To Bring or Not To Bring?

In a session of THE GYM this week, a question came up that I found I couldn't adequately answer for my students, so I thought I'd open it up to you people to see if I could gather a consensus of opinion.

Often times when I'm working one on one with an actor, I'll point out if a piano accompaniment is particularly challenging, and I'll explain why it might be difficult for an audition pianist to sight-read it. If the song is really well-known, like say Stephen Schwartz's "Meadowlark" (tricky with seven zillion page turns) or Andrew Lippa's "Life of the Party" (requires the pianist to have a great sense of time), I'll say that it's probably not a big deal because the pianist is bound to know it. But if it's a new, just released piece (like Adam Guettel's "The Beauty Is") or an original piece (perhaps something the actor did in a reading which has not yet been released for public consumption) or a strange arrangement or a chord chart or even a not-fully-notated transposition, I'll suggest to the actor that he might consider taking his own accompanist to the audition.

When I lived in New York and I was playing auditions all the time, it was not uncommon in the course of an eight-hour day for me to move aside for another accompanist at least once or twice. Sometimes I rolled my eyes when an actor would bring her own pianist for a song I'd already played three times that day, but I understood that removing one element of surprise from the audition process probably made the actor feel more comfortable and more in charge of her own audition. And that was fine. And, actually, I didn't mind the break. And sometimes, the pianist didn't even have music and you just knew the two of them had been doing this one particular song this one particular way for seventeen years, and you were grateful that the actor wasn't standing there trying to explain to you how it went when nothing was accurately written down, anyway. I never once had a casting director scoff at an actor's choice to bring her own accompanist. They scoffed at everything else, but you know what I mean.

In my class in LA this week, however, several of the actors agreed that they had been told that bringing their own pianist to an audition made them seem rude and presumptuous. More than one had been told by a coach that under no circumstances should they bring their own accompanist, and they even seemed to feel that doing so might sabotage their audition. The assumption, I think, was that once they left the room everyone would be annoyed that they had brought their own pianist, as it somehow disrespected the already-hired pianist and perhaps even the other people who were in the room.

So my question is this -- what do you think? Actors? Musical directors? Casting directors? Has the audition climate changed since the days when I was playing auditions? Or, maybe, is the NYC audition code of propriety different from the one in LA? I'm very curious to hear what's up.

I've only been out of the NY market a short time, but when I was there, headshots were in black and white, the Variety Arts was still in business and nobody had yet heard of Max Crumm and Laura Osnes. So, you see, I could use your help.

Women I Want You To Know

I want to take a week off from writing about myself because there is so much else I'd rather be discussing. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I have so many female friends who are doing brave and innovative things, and I want to tell you about a few of them. So, this week, a diversion from the world of musical theater, but hopefully one you'll find extremely interesting.

1. Mary-Mitchell Campbell, ASTEP

Mary-Mitchell is pretty well-known in the Broadway community as a musical director and pianist. She's climbed that ladder with amazing speed, working with stunning talents and achieving pretty high status jobs at a very young age. (Among other things, she was the music supervisor of the Tony-Award winning production of COMPANY last season and won a Drama Desk Award for her orchestrations of the show.) But, gifted though she is, Mary-Mitchell's true work for the last two years has been nurturing her new charity, Artists Striving To End Povery, or ASTEP.

According to the language on their website, ASTEP "uses the arts as a tool to empower poverty-stricken youth with creativity, knowledge, and a strong sense of self-esteem, factors which help them break the cycle of poverty in their communities and their own lives." What I know personally is that Mary-Mitchell travels regularly to India, where she owns an orphanage, and she and her team of artist/volunteers teach the arts to young people who wouldn't otherwise be exposed to anything even remotely of the kind. The stories she has told me about the degrees of poverty she has encountered are simply staggering. ASTEP has fund-raising efforts in New York and also supports programs in Florida and South Africa. Click on their website here and see how you can help her in her extraordinary efforts.

2. Kourtney Harper, Guy Fox

Kourtney and I went to college together, but we have become better friends since we graduated than we ever were in school. In the time I knew her at Vanderbilt, I thought she was a fun gal from Georgia who was a gifted cartoonist. After graduation Kourtney won a travel fellowship which allowed her to traipse around the world studying cartoons and film animation, and at the end of that year she generated an illustated book documenting her travels. Kourtney married a Brit and now lives permanently in London, where she runs the Guy Fox History Project, an educational charity whose mission claims "to produce innovative projects which will promote education and London history."

