouver!

Goodbiden!
Jason Robert Brown]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/08/jrb_in_vancouver_821_and_in_th.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/08/jrb_in_vancouver_821_and_in_th.php News Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:15:56 -0800 WHAT WAS I DOING IN MISSOULA? Missoula Children's Theater, an organization which turns out to be pretty astounding. (Check this page out to read about the amazing stuff they do.) This summer, MCT is hosting their first Musical Theater intensive course, called Next Step Prep, and they invited me to come work with their students. I had a wonderful time, saw some fantastic scenery, worked with some delightfully talented kids, ate some good salmon, and I hope they'll invite me back next year.

Here's a blog entry about my first rehearsal with the kids, and here's one about a master class I gave on my last day. (You can also keep clicking through that blog to read about some of the other great people who are working with the kids this summer.) Thanks to Jim, Greg, Lizzie and everyone else who made it such a great trip.

This week, Making It On Broadway's Los Angeles intensive, and then I'm off to French Woods to work on "13"... again! ]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/07/what_was_i_doing_in_missoula.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/07/what_was_i_doing_in_missoula.php Ask JRB! Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:22:06 -0800 YEAR 39
I haven't written much for the blog lately, but I did write an article for the Dramatists Guild magazine that I'm very proud of – it's called "Living With the F-Word" and it's about my experiences working on Broadway last year. You can read it in the current issue of The Dramatist that's on newsstands now, and there is a bunch of other great articles in there too, including a swell piece by Scott Frankel, a showdown between Neil LaBute and John Simon, and a great essay by Craig Lucas. (And if you love the magazine, The Guild would be delighted if you were inspired to subscribe.)

If my music interests you more than my prose, you'll be delighted to hear that Kate Pazakis's debut album, "Unzipped: Live at the Zipper", is now available on iTunes and the CD from PS Classics will be in stores on July 7. I produced and arranged two songs on the album, including the opening (a Mardi Gras take on "Hand In My Pocket") and the closing, a brand new song of mine called "Clarissa's Last Stand." If you're not already one of the millions of Kate Pazakis fans, you're in for a fantastic treat.

(Two other singers released CD's this year with my songs on them, and they both sound awesome. Look on the discography on my website to find out more about Rachel Bay Jones and Jason Forbach!)

The saga of "13" continues! The Broadway production got EIGHT awards (and one additional nomination) in the Fourth Annual National Youth Theatre Awards from the National Youth Theatre Association. Check out the winners here, and congratulations to them all!

In the meantime, we've just finished a new draft of the script that will be performed for the first time this summer at the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts before its regional premiere at Theater Under The Stars in Houston. (More information about that is on the website.) This new version is very exciting to me, because we've managed to restore "Being A Geek" (which you can listen to here) and Lucy's big showstopper "Opportunity" (which is on the Broadway CD but wasn't in the show by the time it opened).

And we're also adding to the line of "13" paraphernalia: there's the Original Broadway Cast album from Sh-K-Boom Records, the Official Vocal Selections sheet music from Hal Leonard, the novel from Harper-Collins, a special choral arrangement of "Brand New You" by Roger Emerson, and coming soon: The 13 Karaoke CD! More information on that coming soon; watch the website!

But what I'm most excited about in the next couple of months is the production of "Parade" that we'll be doing at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles starting in September. It's the same production we did two years ago at the Donmar Warehouse in London – Rob Ashford is directing and choreographing, Tom Murray will be conducting David Cullen's amazing orchestrations, and Christopher Oram and Neil Austin will be adapting their design – with an unbelievable American cast, including T.R. Knight (in his first post-Grey's Anatomy performance), Tony Award-winner Christian Hoff, the amazing Davis Gaines, two-time Tony nominee (and current star of Chicago) Charlotte d'Amboise, Tony nominee (and [title of show] director) Michael Berresse, Curt Hansen, Rose Sezniak, David St. Louis, P.J. Griffith, Deidrie Henry, Brad Anderson, Hayley Podschun, Lisa Livesay, Phoebe Strole, Will Collyer, Karole Foreman, Laura Griffith, Sarah Jayne Jensen, Josh Tower, Robert Yacko, and in her American debut, the Olivier-nominated star of the British premieres of Parade AND The Last Five Years, Lara Pulver. You can find out more about the production (including how to get tickets) on the Center Theatre Group website.

