First let me agree that Brown, objectively speaking, deserves to be in this book. While his shows didn't have long runs in New York, there have been many productions of Last Five Years, Songs For a New World and Parade elsewhere.
But I'm speaking subjectively: It should come as no shock to the faithful readers of HainesHisWay that I'm no fan of Brown. I've disliked the LaChiusa musicals I've seen, and I've yet to be exposed to anything much by Adam Guettel. And yet these guys, along with Ricky Ian Gordon, get all the ink. At times it seems there's this vast conspiracy among those who write about musical theatre to discuss these four to the exclusion of all others. All four, as has been pointed out, were represented on Audra McDonald's first album.
It's a matter of taste: Markell & Bernstein's songs make me laugh out loud. I think Something, the song they wrote for Mr. Karp of A Chorus Line fame, is one of the funniest songs ever written, and the BK recordings of Joshua Novack and Everybody Wants To Have a Nina are just heavenly. David Zippel's not much older. How come we never hear about how he's at the forefront of the new musical theatre? His Broadway shows, City of Angels and The Goodbye Girl, racked up more performances than those of the anointed four combined. He used to write with the always tuneful Doug Katsaros. I like Andrew Lippa better than the three-named writers.
My friends, I feel, deserve to be written about because they write better material than the trio who were invited to the Drama Book Store Monday night. Sammy Buck wrote a wonderful play called Barry the Hatchet and one of the most enjoyable musicals I've seen in years, Like You Like It.. We actually got to sing some of Darryl Curry's music on a demo once. Two of his best shows were produced by The Third Step: The Elephant Piece and Quitters (based on a Stephen King story). Jeanine Tesori's Caroline Or Change has been much discussed here. The bulk of what makes Millie so appealing is her work, and today I got to play one of her wonderful songs from Violet. She's the only person ever to be nominated for a Best Score Tony for incidental music (Twelfth Night, the one with Helen Hunt). And didn't Jose recently tell us that two of her songs, Gimme Gimme and The Girl in 14G are now the most done audition songs?
Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich are most famous for two numbers, Taylor, and The Alto's Lament, which Emily Skinner recorded for BK. I liked their didactic little musical Dear Edwina, and they also did some show in Minnesota. They've won more MAC awards than any writers I can think of.
Now, I think you make a good point. Book publishing is a commercial enterprise, and I guess those are the scripts people are most likely to buy. But the best? Not by a long shot.