As you all know, I was in London for most of September, and Kourtney filled me in on her latest project with her company: mapmaking. In addition to her history projects and public service work for kids, Kourtney has developed the London Children's Map, which is a completely accurate but child-friendly map of the city, complete with stickers that say things like "rode in a taxi" and "bought souvenirs" and "admired great artwork." In addition to the London map, Guy Fox has released maps for San Francisco and Washington D.C, and while I was there I looked at the proofs for the New York City map. (I'm told Paris is also in the works.) Click here to learn more about Guy Fox, and pick up a children's map for your favorite young traveler.

3. Julie Dingman Evans, Your Environmental Road Trip (YERT)

Julie and I met years ago doing a musical in South Carolina. She's a great actress and singer and we have managed to work together several times since. But this year, Julie is taking a year off from acting to take a year-long road trip across America with her husband Ben and their friend Mark on what they're calling an "eco-expedition." They say they are "exploring the landscape of America's unique approach to environmental sustainability." And they're documenting the whole thing on their very entertaining blog, which can be found at their website here. They've been on the road for just over three months, meeting people all over the country and learning about what Americans are doing to deal with environmental issues. They travel with a compost box in their hybrid car and they try to generate as little garbage as possible. And they'll be doing it for another nine months. Join in the learning adventure and watch what they're doing. And, in their honor, maybe we can all turn off a few incandescent lights.


HONORABLE MENTION:

* Wendy Melkonian and Katie Donovan and their breads: BREADWINNER

* Heather Hiett and her photos of surfers: H2 PHOTOGRAPHY

Performing and Proofreading

Home. Home. Home. We're home. We're soooo tired, but we're home. Going on an adventure is great fun, and coming home is great relief. There's lots happening here at home, and I'm way behind in telling you about it.

If you read this in time, and you happen to be in NY tonight, and you happen to be looking for something to do in a few hours, I encourage you to go to Birdland to hear Sam Davis's evening of songs. Sam is a fantastic composer and he writes with lots of different lyricists. Two of the songs on my album ("Perfect Summer" and "Air") are the result of that collaboration. His evening is called "All Mixed Up: The Music of Sam Davis," and he's featuring performances by Anastasia Barzee, Matt Farnsworth, Santino Fontana, Megan Lawrence, Kelli O'Hara, Megan McGinnis, Matt McGrath, Karen Murphy, Dan Reichard, Benjamin Schrader, Patrick Sullivan, and Will Swenson. My friend Annette Jolles is directing, Sam himself will be at the piano, and the rest of the band is Sean McDaniel (drums), Brad Russell (bass), and my own pal from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS days, John Benthal (guitar). Concert is tonight, Oct 7th at 7 pm, and Birdland is 315 W. 45th Street (btw 8th and 9th). And if you do go, clap really loudly for my songs!

Next on the agenda, I've got a concert of my own coming up in Santa Monica on November 17th, featuring my good friend and long-time collaborator, Susan Egan, and my new collaborator and pal Kevin Earley. It'll be a bunch of my songs, including several that I've not performed in a REALLY long time and even a few that I'm sure you've never heard. The thing about this concert, part of the "Under the Radar" series, is that it's FREE, because we're kicking off the opening of a new theatre in Los Angeles. It's called the Madison Theater and it's attached to Santa Monica College. Click here to check out what's happening in this new and vibrant space, and better yet, call 310-434-3414 for more info about tickets to my concert. (As soon as there's a website for tickets, I'll post it.)