And coming up later this year: my deliriously talented wife and I arranged and produced two tracks for Kate Baldwin's forthcoming album on PS Classics, a reading of Honeymoon In Vegas in the fall, workshops with Missoula Children's Theatre and Making It On Broadway, an orchestral concert of "Songs for a New World" in London, more teaching, more concerts, more songs... Keeping busy staves off the panic of aging! Oh, also, we're having another child in October. In case there wasn't enough going on.

We're also working on a new design for this website, so keep checking in!

Have a fabulous summer,
Jason Robert Brown

LATE UPDATE: The Houston production is apparently cast! Check out this blog for details, and congratulations to Aaron, Sean, Sydney and the rest of the cast! You guys are gonna rock it!
]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/06/year_39.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/06/year_39.php Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:43:27 -0800 ASK JRB: "OPPORTUNITY" Karen Pogorelc writes:

I have a suggestion/comment. My daughters and I saw 13 in NY, in December. We really enjoyed the show. We were disappointed with the exclusion of "Opportunity" from the show. The song is fantastic. I also thought the show should have had an intermission. With the inclusion of "Opportunity", you could definitely have had that intermission.

We just purchased the Hal Leonard vocal selections of 13, and "Opportunity" was not included in the book. Will that piece be available to purchase? Are you restoring that song to the show?

I work for a local theater group, and if we ever do that show (which I would love to do) I would definitely want "Opportunity" back in there.

And JRB responds thusly:

You never know what's going to happen when you put something on stage in front of an audience. Maybe I should say I never know, because often I spend a lot of time fighting for something or defending something that just doesn't land the way I imagined it. (Also, thank God, it often works out great, but that's not what we're talking about.)

So "Opportunity" was a very important song in the show for me, because I thought it was essential that we have a football number in 13, and I thought the events of that song were very significant in the plot. I wrote many versions of that song, more than for any other song in the show, and the production in LA had a different football number than the production at Goodspeed, and "Opportunity" was yet another take on it, and I thought it was the best version of all when we started previews on Broadway.

You may not know this, but there was an intermission in the show, and "Opportunity" was the opener of the second act. But as we went through previews, the show seemed to sag at the end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2, and we eventually realized that we could consolidate all the plot information in those scenes, cut the intermission and keep the show rolling forward. Once we did make that cut, the whole show flowed much better. So in the bloodbath, "Opportunity" bit the dust, which was a shame because I loved the song, but it clearly wasn't working, whether it was the staging or the placement or just the song itself. (It wasn't the performance, which was always awesome.)

We actually recorded the cast album before we even started technical rehearsals, which is why both "Opportunity" and "Here I Come" (which had been the first act finale) are on the CD even though neither of them is in the show. Nobody seems to lament "Here I Come" very much (I don't either, truth be told, but I think it sounds good on the recording), but I get a lot of comments about "Opportunity," and there are two reasons for that, I think:

First, even though it never worked on stage, it's probably the best sounding track on the CD. There's no way to know why it catches your ear the way it does, but the minute the drums start on that song, I get all happy and think "It's a hit!"

The other reason, and the reason cutting the song was so heartbreaking, is that "Opportunity" was really Liz Gillies's big chance to shine in the show, and she sang the hell out of it. I built the whole song around her voice, knowing what a sensational instrument she had, and every time she sang it, I was blown away by her talent. Even though Lucy (Liz's character) has a big chunk of "Getting Ready" and the whole opening of "It Can't Be True," "Opportunity" was the one number that was built around Lucy from beginning to end. When we cut it, we lost the chance to applaud for one of Lucy's songs, and by that I mean the audience never got to show Liz how much they loved her. Believe me, cutting the song was a very difficult and depressing decision, but Liz was a trouper, and the show really did play much better without those two songs.

I never wanted the show to have an intermission, truth be told; I didn't think the story justified two whole acts, and I felt vindicated when we restored the show to its one-act structure. So no, I don't want to put the intermission back. As for restoring "Opportunity," I certainly wouldn't restore it where it was, but I do have an idea about something I could do with it in an earlier section, and that's one of the things Robert Horn and Dan Elish and I are going to try when we do a developmental production this summer. (I doubt it's going to work, though, because the show's probably too long already.)

It's one of the tricky things about putting the song out there on the CD; I wanted people to be able to hear Liz's fantastic performance, but I didn't want people to be disappointed when the song wasn't in the show anymore. Ultimately, Liz won out, and I'm glad she did, but the reason I won't make the sheet music available is because I don't want any guerilla interpolations in future productions. Once we finalize the version of the show that we're licensing, I'm going to be very clear that that's the only version of the show that anyone is allowed to do.

