On the Brink of Baby

I wanted to write a little update and let you all know why I haven't been blogging as frequently lately. You see, any day now I'm going to have a baby. This little person will be the second child in our family, and in addition to the usual getting-ready-for-baby activities that precede a birth (buying and cleaning baby gear, stocking up on bottles, checking out the latest model of stroller, sorting hand-me-downs, etc.), we've also got our hands full preparing our four-year old for the changes that are about to come into her life.

I think we're all set. I mean you don't know until you're doing it, but I think everyone's as prepared as possible for the crying, sleeping, nursing mushball that's about to arrive. Unless we're not, and I guess we'll find that out soon enough, too.

In terms of all the mommy stuff that's coming, I feel like I've got it under control. After all, I've done it before. What makes me nervous is the professional stuff that's about to change, and that's the subject of this lone blog entry for the month of October. I remember when Molly was born I was overwhelmed with the sense that I had given up my professional life and my creative life in exchange for family, and though I loved being a mom, I was terrified that I was never going to figure out again how to be a writer. I remember the first several months being a blur of day and night (I wasn't sleeping through either so they felt the same) and that my emotional life was so wrapped up in the few rooms of our house that I simply didn't have the energy to care about anything else. I didn't read the news. I didn't listen to music, and I for sure couldn't concentrate on anything for more than about ten minutes at a time.

The amount of concentration and commitment it takes to write a song that's anything other than gibberish is pretty major, and months into this mommy thing I remember fearing that it might never come back. I know lots of moms happily re-define themselves and their careers after their kids are born, but I didn't want to re-define myself. I wanted to get back to caring about music, and I had no idea when (or how) that was going to happen.

What I can say now is that it did eventually happen, that it happened gradually, and that it required unbelievable amounts of juggling and negotiating and learning to get back to something that feels like normal. Everyone figures things out differently, but for me it meant letting go of the bad-mommy guilt and paying for a babysitter for a few hours so I could sit in front of a piano, answer my emails, return my calls, and try to string together coherent sentences. (In a few cases I even made those sentences rhyme.)

Maybe it's good that I have all this foresight this time around, or maybe it's terrifying. I'm staring at the unfinished things on my to-do list knowing that it'll be months before I get back to them. I'm already starting to feel like a person who used to play the piano, as it's been nearly a month since I did any significant work on the instrument, and the baby isn't even here yet. But I'm choosing to trust that the piano isn't going anywhere, and Broadway isn't going anywhere, and even if you people go away for a while, you'll come back when the time comes and I have something new to say.

And in the meantime, I've got a baby to raise.

See you on the other side. Thanks for being here.

September Song

It's September, and I'm trying to stick to my goal of releasing one new piece of sheet music each month. This month's release is my setting of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29. Like so many of my pieces that aren't from shows, I wrote this one at the behest of my friend Joel Fram for one of the New Voices Collective concerts in New York many, many years ago. The first person to perform it was George Dvorsky, who sang it beautifully at that NVC concert at Symphony Space. And then my friend Damian Humbley sang it in a concert in London and knocked my socks off. Most recently, Tituss Burgess sang it in one of my concerts at Birdland. (Tituss transposed it up a fourth, because he's super-human.) In my master plan, this song will be fully orchestrated and released on my next album, which I'm hoping to finish in 2010. In the meantime, though, the sheet music is finally available, and you can get it here. And just for fun, here's video of Tituss being amazing.

Good Enough is Not Good Enough

Sometimes you see a performance of a piece of theater or a piece of music and it's so inspiring that it makes you want to work harder so that you can be as good at your craft as those performers are at theirs.

And sometimes you don't.

I've had a number of frustrating experiences lately where I went to an event and was completely underwhelmed by what I was seeing. I'm not talking about watching a high school play where the actors are still learning their craft, or a youth piano recital or anything like that. I'm talking about attending full on professional performances that charge a lot of money for the tickets, and I came home thinking that the pianist hadn't bothered to learn the notes or the singer hadn't given any thought to the words in his/her song. And it doesn't make me want to work harder. It makes me want to give up music and open a bakery.

I know nobody's perfect. And, just so you don't think this is a self-inflating kind of essay, I can't think of the last time I performed something in public that didn't have numerous mistakes in it. But I get the sense that a lot of times, people work on material until it's "good enough." And knowing the difference between "good" and "good enough" is what makes an artist great, I think.