Upon my return home, the most exciting thing waiting for me in the pile of mail on the kitchen table was a stack of proofs for my new songbook, to be published by Hal Leonard in conjunction with Williamson Music. It's all the music for the songs on my album, "This Ordinary Thursday." You may be wondering how this all works, and I'll fill you in. I sent computer files of my songs to the good editors at Hal Leonard, and they've taken about two months to create and edit the scores for publication. At first I thought, "What's to edit? I've written everything down; it's exactly as I want it." But now that I've got the proofs I see some of the changes they've made. Editing is a really interesting thing. In some cases, they've changed the layout of the pages -- meaning the page turns might fall in different places, the lyrics might be less crammed into the space between two barlines, or the separation of two voices on two lines might be consolidated into two voices on one line. None of that affects the music, and often it actually solves some problems and makes the scores easier to read. In other cases, they've renamed some of the chords. Sometimes I say, "oh yeah, Ab (add2) is a better choice than Ab2," and sometimes I say, "No, I actually meant C Maj 9 instead of G/C." So the proofing is a chance to correct mistakes -- both theirs and mine -- before this thing goes to print. I think it would be pretty upsetting to go through this process and then have the final product have some glaring and obvious error that we all missed, so I'm gonna take some time and hope to get it right. But the aim is that the songbook will be out in the world by the end of the year. Of course I'll announce it and make a big deal when that finally happens, and then YOU will go buy it. Right? Right?

While we're talking about editing, I had another interesting editing story that I thought was worth sharing. Earlier this summer Lauren Kennedy recorded one of my songs for her new album which is to be released on November 4th. I wrote about it here in this blog at the time. We recorded the band and Lauren's vocals, and I always intended to add backing vocals later in the game. In my mind, the vocals were a part of the orchestration, a layer in the tapestry of sound, just as a bed of strings or a pair of guitars would have been. So about a month after we recorded the inital track, I hired four great singers and we went into a studio and added the backing vocals. As we began mixing the track, there emerged a great number of differing opinions (Lauren, me, record producer, recording engineer, etc.) about whether or not the vocals were working. It was an interesting dilemma. On an album designed to feature Lauren and a collection of songs you probably don't already know, how do you keep the other voices from grabbing your attention away from the STORY of the song? We tried mixing them down at a very low volume. That didn't work -- then you were straining to hear them and not listening to what Lauren was saying. Next we tried cutting them out except for the spaces in between the lyrics -- using them only when they wouldn't compete with the text of the song. That didn't work because it felt like a very stop-and-start arrangement. Finally we tried bringing them in only at the end, and then they just felt like they were appearing out of nowhere -- more confusing than helpful. The final decision, and it was unanimous among all of us, was that the song worked great as a solo and the addition of the backing vocals in any form was more distraction than illumination. So, we cut them. You may wonder why things get cut, and there ya go.

(Buried deep in my iTunes folder, of course, is the version with the complete BVs. Someday, when Lauren's album is a huge hit and everyone knows all the words to this song, I'll pop that baby up on my blog and you'll all go, "Ohhhhh.... I see." Until then, it's Lauren's and my little secret.)

All right. More later. Go to Sam's concert if you can. I'm off to throw a birthday party for my two-year-old. Go ahead, envy me.

Notes from London (Part Three)

We're heading home from London tomorrow, which means today is a bit of a panic of packing and last-minute things, but I wanted to write one more time before I left the UK. It's really one of the joys of my career that I get to travel so much and I get to spend extended amounts of time in places other than my home. This trip has been so great, and so different from the last time I was here.

Last week I wrote about all the master classes I was teaching, and I've taught several more this week, but I've also served as pianist for some master classes my husband taught. People often ask us how we handle the fact that we do the same thing for a living, and I'll admit that there are times when we're probably too competitive for our marriage's comfort. That said, the truth is that he's so good at what he does that I find it inspiring. Our master classes are very similar in terms of what we teach, but as I watch him do what he does, I inevitably learn something that I can then take into my own practice. Some people might call that stealing, but I prefer to think of it as responding to inspiration.

That's really what I wanted to write about today. A question I got asked a lot while I was here is, "Where do you find your inspiration for the things you write?" I've answered it differently every time it was asked, but the common fact is that I respond to things that are good. When I see a great piece of theater, I want to come home and write good theater. When I hear a Mahler symphony (one of my favorites), I want to come home and write great music. And while I was here, I experienced lots of things that made me want not only to write, but to read more, to learn new languages, to research things more in depth.