But I'll miss "Opportunity" all the same, and I think it would have been a blast watching teenage girls around the country belt it to death. Oh well. There's always YouTube.
]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/03/ask_jrb_opportunity.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/03/ask_jrb_opportunity.php Ask JRB! Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:32:14 -0800 SOUND BLOG #12: THE LOST MUSICAL, Part 3 here, and Part 2 can be read here. You’re in for a long night.]

I was in Philadelphia in May 1996, doing the very first reading of Parade. Every night was spent arranging and rewriting material, and all day was spent rehearsing with Hal and the cast. It was exhilarating work, and for the first time in my career, I felt like I was right where I belonged: in a room with the best people in the business, creating something magical.

At the end of the day before the final presentation, one of the actresses from The Predator’s Ball called me from Italy, where she and the rest of the New York cast had been in rehearsals for two weeks. It was a lousy connection, and she didn’t want to get very specific, but I got the sense that rehearsals weren’t going well. I reassured her as best I could that I would take care of things when I got there, which was only a week away. After I hung up, I forgot all about Italy and went back to Leo and Lucille Frank and this show that I loved.

When I got back to New York, there was a message from Karole Armitage on my answering machine. She said that, first of all, she was changing a lot of my music and bringing in a rapper and a house music composer to replace some of my work; and secondly, she was canceling my trip to Italy because she thought I'd be a disruptive presence.

Oy.

There’s probably no "right" response to something like that. I called some of the cast members in Italy and heard their side of the story: nothing was getting done, the dancers would only rehearse for an hour a day and were surly and difficult when they showed up (this is fairly typical of Italian ballet companies), and Karole was responding by throwing out huge chunks of the show because she didn't have time to rehearse them. Furthermore, she was rewriting the script on the spot, and some of the actors were concerned that she was cutting them out for personal reasons. In the middle of all of this, I doubt Karole thought very much about my feelings or my music; she was in crisis and doing what needed to be done to get the piece up and running. (That's my rational thirteen-years-after-the-fact response. My response at that moment was rather less generous.)

My lawyer didn’t think there was much he could do since everything was happening in Italy, so he suggested I hire an Italian lawyer to deal with the situation. I decided to give my credit cards some exercise: I booked two tickets to Italy and set up an appointment with an avvocato named Vincent Lualdi, who was born in Massachusetts but practiced law in Florence. Lualdi hadn’t done much work in entertainment law, but he thought the whole story was funny and bizarre ("Oh, you crazy show people!"), so he agreed to take my case.

There was no strategy, there was no plan, I just wanted to make Karole respect the work I had done, and if she wouldn’t do that, I wanted the performance to be canceled. First Lualdi filed suit with the local magistrate, and then he told me to go serve Karole with an injunction. So I walked into the Teatro Comunale, a beautiful old theater from the late 1800’s, while Karole was in the middle of a typically chaotic tech rehearsal, and I headed towards her, the legal document shaking in my hand.

I am very bad at confrontation, and I was much worse at it then. If I can write a letter, I can be fierce and aggressive, but in person, I just want to crawl under a table. So when Karole looked up from her desk in the theater, she looked surprised because she hadn’t known I was coming, then she offered some kind of perfectly pleasant greeting, and I said, trying to contain my emotions, "Hi, Karole, listen, we filed for an injunction against the production which was granted this morning, so you either have to restore all of my music or the show is canceled," and I calmly handed her the paper. And then I broke out in a sweat, turned, and ran.

I didn’t run straight out of the building. I meant to, but I didn’t know where the exits were. So I just ran, with Karole following me trying to talk to me. She gave up after a while, but I just kept going, through the tunnels under the theater, opening any door I saw, not knowing where I was going to end up, until finally I pushed open a huge metal portone and all of a sudden I was in the bright Florentine sunshine. Weirdly, I kept running, even though there was no one following me and it was beastly hot. At last, I ducked into an ancient church and sat down on a pew in the back, panting, crying, exhausted.

Lualdi was very excited because he got the story on the front page of the newspaper the next morning. The headline was something like “Americans in ridiculous fight about dancing,” and there was a picture of me looking oddly smug in front of the courthouse. We met with an arbitrator, Karole was told she had to restore all of my music; she didn’t; the show went on anyway.

The article in the Florence paper after the opening focused more on my fight with Karole than it did on the piece itself. I was there watching the show (taking notes, of course, for my “legal team”), so I can confirm the reports that “alla fine della rappresentazione applausi cordiali.” As for me, it was obviously hard to be objective about what I was seeing, but I couldn’t help but feel vindicated in one respect: whenever the interpolated music started playing, the audience got restless.