I recently heard a song that was a simple little ballad written to be the intimate and subtle opening of show about a complex and heartbreaking love triangle, and the male singer had transposed it into a key so that he could belt a big ole D-flat (!) at the end. He was passionate and overwrought and, actually, he sang it pretty well, technically. But, emotionally, I thought, "WHY???" I felt like he completely missed the point of the song and was basically just singing it to show me he had really high notes. I came home and told Jason about it, disappointedly, and I said, "You know those hot-dog eating contests where someone can eat like 41 hotdogs in 60 seconds? Well, even if I could do that, I'm not sure I would ever feel it necessary to prove it to you."

(Thank goodness.)

It's a question of taste. I'd be happy to hear that guy sing a high D-flat if he picked material that demanded it. Another concert I attended required the pianist to play an entire evening of one composer's work, and that composer was in the audience. And number after number went by, songs I've known for years, and the pianist proceeded to botch one after the other. The composer had his game face on, smiling and nodding, but I thought it must feel like torture to him. And that poor pianist. Why on earth would he accept this job and then not LEARN THE MUSIC? What's the story there? Did he really think nobody could tell the difference? Did he think what he was playing was good enough?

Good enough is not good enough. Not in cases like this. I'll close with this story.

The most life-changing job I ever had, both professionally and personally, was working as the assistant conductor of the national tour of PARADE. It was on that tour that I met Jason, my husband, and it was the first job I ever had at the Broadway level. Legendary director (who has 20 Tony Awards in his office) Hal Prince was in the room, and I was the pianist. Now, I'm a really good sight reader and I've gotten by for a lot of years by sight reading my way through things and learning them as I go. But PARADE is a really hard score -- harder than any show I'd ever played before -- and I deceived myself into thinking I didn't have to practice it as much as I would have practiced my classical music for my juries back at Vanderbilt.

So one day I saw on the schedule that I was playing a rehearsal for a number I'd never played before, and I thought, oh, I'll be fine. I glanced it over and sat down at the piano. Hal Prince was staging the actors. Jason was conducting. I was at the piano, and on one page turn I failed to notice a meter change leading into the next page. I turned the page, missed the meter change, and the rehearsal ground to a halt because nobody could figure out where the downbeat was. My fault entirely. Hal glared at Jason. Jason glared at me. I felt like the sky had fallen on my head, and I knew exactly what had happened.

That night I called Jason on the phone and said, "I think maybe I'm out of my league. I think maybe I'm not a good enough pianist. I wasn't prepared. I let you down. I'm so sorry." And he said something to me like, "Stop apologizing, go practice, and don't let it happen again." And I didn't. That "teachable moment" changed my life.

Good enough is not good enough. Let's not all beat ourselves up at the things we can't get right. Let's just work on them until we can.

Two New Songs on musicnotes.com

As you know by now, I've now got a deal with musicnotes.com for digital downloads of my sheet music. This relationship came about because of the proliferation of unauthorized trade of sheet music (mine and others) on the internet, and I needed a way to make sure that the music you guys were looking for was out in the world, accessible, legal, and affordable. Musicnotes.com came to my rescue, and I'm trying to return the favor by launching a new piece of sheet music there every month.

Here's July and August. Author and lyricist Bil Wright and I wrote several songs for a musical called LIZAN. The piece never came to fruition and he and I eventually stopped writing it together. (It's my understanding that he's now writing it with another composer.) But before we parted ways we came up with a few songs that I really love, and I managed to get a few demos made with performers whom I also love.

Here are two songs that I thought had the strongest chance of surviving outside of the world of the show. The first, called "Someday A Man" is performed here by NaTasha Yvette Williams. She's been in a gazillion Broadway shows (Gone With The Wind, The Color Purple, Cinderella, Suessical, and Parade) and she has a whole career as a gospel singer, too. Read her bio, y'all. This is a girl who majored in MATH.

The second song is called "At This Turn In The Road Again" and is sung here by Keith Byron Kirk. If I've ever had a muse, Keith is it. I met him at the stage door after his performance in A NEW BRAIN and told him that his voice moved me so much I felt like I knew him already. I hope it didn't sound as corny then as it does now. But he seemed to like that, and eventually we became friends. His other show credits include Elegies, The Civil War, The Color Purple, King David, Miss Saigon, and, naturally, Parade. He's learned almost everything I've ever written for the male voice, he's done readings of several of my shows, concerts of my music, and he sang in my wedding. And currently, he's getting a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Theatre and Drama at Northwestern. So he's smart, too. I adore him.

Anyway, you can listen to the songs below, and then you can find the sheet music here. Bil wrote all the lyrics, I wrote all the music, and that's me playing the piano. Enjoy.

Georgia Stitt and Bil Wright

All KNOCKED UP photos and future bookings

Susan Egan and I had a blast playing the Metropolitan Room in New York City on August 1st and 2nd! In case you missed our show, we've got several more dates coming up.