I've talked before about how nostalgic I am, but another great part of traveling is getting to reconnect with people from your past. Whilst in London (see how British that sounds?) this time, I was able to attend the premiere of a new string quartet written by one of my former composition professors, Dr. Michael Alec Rose. The piece was performed twice -- once at the Royal Academy of Music (where I heard it) and again at the Priory Church of the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew the Great. Dr. Rose was going on about what a wonderful space St. Bart's was, and so a few days later, pushing a sleeping baby in a pram on a windy day, I peeked in to take a look. Begun in 1123, St. Bart's is one of the oldest churches in London, and certainly one of the most beautiful. It was also just enough off the beaten path that I was the only visitor there for the 45 minutes I spent in the space, and somehow that made it even more sacred. You might even call it ... oh, I don't know... inspiring. I've also found inspiration this month at the National Portrait Gallery, in the audience of Jason's show PARADE, and sitting in my friend's flat watching boats go up and down the Thames. I've been inspired by my daughter, by funny things that people say, and by books I've read that linger after I've turned the last page.

As we pack up the house and prepare for a long flight tomorrow, I just want to thank the many people who were involved in all the work we did here. Thanks to the Contempo Theatre Company who produced my concert, to all the schools who asked me to participate in master classes, to the teachers who let me into their classrooms and the students who let me into their work, to the actors who sang my songs and the fans who came to the concerts and bought the CD, to the babysitters who stayed in our home and taught Molly so many new songs, to the nice Londoners who gave us directions along the way, and mostly to Alastair Lindsey-Renton, our agent and friend, who did everything else.

Home calls.

Notes from London (Part Two)

You'll have to forgive me for not posting in so long. These Brits are keeping me busy. The photo to the left is the team of people who were a part of my British debut concert at St. Paul's Church in Knightsbridge. In the back row you've got Amy Maiden, who is half of the Contempo Theatre Company which produced the evening, Damian Humbley, some girl who showed up in a black dress, Jo Ampil, Daniel Boys, Eliza Lumley, and violinist Ben Lee. In the front is Caroline Sheen and producer Alastair Lindsey-Renton. Caroline also had a beautiful red dress and these fantastic shoes she wore for act two, but her act one song required her to wear exercise clothes, and so there she sits. Bless.

And now -- about the concert itself. I'm always amazed that it's not over in three minutes and that there are more than six people in the audience. And especially in another country, in a city where I've never been promoted, it still astounds me to be able to say that the concert was two hours long and the audience held about 200 people. I sang three songs, and the other five singers each sang three or four, as well. The more I do this thing -- performing my own music -- the more comfortable I get. I have to say, this time I was really at peace with the singing I had to do (instead of being a nervous wreck about it) and even though the banter between songs was goofy and off the cuff, I think it went over well. (Does anyone know if Olga and her date actually made it to the concert?) So, a huge thank you to all involved. I am really happy.

The day before the concert my team all gathered at Dress Circle to sign CDs and sing a few tunes. As I was playing, I saw that several people were watching me through camera lenses and sure enough, the next day there we were on YouTube. So, for those of you who couldn't be there, here's a taste of what you missed.


In addition to the performing, I've been working around the UK doing master classes. So far I've been to The Brit School (click here to see the write up we got in their blog!), Knightswood School in Glasgow, Scotland, the Royal Acadamy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), and the Sylvia Young Theatre School. We've got more schools booked all throughout next week, and I'm also accompanying some of my husband's classes he's teaching. The thing I've been surprised by, more than anything else, is how similar musical theater students are everywhere you go. The work I did with British students this week is the same work I do with my professional actors in my class The GYM. I'm constantly asking actors, "Who are you talking to?" "At what point in the song do you feel like your character is changed?" "How is the music giving you the clues you need to act this song?" And students everywhere are working in their classes and their coaching sessions and their lessons to answer just these questions. One of the most surreal moments for me was driving in to Glasgow from the house where we'd spent the night before, and our driver was engaging us in a conversation about the differences between Rodgers and Hammerstein songs and Rodgers and Hart songs. It was a pretty deep conversation about a very specific topic, and as I looked out the car window, I saw the most rural countryside, sheep, and ancient stone buildings. Even here, when I'm as far north as I've ever been, these songs are famous and, even better, relevant.

I leave you with a quick word about the Donmar Warehouse production of my husband's show PARADE. Go. It's one of the most astounding things I've ever seen, and the response from the London audiences has been amazing. Three curtain calls last night. I am so proud of him and the work they have done for this much smaller version of the show that originally played at Lincoln Center. Press night (official opening) is Monday. Keep your fingers crossed.