So whatever. The ballet played out its run, I didn’t bother suing for damages because I didn’t have the money for the legal fees and, really, how much had I been damaged? I wrote some great music for a shitty piece, got to hang out with some crazy Italians, and had a fantastic European adventure. I left Florence with my wife, we toured around the country going heedlessly deeper into debt, and after a couple of fabulous weeks, we came home to New York to try to repair the damage I’d done to the bank account.

The piece was performed again at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that fall, but none of my music was included by then.

For several years after that, I tried to fashion a new libretto around my score. I shopped the project around with a couple of producers and a few regional theaters, but it was a weird piece under any circumstances, and I really didn't have any particular passion about Michael Milken or the financial industry. I love much of what I created, but eventually I realized that it just wasn't ever going to be a show. I took all the scores and tapes, put them in a large file box, and that box is now sitting in storage. If you open it up, the first thing you'll see is a yellowing copy of the Corriere della Sera with my picture on the front page.

*

Three more excerpts from the score, and then I close this chapter:

One of the characters in the show was a narrator of sorts, who also functioned as a moral conscience. I just saw him as Ben Vereen in Pippin, and so I wrote this opening number with that in mind. (Hence my irritating attempt to sing "black." Sorry.) At the midpoint, as the narrator begins introducing the other characters, you'll hear all the motivic material that defined them throughout.

"Money Gonna Make You A Real Man"
from The Moneyman (1996)
Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
JRB: piano, vocals, synth programming
Brooks Ashmanskas, Christy Baron, Peter Flynn, Jenny Giering, Audrey Klinger, John Sawyer: ensemble vocals
Kevin Kuhn: electric guitar
Randy Landau: electric bass
Mia Wu: violin
Sal Spicola: alto sax, clarinet, bass clarinet
Tom Partington: drums
Robert McEwan: percussion
Recorded and mixed by Jeffrey Lesser
Instruments recorded at RPM Studios, NY, NY, 5/2/96 (Engineer: Suzanne Dyer)
Backing vocals recorded at Knoop Music, River Edge, NJ 5/29/98 (Engineer: Manfred Knoop)

Vocals recorded at Warehouse Recording Studio, NY, NY, 9/17/96 (Engineer: Billy Eric)

A moment of introspection: Milken's wife, Lori, sings about the mundanity of her day-to-day existence, and Milken explains his worldview. Special thanks to Lauren Mufson, who sang the hell out of the score even when Karole drowned out her song with hip-hop music in the second verse.

"I Rise"
from The Moneyman (1996)
Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Lauren Mufson: vocals
JRB: piano, vocals
Kevin Kuhn: acoustic guitar
Randy Landau: upright bass
Mia Wu: violin
Sal Spicola: clarinet, bass clarinet
Robert McEwan: vibraphone and percussion
Recorded and mixed by Jeffrey Lesser
Instruments recorded at RPM Studios, NY, NY, 5/28/96 (Engineer: Suzanne Dyer)
Vocals recorded at Warehouse Recording Studio, NY, NY, 9/17/96 (Engineer: Billy Eric)

And finally, an inscrutable farewell: At one point in the second act, Karole wanted to dramatize Milken's exploitation of the Mexican financial crisis by doing a Day of the Dead celebration onstage. It all sounded insane to me, but I really like the wacky music I came up with. (Note also that there's one spot where Kevin Kuhn plays the completely wrong chord at the beginning of one of the ostinati. This is a very strange moment in my history: I heard him play it wrong, I pointed out that he played it wrong, and he somehow convinced me to keep it. I don't mind it, actually, but I still can't figure out what kind of hypnosis Kevin employed to keep that particular clearly audible mistake on tape. He's a magician, I tell you.)

"Mexico"
from The Moneyman (1996)
Music by Jason Robert Brown
JRB: piano
Kevin Kuhn: acoustic guitar
Randy Landau: upright bass
Mia Wu: violin
Sal Spicola: flute, piccolo
Tom Partington: drums
Robert McEwan: xylophone and percussion
Recorded and mixed by Jeffrey Lesser
Instruments recorded at RPM Studios, NY, NY, 5/28/96 (Engineer: Suzanne Dyer)
Vocals recorded at Warehouse Recording Studio, NY, NY, 9/17/96 (Engineer: Billy Eric)

Everything else to the side, I have to thank Karole for the opportunity to write some really fun music. It sucks that it didn't all work out better for either of us, but we both seem to have survived just fine.
]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/01/sound_blog_12_the_lost_musical.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/01/sound_blog_12_the_lost_musical.php Sound Blog Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:57:22 -0800 A "13" ROLL CALL High School Musical was part the cultural Zeitgeist; at the time, nobody was thinking about teenagers and musical theater.) The idea was about a kid turning 13 and trying to make sense of an utterly chaotic life. I thought of six characters, all of them fairly archetypal but with some quirky twist, and put them in an anonymous Midwestern suburb, and started to determine the ways they’d interact. When I was 13, I felt utterly alone, and I was totally convinced that adults didn’t understand a single thing about the tortures I was going through; I thought the best way to reflect that feeling in a theatrical setting was to keep the adults offstage entirely: have the whole show be performed only by 13-year-olds, thirteen of them, and let them define the world they live in and the rules used to tell the story.