"All Knocked Up! (again)"
From Tony Nominations and major Film & TV credits to critically acclaimed CDs and world concert tours, these two talented ladies are, today, ENORMOUS figures in the Entertainment Industry. Come join these gal pals for a raucous evening as they sing their own tunes and others amidst juicy gossip and the occasional pee break.

August 29th, Orange County, CA
August 30th, Catalina's, Hollywood, CA
September 11th, Pasadena, CA

and we're making small appearances (one song only) at the following concerts:

August 17th, Ryan Black's 88's Cabaret: A Tribute to Stephen Sondheim, Los Angeles, CA
August 22nd, Festival of New American Musicals celebrates Stephen Schwartz, Brentwood, CA

Click here to get info on all the shows.

Kid Stuff

Those of you who read this blog for the musical theater might want to take a break this week. I'm a little bit distracted by the six-month old baby bump that has stolen my midriff.

I had a little panic last week, 24 weeks into my second pregnancy, because a friend of mine said she wanted to get me a gift and she asked me what I needed. I smiled politely and said, oh no, we're all set. We kept everything from the first baby and so we don't need anything.

"You don't need ANYTHING?" she asked. "Not bottles, not diapers, not burp cloths, not bibs, nothing?"

And then my heart started palpitating. Because though I had really gotten excited about being pregnant again, I hadn't yet given a whole lot of thought to the fact that we were actually going to HAVE ANOTHER BABY.

My mom flew in. We went through all the baby clothes that had been stored in the basement, washed them, sorted them, organized them. We moved furniture so the baby now actually will have a place to sleep. And I started a list of what we still have and what we need to replace. I had forgotten how much STUFF a baby requires.

Truth is, we're in really good shape, and I feel much more prepared now that I've started "nesting." I'm just organized enough that I can get back to work and maybe even be productive for three more months before all hell breaks loose. But since we've been thinking about it, I wanted to share with you some of the amazing kid things that have been helpful for us. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR GIFTS. We already HAVE these things. I just wanted you to know about them because they have made our lives better.

1. The Alarm Clock
I know this isn't a BABY item. But as soon as my daughter started sleeping in the "big girl bed" we realized that she could get OUT of the big girl bed whenever she wanted, and that was usually much earlier than we were ready for her to be up. This alarm clock changes colors at the pre-set time, and you just teach your kid not to get out of bed until it's green. The clock glows yellow all night -- a lovely nightlight -- and then when the "alarm" goes off, it changes to green. If the kid sleeps through it, so be it. But if the kid wakes up early, she knows to stay in bed (or in our case, at least in her room) until it turns green. My daughter's first words of the day are usually "IT'S GREEN, MOMMY! IT'S GREEN!" (I'm told there is an actual alarm function, but we've never needed it. Kids wake up early, y'all.)

2. The Mesh Feeder
Okay, a toddler item. I was surprised everyone in the world didn't have these. When your kid is transitioning from baby food to solid food, you can put small bites of real food (especially fruits and vegetables) into the mesh bag and they chew on it. Good for teething, good for nutritious snacks, and you don't have to worry about choking. Every time I used one some other mom would stop me on the street and say "where did you find that?" Now I think they're everywhere. Smart invention.

3. Tickety Tock
Molly's favorite book, and mine, hands down. Okay, so we're biased. Daddy wrote it. Mary Grand Pré illustrated it. (She did the Harry Potter books, and you can recognize her style.) The story, about a tailor named Schmuel and his magical clock, comes from Jason's musical THE LAST FIVE YEARS. It's a gorgeous book, and it makes me sad that it's kind of hard to find unless you know to look for it. So look for it. Okay, shameless plug over.

If I think of anything else I'll add it to the list. But perhaps it's time to get back to work, while I actually have the opportunity to do so.

What to Read Now. And Why.

Every summer there are book lists released of the 100 greatest books of all time, and I've usually read a good percentage of them already. I love the classics but I read many of them in high school and college. Since then I've been reading mostly contemporary fiction -- more trade paperbacks than disposable beach smut, more Ursula Hegi than Dan Brown -- and lately more and more non-fiction. But I look forward to these book lists in the case that they may reveal some gem that's just dying for me to read it. (In all of my free time.)

I loved the list that came out in Newsweek this week. The article is called "What to Read Now. And Why." It's a list of books that "open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways." The list is fascinating, and in the fifty books they mention, I've only read two. A third is on my bedside table, thanks to a birthday gift from my friend Jamie, who is apparently ahead of the curve.

Looks like I know what I'm going to be doing this summer.