Notes from London (Part One)

I think it officially starts when you take your American money out of your wallet and you say, "Well, I guess I won't be needing this for a while." I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm still trying to read the numbers on the coins to see how much value is attached to each one. Ugh. Such a foreigner -- and I've even lived in London before. Years and years ago at Vanderbilt I took a summer abroad to study British Lit and Fine Art over here. I remember reading the British novels. (It was one of my favorite classes ever.) I remember going to the museums and sitting through the slide shows. I remember taking the train trips on the weekends to see more of the country than just this city. I remember mastering the Tube and lounging in the pubs and seeing great theatre (and not-so-great theatre). Apparently I just don't remember the coins.

That's Molly in Southwark walking along the Thames. COME ON. I didn't get out of America until I was in college. In fact, that trip to London so many years ago was my first time out of the country (and I suppose I'm not counting Mexico and Canada, even though they are actually different countries). The fact that my two-year-old daughter has a passport and it has already been stamped is astounding to me. It's so easy now to be worldly, and yet Americans tend to get stuck within our own fifty states. Granted, those are some big states. A Brit yesterday asked me how far it was from New York to Los Angeles, and I said, "Oh, it's about a six hour plane ride." His jaw dropped, and he tried to figure out how far from London a six hour plane ride would get you. "South Africa?" he suggested. I don't think it's THAT far, but the vast amount of space we take for granted in our country is unique to us, that's for sure.

It took me two days to get my cell phone to work over here, and during those two days I had to call my cell phone company in America twice. The second time I got this girl with a deep Southern accent who was helping me to figure out the code that would unlock my phone and allow me to use it abroad. She said, in a thick Alabama drawl, "It must be so different over there in London." I really hate making small talk with people who can put you on hold, but I engaged. "Yes, yes, it's pretty different, all right. But it's not SO different because at least everyone here speaks English." "Oh. Really? They do?" she asked. Is it possible that we're so self-involved as a country that some Americans don't even realize that English people speak English?

So, anyway, I'm going to do my part to represent America with grace and class. Next Sunday the 16th, as I mentioned in a previous blog, I'm doing a concert of my music at this amazingly beautiful church in Knightsbridge, London. (For those of you coming, it's just behind the Barclay Hotel.) We start official rehearsals tomorrow, though the five singers have been rehearsing on their own for about two weeks. I've got an Irish nanny showing up to watch my child while I'm in rehearsal, and I imagine she'll walk about with the pram and take along some spare nappies while she's sorting out what to do to keep the day from being rubbish. I can't wait.
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Concert tickets: CLICK HERE
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Books I read for my British Lit class at Vanderbilt, many years ago. I can only remember a few of them. Anyone reading who took the class with me and can remind me what the others were?

1. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
2. Little Dorrit (Charles Dickens)
3. Heart Of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
4. The Time Machine (H. G. Wells)
5. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
6. The Woman In White (Wilkie Collins)

A Matter of Perspective

It's all in the perspective. I missed my entry last week because I was traveling, and I'm still on the road but I realize that's no excuse. In fact, traveling often leads to insights that you certainly wouldn't have if you were sitting on your duff at home, so let's start there.

A little over a week ago I flew from LA to Boston and spent several days on Cape Cod. There's a theater there I've mentioned before in this blog, and because of the many summers I spent there during college, that part of the world is incredibly special to me. You know how there are places that resonate with you -- where you feel a kinship with the very land, the people, and the history that surrounds you? Cape Cod is like that for me. I feel like me when I am there. (Interestingly, Scotland is like that for me, too, and I've just found out I'm going to get to go there later this month. But more on that later.) Meanwhile, tell me this isn't the most spectacular picture ever. If you've purchased my CD (with the booklet), you might be wondering... and the answer is yes. Same beach, same baby, one year later. Those of you who downloaded the album on iTunes (and thank you for doing so!) didn't get to see the fantastic graphic work Derek Bishop designed. And those of you who dowloaded it illegally -- shame on you. But the rest of you know what I'm talking about.