I pitched this idea to a woman at Scholastic Books who seemed vaguely enthusiastic, but nothing ever came of that meeting. So my idea sat around for almost exactly a year, and then Dan Elish sent a copy of one of his books to my house and asked if I was interested in adapting it into a musical. The book didn’t interest me all that much, but I liked the tone of Dan’s writing and the way he created believable and funny teenage characters, so I showed him my Scholastic pitch and asked him if he would be interested in collaborating with me to turn this story about a New York kid having his Bar Mitzvah in the Midwest into a full-blown musical. He was willing to give it a shot, and we started meeting every couple of days on the Upper West Side to flesh out the story and the general shape of the show.

(A month after our first meeting, Dan and his wife welcomed their first child into the world. She’s now five and a half years old.)

It’ll tell you a little something about working with me that I didn’t have a finished draft of the first number of the show until March 2004, ten months after we had started meeting. It’ll tell you something else about working with me that that first song is still in the show, and structurally, musically and lyrically, it is almost unchanged. (That’s sort of a lie, the lyrics in the second verse are entirely different.)

A sidenote: Early on, I determined that one of the characters should have a problem that is distinct from the other kids; not just the usual teenage angst about being popular or failing school or parents breaking up, but something that in its sheer intensity would set him apart from everyone else on an emotional level. When I was 13 years old, everything felt like it was a life-or-death situation. I wanted one character to have a real life-and-death situation. In the course of my Internet research, I found a beautiful and very brave article by a woman named Penny Wolfson, whose then-fifteen-year-old son was coping with the effects of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I realized that a 13-year-old boy with Duchenne would be terrifyingly poised between a fairly conventional if limited life and the onset of a serious diminishment in physical ability. I didn’t want to make this character the lead of the show, I really wanted him to function as a reality check for the other characters, a sort of conscience. Most importantly, I didn’t want him to be noble and pathetic, like Tiny Tim; I wanted him to be annoying and complicated and unpredictable – in short, a real teenage boy. This paragraph isn’t particularly germane to the rest of this entry, but I wanted to acknowledge Ms. Wolfson and thank her for her remarkable candor and the generosity of her writing. We’ve never met or even corresponded, but “Moonrise” remained an important creative touchstone for me throughout the writing of 13, and the idea that we were giving voice to a kid who suffered the same challenges as Ms. Wolfson’s son inspired me to keep going whenever the process got especially difficult.

According to my notes, I wrote 36 songs for 13 over the course of its development, and that doesn’t include some very large changes to existing songs. I’m also not entirely sure I’m finished yet, which is an astonishing thing to find myself typing. To bring those songs to life, and finally to Broadway, I relied on the incredible talents of a phalanx of teen actors, and the standard was set very high from the first time I shared one of the songs with an audience.

I had come to Los Angeles in June of 2004 to participate in a concert at Disney Hall, and while I was there, I booked a night at a cabaret called the Cinegrill. I had a song that I was ready to try out in public, so I asked a director I knew in LA named Calvin Remsberg if he could recommend a teenage girl. He introduced me to a gorgeous and talented 14-year-old named Chelsea Lena (she had a last name back then, but she doesn’t use it professionally anymore so I won’t either), and the first time anyone heard “What It Means To Be A Friend” was in Chelsea’s graceful, impassioned and beautifully sung performance on June 14, 2004.

Later that summer, my casting director Mark Simon and I took Dan up to French Woods, the performing arts camp at which I had spent most of my summers when I was a teenager. We held three hours of auditions, and then another three hours in Manhattan that September, and from those two days, we cast the first reading of the show, which we did on September 11, 2004 in the basement of Lincoln Center Theater. (We had only written about thirty minutes of the show at that point, but I wanted to get some kids in the room and find out whether what we were writing felt authentic before we got in any deeper.)

