I Made That: An Interview With Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen

For my first interview of the new year, I reached out to Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen to answer a few questions about exciting projects, from their recently released cast recording of The Burnt Part Boys (which I wrote about when it played at Playwrights Horizon) to their Broadway-bound Tuck Everlasting adaptation. Undoubtedly, very exciting things are on the horizon in 2012 for this songwriting team (including a recording of their song cycle Fugitive Songs), and they were gracious enough to share some details about the cool things they're working on:

Me: How did you two begin writing music together? What is your process of picking projects and how do you approach new works to pursue?

Nathan Tysen: We met in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU. We liked about 90% of the same things and have a similar aesthetic. It seemed only natural for us to write together.

Chris Miller: Our process of picking projects is odd—we just know it when it hits us. We currently have commissions from both Lincoln Center Theatre and Playwrights Horizons, and we’re just reading a lot of books, watching a bunch of movies, television, and listening to new music looking for the seed of the something that’s inspiring, that makes sense for us to either adapt, or jump off of into an original idea. It’s hard because you never know what will start speaking to you, so right now, as we’re looking for new things to write, we’re constantly tuned in to many different possible sources. Who knows? It’ll just make sense when we decide what it is.

Me: Congratulations on The Burnt Part Boys cast recording! What was it like making the recording?

Miller: Making the record was awesome, although we didn’t do it in the traditional way cast albums are made, so it took a little longer. We tracked the band first, then the strings, then brought in the vocals—all on separate days. It made for a long editing process, but it was totally a joy to work on, and we’re very proud of the end result. The show had closed in June of 2010 so when we got everybody back together the following November/December it was like a family reunion.

Tysen: There have been so many iterations of BPB (The Off-Broadway production was it’s tenth step of development), it is a great comfort to finally record the final version. It was especially amazing since our first cast album also happens to be the first show we wrote together (It started as our thesis at NYU). So it all came full circle. Now, with the near-completion of the Fugitive Songs album, we’ll finally have most of our early work out in the world.

Miller: Also working with the guys at Yellow Sound Lab has been a fantastic experience.

Taking the Doll Off the Shelf

When I told friends I was seeing A Doll's Life, a musical sequel of Ibsen's famous A Doll's House, I got many confused looks. "How does that work?" they all asked. And the truth is that after only 18 previews and 5 performances on Broadway, it seems like a lot of people didn't really know.

The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective has resurrected A Doll's Life in repertory with Ibsen's original, and it's an interesting study to see both a canonical and a flop-ful play taking one another in stride. A Doll's Life has only appeared at The York prior to this current production (which plays through this Sunday), and there is much to glean from seeing this show in an economical production that makes much its resources.

The work itself is flawed -- the book is scattered and the premise itself is problematic. The show opens with Nora leaving Torvald and follows her on misadventures with loves gone wrong as she hops a train to Christiana and tries to make her own way. Much of the ambiguity of A Doll's House's original themes are sacrificed, and many of the heavy-handed comments on gender roles and women's power are often undermined by some of Nora's misguided choices. Still, there is a dizzying fascination that comes with the collection of fun characters that populate Nora's travels in the first act in an Odyssey-like adventure. It's not until the second act, however, that the characters' desires start to take any concrete shape, and by then some revelations seem to come rather belatedly. One of the biggest burdens on this show is just the connection to A Doll's House in the first place, as it could easily be its own narrative without the baggage (no pun intended) of the original play.

Even with a problematic premise, one thing I appreciated about The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective's current production is that it found small moments of beauty and truth that gave insight into what this show could be. Larry Grossman's music is beautiful and memorable in many instances with some powerful lyrics from Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and I particularly enjoyed some of the group numbers with "There She Is" being a standout in this production.

One interesting discussion I overheard in the audience tonight was a bunch of fans of the Broadway cast recording talking about how the performance stacked up against their expectations. Someone pointed out how interesting it was to finally get context to the songs they had been listening to devotedly, and I realized what a gift it is to be able to see what would otherwise be a somewhat 'lost' show in full. Because theatre is often so timely, we tend to overlook works that weren't necessarily commercial successes, but with companies like Beautiful Soup (or even MCC's Carrie), there are still opportunities to experience these shows. And as a piece of theatre history, there definitely was still life left in this doll.

Have You Met Darryl?

Michael Mitnick is a fantastic playwright whose Spacebar: A Broadway Play By Kyle Sugarman is the kind of fanciful, quirky, and ultimately heartbreaking kind of work that I aspire to. With lots of imagination and theatrical flair, Spacebar exemplifies the humor and creativity of much of his other works like Sex Lives of Our Parents, which was part of Second Stage's season last year.

Michael is also a musical theatre writer, having worked on tween musical Pencils Down with Simon Rich and Fly By Night with Kim Rosenstock and Will Connelly, which premiered at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto. Still, one of my favorite numbers from Michael Mitnick will remain this classic gem, about a boy named Darryl:

(Felicia Ricci singing "Darryl is a Boy (and He Lives in My Closet)"

at A Little New Music in 2009)

Blog Updates and a Tuesday Night Video

If you visit the blog somewhat regularly, you may notice that some things have been shifting around lately. I'm trying to get the blog to a stage where it's a little cleaner and a little easier to access all the good stuff, so I wanted to thank you for bearing with me. As you'll see at the top of the page, I now have a tab specifically for my show calendar. It's a Google calendar that I often update for myself with upcoming shows (I rarely get to see them all, but it's always nice to keep track), and I wanted to find an easy way to share it with all of you, should you need a recommendation for where there are new musical events around the city. If you are a writer with an event coming up, feel free to email me at emergingmt@gmail.com, and I'll try to get your event up there -- just keep in mind that it has to be musical theatre related and preferably something related to new writers.