The College Light Opera Company was producing THE SECRET GARDEN that week, and as I sat in the audience watching it, I was thinking about how interesting it is that your perspective can change so much over time. When I was 20 years old and getting to conduct a show for the first time (32 singers and an 18 piece orchestra!), I thought the singers I was coaching were the greatest I'd ever heard, the conductors I was studying with were uniquely informed about how musicals work, and the audience on Cape Cod was capable of making me as nervous as I'd ever been. Now, some (mumble mumble) years later, and with all due respect to all of those people from earlier chapters of my life, I've heard so many more great singers, learned from so many more conductors, and been far more nervous than I ever was at CLOC. Sitting in that audience, trying to remember who I'd been at the beginning of this career, I found myself listening to the inside of my head more than listening to the show. And though the actors might not agree, I think that's all right. It's nostalgia, it's self-evaluation, it's observation. It's a change in perspective.

After we left Cape Cod, we drove through New England on a beautiful late summer day and wound up in Vermont, where we visited family. Two days in the mountains with a great aunt and uncle in their 80s. No cell phone service. No internet. It was magnificent. I realized how dependent I've become on being able to be in contact with people all the time. A year ago I remember thinking, "what do I need a Blackberry for?" and now I check it at least ten or twelve times a day. Once you get used to the constant flow of email and text messages, it's shocking not to have them. When, at the end of the trip, I drove back into an area where my cell phone received service, the messages came pouring in -- and I was relieved and disappointed at the same time. Wouldn't it be nice, for at least parts of every day, to be truly unavailable?

After Vermont, we headed into New York. I lived in NY for ten years before heading out to California two years ago, and coming back to the city always feels like coming home. My dearest friends are here, and thankfully I've gotten to connect with almost all of them this week. I know my way around NY better than any other city on earth. Most of the time, even now, my work leads me back to Manhattan. And yet, for the first time in two years, it was clear to me that NY is no longer my home. Instead of pining away for it, I found myself thinking how grateful I was to have the things I have "at home." Again, my perspective had shifted.

One of the great things I got to do this week was attend a performance of GREASE on Broadway. After working as the vocal coach on the TV show for months and months, I sat in that audience knowing that I was having a truly unique experience of watching the show. I know Max and Laura's voices in such detail, and I know their personalities but I haven't been with them for the last few months as they made the transition from aspiring actors to Broadway stars. I know that score so well, and I was hyper-aware of every change in the vocal arrangements, the orchestrations, the placement of the new songs. I know the conductor and most of the cast. I know the director. I even knew the sound guy running the board at the back of the house. I was sure that I was going to sit there completely unable to enjoy the show because I was so in my head. But you know what? I really liked it. Perhaps it's because of my relationship to the show that I had such a good time, but I was really proud of those performers and really happy to have been a part of it along the way.



Next week I cross the big pond and start rehearsing for the September 16th concert in London and the numerous master classes I'm doing in England and Scotland. (See? Scotland! We came back to it!) I have no idea what I'll be posting about, but assuming I don't wind up in Vermont again, I'll be back each week. Can one write a blog with a British accent? It certainly would change your perspective. See ya then.

Announcing the Concert in London 9/16

At long last, it's time to talk about LONDON! For those of you who keep up with my husband's career, Jason's already in London working on PARADE, which I'm sure he'll tell you is going to be a smaller version of the show that played at Lincoln Center in 1998-99 and won him a Tony Award for best score. The Donmar Warehouse, an extremely prestigious theater in the UK, approached Jason about bringing the show overseas, and he jumped at the chance. As he was saying yes, we both realized that that would mean he was away from home for about two months. Without much debate, I said, "So I guess I'm coming with you."

It's a tricky place we're in, because bringing along the wife and kid is not always included in negotiations. (Maybe Stephen Schwartz can get that kind of a deal, but we're not there yet.) So our choices were: (A.) be separated from wife and two-year-old child for two months or (B.) fork over a bunch of dough and bring them with you. We split some differences. Wife and child are coming for the second month only; Brown family is picking up the extra expense.

I tell you all of this probably-too-personal information to say that London ain't cheap for Americans these days, and for many reasons, obvious and otherwise, I was thrilled when Amy Maiden and John Ellis of the Contempo Theatre Company called and said they were hoping I'd be in London with Jason because they wanted to present a concert of my music, thereby introducing me to the London theater community. What started months ago as a crazy brainstorm of ideas has finally settled into an actual event, and with the most brilliant help of agent and producer Alastair Lindsey-Renton (There's a British name if ever I've heard one), a concert is about to be born.