This was the cast of that first reading:

Ricky Ashley (Evan)
Ben Rosenbach (Archie)
Krista Pioppi (Patrice)
Ali Freezman (Lucy)
Jill Schackner (Kendra)
Jordan Wolfe (Brett)
Gerard Canonico
Harrison Chad
Evan Daves
Jimmy Dieffenbach
Libbie Jacobson
Charlotte Maltby
Tashi Washington
13%3ADemo%20Cast.jpg

I went to London right after the reading to do a series of concerts at the New Players Theatre, and I was joined by Vanessa White, who is now a member of the very popular British girl group The Saturdays but who was then just an amazingly talented 13-year-old who gave “What It Means To Be A Friend” its British premiere performance.
JRB%20%26%20Vanessa%20White.jpg

Thanks to Michael Ritchie and Center Theatre Group, Dan and I got to do a workshop of the show in Los Angeles in February 0f 2006, directed by Todd Graff and choreographed by Michele Lynch, with musical direction by David O. The casting director was Erika Sellin. And not only did we find thirteen great kids for the cast, but for the first time, we had a teen band, which I felt was crucial to the sound and feel of the show.

Blaine Miller (Evan)
Daryl Sabara (Archie)
Sara Niemietz (Patrice)
Rachel Hirschfeld (Lucy)
Meaghan Jette Martin (Kendra)
Jacob Nelson (Brett)
Jamie Dahlke
Ellington Ratliff
Jonathan Michael Sison
Seth Zibalese
Jenáe Burrows
Chelsea Colwell
Shay Louise
Chris Raymond (guitar)
Charlie Rosen (guitar)
Nehemiah Williams (bass)
Jamie Eblen (drums)

Based on the success of that workshop, CTG put “13” into their season at the Mark Taper Forum. Jen Rudin Pearson joined the casting department for that production, and in December 2006, the first time a paying audience saw any version of “13,” it was with this cast:

Ricky Ashley (Evan)
Tyler Mann (Archie)
Sara Niemietz (Patrice)
Caitlin Baunoch (Lucy)
Emma Degerstedt (Kendra)
JD Phillips (Brett)
Ellington Ratliff
Seth Zibalese
Christian Vandal
Ryan Ogburn
Tinashe Kachingwe
Chloe Smith
Jenáe Burrows
Alex Scolari
Rachael Page
Julia Harriman
Matthew McFarland
Jordan Johnson
Aaron Albert
Ansel Elgort
Chris Raymond (guitar)
Molly Bernstein (guitar)
Charlie Rosen (keyboard)
Nehemiah Williams (bass)
Jamie Eblen (drums)
Max Kuehn

[CTG has an online production archive, including photos and articles and the program from this production; you can see it here.]

Bob Boyett came to see the show at the Taper (he had contributed enhancement money) and asked us immediately if he could produce the show on Broadway. There were a lot of changes he wanted to make, and there were a lot of things Dan and I wanted to fix, but Bob’s enthusiasm for the project matched (or maybe exceeded) our own, and we knew he was the best person in the world to bring our show to New York.

First, Bob wanted an entirely new creative team for the show. Some of his reasoning made sense, some of it seemed arbitrary, but ultimately, we all thought that a fresh set of eyes might be very helpful to bring the show to a better place creatively. And so, armed with our new director, Jeremy Sams, we set about rebuilding the show from the ground up.

One of my favorite days in the development of 13 was a very private reading in December 2007. On that day, we asked a group of adult actors to read the latest draft of the script, just so we could hear it out loud without going through a new casting process to find more kids. This was the deliciously overqualified cast we used that day:

David Josefsberg (Evan)
Erik Liberman (Archie)
Sarah Saltzberg (Patrice)
Ashley Morris (Lucy)
Kate Reinders (Kendra)
Cheyenne Jackson (Brett)
Steve Rosen
Barrett Foa

(Sorry, no pictures from that day, sadly!)

We all left that reading very enthusiastic and determined to push forward, even though we still had a lot of work to do on the script. A reading was put together in January 2008 to interest producing partners and investors, and Mark Simon came back on board to cast a whole new group of kids as we started our journey to Broadway.