With that announcement, I wanted to leave you with a video from my playlist of all-time favorite songs from musical theatre songwriters, Katie Thompson's "It Doesn't Hurt." I've been in a pretty introspective mood with the new year, so this is especially rich in feeling. Plus, when is it ever not a joy to hear Katie Thompson tell your story as she tears it up at the piano?

Fellowship!

Sure, 2012 is the year of The Hobbit (and how cute is Martin Freeman in Sherlock right now, am I right??), but lately I've been loving some of the songs from Fellowship! The Musical Parody of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' (book and lyrics by Kelly Holden-Bashar and Joel McCrary, music and lyrics by Allen Simpson). Lovingly and hilariously parodying J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tale of hobbits, elves, and dwarves (oh my!), I've heard great things about this musical since a friend saw it at NYMF in 2010, and there was a recent private reading in November in LA. Watch the trailer below, and watch a performance of "I Always Thought" to hear the song that's been stuck in my head as of late (it's like a "For Good"... but a lot more specific):

Playing The Hamilton Mixtape

A couple of months ago, I got an email from Lincoln Center announcing that the first concert in its 2012 American Songbook series was going to be with Lin Manuel Miranda. Immediately, I emailed the link to my good friend (and occasional collaborator) Gabriella, talking about how much I was dying to go.

She wrote back, "Wellllll maybe you should wait until christmas and see if maybe someone was maybe thinking you would want to see it."

And thus I learned two things: first, I would be getting to see Lin Manuel Miranda perform selections from his Alexander Hamilton mixtape/song cycle project, and second, you know when someone is a good friend when s/he can predict your dearest theatre loves.

After that conversation, I was counting down the days, and I'm happy to report that tonight's concert was everything I'd hoped it would be and more.

The night started off strong. How cool is it that the first song to kick off the concert and the Lincoln Center Songbook series was "Empire State of Mind (Remix)" with a little Sondheim, Kander, and Joel mixed in? And the hip hop/rap covers didn't end there. With the help of amazing performers (Utkarsh Ambudkar, James Monroe Inglehart, Christopher Jackson, Moeisha Mcgill, Mandy Gonzalez, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Jon Rua, and Shockwave), Lin paid tribute to songs and lyricists that inspired him, from The Notorious B.I.G. to Big Punisher to Eminem. I especially loved when Lin and Chris Jackson sang Talib Kweli's "Get By," a song that exemplifies the energy and buoyancy present in much of Lin's work and in the performances throughout the night.

Since seeing his performance of "Alexander Hamilton" at the White House on Youtube, I've been incredibly excited to hear more from this project, and the 12 songs that were presented did not disappoint. Conflicting ideologies between Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton revealed themselves through rap battles, Washington poetically admitted the challenges ahead in "Right Hand Man," hope for a new generation was movingly expressed by Hamilton and Aaron Burr in folksy "Dear Theodosia," and King George III took on a pop sound as he warned a rebellious new America through what was, let's just say, the genius choice in casting Gavin Creel.

More than anything, the thing I love about Lin's work is that he really makes you sit up and take notice of the lyrics and intricacies of his work while making songwriting look easy. I was so struck by some of the little turns of phrases, little moments that would come back to haunt later parts of the song. The man really knows how to write songs that find a dramatic moment and musicalize it in a way that seems completely organic. Because he writes characters' voices that fit so well into his tunes, it's also incredibly moving when many motifs, both musically and thematically, reappear, bringing new context as characters grow and experience great love, tragedy, and failure.

What a gift to have a voice in the theatre so reassured of where it comes from and so exuberant about combining disparate interests and passions. I was moved tonight, I was thrilled, and, hey, I even learned some history. But more than anything, I came home and was inspired to create. Because there is nothing more inspiring than seeing the extent to which talent can reach out into a community, creating something new, bringing people together, and jamming out to some Jay-Z on the side.

Edit: Lincoln Center posted a video of clips from the concert, which can be viewed here.

Piece of Jeremy Schonfeld

(Jeremy Schonfeld and Lauren Kennedy singing

"I Was Meant For You" from 37 Notebooks)

The first musical theatre writer I thought I would write about in the new year is actually a writer I've been meaning to talk about for a while now. Jeremy Schonfeld has been on the musical theatre scene for a while, performing his concept album, Drift, which had a production at NYMF, as well as writing songs for and acting in the musical film Clear Blue Tuesday. He's also composed music for the ATrainPlays, which I love, and he wrote the music for a CD titled 37 Notebooks, which features songs performed by Broadway stars like Shoshana Bean and Tracie Thoms.

Last November, I was contacted about reviewing Jeremy's latest CD, Iron & Coal, and it's taken me a lot longer than I expected to spend the time I wanted to on it. But in light of the new year, I finally found a quiet moment to really listen to this rock/orchestral album and was surprised to find resonant themes in the face of a new beginning. The lyrics stood out most to me-- cries for redemption, introspective looks into identity, ruminations on mortality and spirituality. It was intensely personal and intimate while still being incredibly melodic and cohesively contained. There's depth to every song, and it's hard not to listen to the album and not recognize the spiritual journey the characters embark on as they search inside themselves to find meaning.

And that was what I thought before I even heard the personal story behind the album, which was inspired by Jeremy's family and growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust:

You can stream the entire album at Jeremy's website here. I highly recommend taking the time to really enjoy the music and lyrics of this extraordinary story and listen to the voices of human beings finding themselves under the weight of human tragedy and experience.