Here's what you need to know -- especially if you live in England or are planning to be there next month.

SUNDAY, September 16th, 2007
8:00 pm
St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge

And, I'm excited to announce, I have a most amazing cast. I don't even know all of them yet, but I'm googling them and emailing them, trying to figure out who should sing which songs, and I'm kind of blown away that they all said they wanted to participate.

GEORGIA STITT and FRIENDS
featuring
Jo Ampil, Daniel Boys, Damian Humbley, Eliza Lumley, and Caroline Sheen

Here's the announcement on Facebook -- and you don't have to be a member of Facebook to view it. (But if you are a member -- hey, wanna be friends? I'm totally addicted and spend way too much time on this site.)

I fully intend to keep blogging while I'm across the pond, as they say, so watch here for more news. Also, Alastair seems to be having quite a bit of success setting up numerous master classes for me while I'm over there, so if you're a theater student in the UK, you might even wind up in my class before the month is out. How cool would that be? And how amazing is it that I get to teach at places called "The Royal Academy" and such?

Finally -- with regards to last week's blog -- don't even ask me about the nightmare that was required to secure a passport for my daughter. Some stories are better left untold.

Guilt, Worry, and the Anger of No Recourse

"So what are you up to these days?"

It's a question that fills me with dread. No one really wants to hear about how it's all I can do to make it from one end of the day to the other without having to change my clothes. Keeping up with a toddler and a career feels like two full-time jobs, and yet when I'm faced with the above question I find myself scrambling to say somthing that doesn't feel pitiable. I talk about the job I just completed, the CD that came out three months ago, the shows that I've been writing and re-writing for months. Having spent ten years in NY and now two more in Hollywood, I am pretty good at spin.

But the truth is, I know all of us who free-lance are filled with horror at the idea that we're not doing enough. We're not working hard enough, we're not getting enough credit, we should have more shows on our resumes and more hits on our websites.

I had a composition professor in college who had ordered personalized pencils that were inscribed to say "You should be composing now." I was as torn back then as I am now. He was absolutely right. I should be composing now. But I also should be spending more time with my family. And exercising for an hour each day. And reading more books. And keeping up with the news -- especially the news of my industry. Not to mention the fact that I've always wanted to be fluent in another language. And to take voice lessons. And to play the piano for leisure instead of just for work. And I have all this great kitchen equipment; I really should cook more often. And buy food at the farmer's market. And stay in touch with my friends who live far away. And conserve energy. And floss.

You people with actual jobs, how on earth do you do it?

We've had a lot of family stresses around here this week, but like my friend Seth Rudetsky writes in his blog, I know that ours are luxury problems. We have friends and family with actual problems -- health crises, failing marriages, jobs in jeopardy. I have nothing like that to complain about, and I am extremely grateful. But in lieu of such a grand worry on my plate, I am filled to overflowing with petty worries and pedantic anxieties. I can't believe how many times a day I wash dishes. No matter how many hours I spend responding to email, I invariably forget to deal with something that will have unfortunate consequences the next day. Today, while I was trying desperately to finish something on my computer, my daughter decided to write on the wall with a crayon. That's what I get for not paying attention to everything at once.

When you're functioning in the world of luxury problems (overcommitted, overextended, overwhelmed), you're only one step away from the kind of frustration that can completely wipe you out. It's nine pm, you've finally gotten to a point where you can stop and have some dinner. There's nothing in the house so you order takeout. You and your husband request a salad and two entrees, and when the food comes, nearly forty-five minutes after you phoned in the order, you pay the nice delivery man and send him on his way. Only ten minutes later, when you're plating the food and looking forward to sitting down for your first moment of quiet in a week, do you realize they've forgotten to include your entree. It's not that there's NO recourse. It's that at this point nothing will make you happy. Even if the restaurant recognizes the mistake and offers to send another perfectly lovely delivery boy over with your entree, your night is ruined. They can't give you two hours of your life back. You're furious, and I call it the anger of no recourse.