Douglas Fabian (Evan)
Aaron Simon Gross (Archie)
Hannah Freeman (Patrice)
Elizabeth Egan Gillies (Lucy)
Kathryn Foley (Kendra)
Malcolm Morano (Brett)
Evan Daves
Eamon Foley
Danielle Freid
Ariana Grande
Alex Greenzeig
Sascha Peralta-Ramos
J.J. Singleton

The show was beginning to find its shape, and it was also beginning to find its producing partners – Roger Berlind signed on, as did Ken Davenport, and now the clock started ticking. (Ultimately, fourteen producers shared above-the-title credit.) We were aiming for a Broadway opening in the fall, and in the interim, Boyett arranged for us to do a small-scale production at Goodspeed Musicals in Chester, Connecticut (where I had orchestrated john and jen in 1993!). On the first day of rehearsals for the Goodspeed production, Robert Horn joined the team to revamp the book of the show (Dan and I had been doing it for five years and had both reached the end of our ability to make the changes the producers and director were asking for), and Tom Kitt came on board as musical director with Chris Gattelli jumping in as choreographer. We also got a new teen band, which featured the lead guitarist from the L.A. production, Chris Raymond, who has the distinction of being the only person to have been onstage with the show in L.A., Goodspeed and Broadway. (He is fully seven inches taller than he was when he started.)

Graham Phillips (Evan)
Hudson Thames (Evan [alternate])
Aaron Simon Gross (Archie)
Allie Trimm (Patrice)
Elizabeth Egan Gillies (Lucy)
Ashton Smalling (Kendra)
Eric Nelsen (Brett)
Ariana Grande (Charlotte)
Caitlin Gann (Molly)
Taylor Bright (Cassie)
Eamon Foley (Richie)
Joey LaVarco (Simon)
Kyle Crews (Malcolm)
Alberto Calderon (Eddie)
Chris Raymond (guitar)
Zach Page (guitar)
Lexi Bodick (bass)
Adam Michael Kaufman (keyboard)
Zac Coe (drums)

We left Connecticut with wildly positive responses from the Goodspeed audiences, great enthusiasm from the producers and investors, and a clear sense of what the creative team still had to do. On July 16, 2008, we started rehearsals for the Broadway production, armed with new songs, a new script, and our final cast of unimaginably gifted teens, the culmination of over a year’s worth of casting. The kids came from all over the country, including California, North Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, and two kids who, unbeknownst to us when we cast them, were best friends growing up in Boca Raton, Florida.

Graham Phillips (Evan)
Corey J. Snide (Evan [alternate])
Aaron Simon Gross (Archie)
Allie Trimm (Patrice)
Elizabeth Egan Gillies (Lucy)
Delaney Moro (Kendra)
Eric Nelsen (Brett)
Ariana Grande (Charlotte)
Caitlin Gann (Molly)
Brynn Williams (Cassie)
Eamon Foley (Richie)
Joey LaVarco (Simon)
Malik Hammond (Malcolm)
Alberto Calderon (Eddie)
Henry Hodges
Riley Costello
Max Schneider
Mary Claire Miskell
Liana Ortiz
Chris Raymond (guitar)
Zach Page (guitar)
Lexi Bodick (bass)
Adam Michael Kaufman (keyboard)
Zac Coe (drums)
Charlie Rosen
George Sarpola

Those were the kids who recorded the original cast album in September, opened the show at the Jacobs Theatre on Broadway on October 5, and closed the show yesterday, January 4, 2009. They all dug deep into themselves and delivered something more than anyone expected from them, and maybe more than they expected from themselves.

All the kids on this list brought 13 to life, and their DNA is embedded in every line and every note of the show. For the past six years, they have inspired me, challenged me, frustrated me, surprised me, and reminded me that I went into the theater professionally because of the joy and the passion I felt when I did it as a teenager. It has been a privilege to be in the presence of that joy and passion again. Since I started working on this show, my daughter was born, my father passed away, I moved from New York to Italy to Los Angeles, and I’ve redefined my life and my career completely. I have been very lucky in that time to have the constant of these gorgeously talented young people ready to bring my work to fruition. Thank you all, honestly, really, truly, none of it was easy, but all of it was a blessing. I’m ready for the reunion whenever you are.

]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/01/a_13_roll_call.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2009/01/a_13_roll_call.php Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:21:16 -0800 THE JRB HOLIDAY GIFT LIST 2008 The JRB Holiday Gift List! (Of course you don't really need this list, since you've already done all your holiday shopping. Right?)

The true JRB fanatic wouldn't want to live without these fantastic bits of memorabilia, so hunt that person down and show him or her how much you care.

The best possible gift would be tickets to 13, currently finishing out its run at the Jacobs Theatre on Broadway! There are lots of great discount offers available, such as this one at BroadwayBox.com. You've only got until January 4 to see the most sensational cast and band (under OR over 18) in New York, so come now and worry about the economy later!

If you can't handle tickets to 13, you can still give the gift of 13 in a variety of ways!

