[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%]HAPPY NEW YEAR![/move]
DR Joy and Noel's amazing wedding
It's one of the thrills of 2003 to read so many positive comments about
Our Wedding - The Musical on these pages.
2003 was a marvelous year all around:
October 12 in the Village there was
Our Wedding - The Musical and it was great to see it greeted with more laughter and tears than anything I've witnessed.
The following week The New York Times gave it a rave with two huge photographs and they could have covered the wedding of Jason Robert Brown to Georgia Stitt instead. There was also a wonderful write-up by Jeffrey Sweet, something of a think-piece, for
Dramatics and we excerpted this for the liner notes to the CD (now selling briskly at
www.WeddingMusical.com )
In fact, I'd call the release of the CD a highlight in itself. James Roehlehr did an amazing job balancing the sound so you can hear my 4-year-old niece as easily as the rollicking gospel choir of 10. It's the first time my songs have been on a CD that is commercially available.
He also recorded my song They Call That Dancing, which was written with and for a group of visually-impaired dancers, ages 8-12, at the Lighthouse. The performance of this in June would have to be a highlight in anyone's book.
While Our Wedding played for an audience of friends and family, I don't know where the audience came from for Katz at the Donnell Library last January. DW Joy put together this retrospective of songs I've written between 1979 and 2002, and I'm told it was the most successful of all 13 years of the Donnell
monthly songbook series. Lovely performances by a cast of five. The comedy songs went over so well I was surprised to hear so many audience members
comment on the more serious narrative, "So I Chose." Many a middle-aged woman claimed "That was my life, and you captured all the feelings."
This song was reprised at the Donnell's "Discovered Treasures" show in September, which was set up as a sort of "best of" for the series, which features new musical theatre writing every month.
Of all musical theatre writers now living, there's none I admire more than Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock. In May, I had the privelege of assembling a revue of their songs, Grand Knowing You, for a huge and talented cast. Such a wealth of wonderful material.
And two weeks after that I was performing my incidental music for La Ronde, scored for piano, violin and soprano. Lyrics by a guy who'd had a musical on Broadway whom I never met.
And, though infinitessimally minor, I made a musical contribution to the Broadway production of Long Day's Journey Into Night, one of three favors I did for Vanessa Redgrave last summer. I enjoyed working with such a gracious and legendary talent.
It's hard to think of a low point this year. I've a very sick friend, but she's exceeded expectations by hanging on and she made it to Our Wedding and to see in the New Year.
I've not had a chance to read posts, but will do so when I get back home in a week and a half.
The CD is still being shipped, even though I'm away:
http://www.weddingmusical.com