For example: the amazing Original Cast Recording on Ghostlight Records! I'm so proud of this album, and you can see why in this video, which captures the cast and band recording the show and having the time of their lives. (Also, lots of sexy footage of Kurt Deutsch with his shirt off.) (Okay, not really.)

Perhaps you needed a charming, funny, hardcover stocking-stuffer for the teen reader in your life? 13: The Novel, written by myself and Dan Elish, might be the perfect solution! According to Kirkus Reviews, "this tale of middle-school peer culture is handled especially well," and who am I to argue with Kirkus? Pick up a copy right here!

Or there's 13 swag! Yes, that's right, all that crap you can get at the back of the theater is also available on the Internet! Get the fabulous 13 baseball shirt, the awesome 13 Yearbook Souvenir Program, or the chic 13 wristband set! Go to 13themusicalstore.com and see for yourself.

Some of you are saying, "Yeah, yeah, whatever with 13, you exploiter of child labor. We want the hardcore JRB stuff!"

The coolest JRB gift of the year is a somewhat risky proposition, because I can't guarantee you'll get it by Christmas. Tickety Tock, the picture book version of "The Schmuel Song," illustrated by the amazing Mary GrandPré, is officially out in the world and it is beautiful and moving and fabulous and I love it to death. But according to the booksellers, it's not really out until December 30. So the deal is, you can pre-order it on Amazon, and they'll ship it to you as soon as it's in stock, which may be tomorrow or it may not be. Or you can loiter around your local bookstores and just keep pestering the salespeople until the book shows up. But no matter how long you have to wait, I promise it's worth it. Seriously: check it out!

And, finally, the most unexpected Jason Robert Brown gift of 2008: if you're having a polyglot moment, I highly recommend brushing up your German with a little Die letzten 5 Jahre - das Musical, the original cast recording from the German premiere of The Last Five Years in Wuppertal in 2006. The CD was just released and the singers (Patrick Stanke and Charlotte Heinke) are phenomenal, even if I have no idea what they're saying. It's a really skillful and beautiful translation by Wolfgang Adenberg, and the musicians are top-notch. So add some Teuton to your life! You haven't lived until you've heard "Shiksa Goddess" in German. The best price I found for it in the US was at AllMusicImport.com, but you can also find it at CD Universe, and of course if you're in Europe, it's on all of the European Amazon sites as well as every record store with any taste at all.

And now, my gift to you, my lovely readers: the always astonishing Julia Murney (captured by some tiny Walkman) singing "The Flagmaker, 1775" with a full orchestra in Australia in 2003 as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The quality of the recording? Terrible. The quality of the singing? Sublime.

"The Flagmaker, 1775"
from Songs for a New World (1995)
Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Julia Murney: vocal
The Adelaide Art Orchestra (JRB, conductor)
Roger Butterley: electric guitar
Randy Landau: electric bass
Georgia Stitt: piano
Recorded by some crazed showtune queen with a crappy tape recorder, Adelaide Festival Hall, Adelaide, South Australia, 6/16/03

And for the Jews feeling left out, you can always go listen to my Chanukah Suite, which was just magnificently performed last weekend by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, right here on this site!

Have a wonderful holiday and an amazing New Year, and I'll be back soon with more news and essays!
]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2008/12/the_jrb_holiday_gift_list.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2008/12/the_jrb_holiday_gift_list.php Sound Blog Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:21:04 -0800 THE KARAOKE CONTEST WINNERS! 2008 JRB Karaoke Freaks!

Natalie Hawkins!

Natalie Weiss!

Jonathan Reid Gealt!

Jonathan Shew!

(Talk about your lack of diversity. Not only are they all white people, they all have the same first names.)

And you can hear all of the winners sing live and in person on October 13, when they'll be sharing the stage with me and the Legendary Caucasian Rhythm Kings at Birdland!

There were a lot of amazing performances, and I hope to write another entry next week pointing you to some of the particularly special ones. In the meantime, Kevin Ireland over at BestArts.com has done a really nice job compiling some highlights; check out his page right here.

I can't thank all of you enough for participating; it was a lot of fun for a couple of weeks in August watching my pageviews go up and up and up! And I was so honored by the respect you all showed towards the songs, and the enormous talent you all brought to bear on my music. I am a very lucky boy.

So come see the Natalies, the Jonathans, and the Caucasian Rhythm Kings on October 13 at 7 pm! And support all of the amazing performers who were a part of the 2008 JRB Karaoke Contest!

And get ready for 2009!
]]> http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2008/10/the_karaoke_contest_winners.php http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2008/10/the_karaoke_contest_winners.php Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:34:36 -0800