It's the anger that builds when you're stuck on hold and you have no option but simply to wait for someone to tell you the piece of information you need to get on with your life. It's the even bigger anger that comes when you've already been on hold for ten minutes and you finally get a person who tells you he's transferring you to another department, and he disconnects you. But mostly, it's the anger that comes when you're doing everything exactly right, treating people with respect and giving them all the benefits of the doubt, and they screw you over anyway.

I didn't mean for this blog to be so filled with bile, but in writing about my work, I suppose sometimes I have to write about how impossible it is to do my work. I know you all have the same petty frustrations in your own lives and you'll be happy when I stop writing about mine. Things should be better tomorrow. I have five hours set aside for writing, and there's a pencil on my piano that says, "You should be composing now." What could possibly get in my way?

The view from behind the piano

It seems to me that theater people are always looking for work, and then as soon as they've settled into something that's running for a while, they're looking for a way to get out of it. The SOUTH PACIFIC run (which ends today) wasn't long enough to build up that kind of anxiety. There were only three performances, after all. But my job as rehearsal pianist ended on Thursday at five pm, right before the performances started on Friday. It's a weird thing to be a rehearsal pianist. You're one of the most crucial people to the rehearsal process. You play the same songs over and over again while the dancers learn their steps, the singers learn their tunes, and the chorus learns its harmonies. If, God forbid, you're late, rehearsal doesn't start until you get there. And then, when the orchestra comes in to play the performances, you're done. Everyone else goes on and gets into costume and moves into their dressing rooms, and you're officially unemployed. (Sometimes you get to play WITH the orchestra, but in this case, the 55-piece orchestration did not call for a piano.)

Sometimes during the rehearsal process a pianist will have to play things in several different keys. That happened this time for me. Before the rehearsal period started I was practicing SOUTH PACIFIC out of the published copy of the score I have at home, and about two days before rehearsal started, I looked at the copy of the score that the Hollywood Bowl had sent over. It was marked with cuts in the dance music and the underscoring, and, to my surprise, it had several indications at the beginnings of songs that said things like, "Down a whole step in the key of D-flat."

For those of you who aren't pianists, I'll try to translate. What that means is that the music is PRINTED in the key of E-flat, but you're expected to play it in the key of D-flat. It's not an impossible transposition, but sight-transposing is one of those skills that you have to practice doing to be able to do it well. I haven't done it in a while, so for the first few days there were clunkers every now and then ("a hundred and one, pounds of fun, that's my lit-tle Honey STINKY NOTE!") To his credit, conductor Paul Gemignani would look at me and laugh, knowing exactly what had happened and trusting that I would get it right next time. I did.

In one such moment, I looked over at his laughing face and said, "You know, I'm not Paul Ford." (Paul Ford is one of New York's finest pianists and has the enviable reputation for being able to play any piece of music in any key, even if he's never heard it before.) Gemignani, who has been Stephen Sondheim's primary music director since the 1970s, said something like, "You know, even Paul Ford couldn't do that when I met him. I told him that if he wanted to play auditions for me he had to learn how to transpose. So I guess he took me seriously and he taught himself how to do it."

By the end of the two-week rehearsal process I had gotten really good at transposing, and I'm inclined to follow Paul Ford's lead and fine-tune (so to speak) this skill. I've spoken to other musicians and it's amazing to me that even though we all are asked to do transpose at some point or another, none of us thinks about it in quite the same way.

(This next paragraph might get a little bit music-geeky, so if you're not notationally inclined I won't be offended if you skip it.)

If I'm given a piece of music to transpose at sight, I tend to think of it as having been written in a different key signature. Up or down a half step and I just change the key signature. A piece written in E that you have to play in E-flat is easy. Just think three flats instead of four sharps. Re-reading accidentals takes some getting used to: sharps become naturals, naturals become flats, flats become double-flats which you have to re-spell in your head anyway. Up or down a third and I just imagine there's another line on the grand staff, and I read it accordingly. But once you get into transposing more than a third, you're in confusing territory and you kind of have to rely on your ears instead of your eyes. (Am I going down a fourth or up a fifth?) Other musicians I've known have told me that they do it all by ear, but I imagine that gets tricky if the piece you're playing is something you've never heard before. I'm so fascinated that not everyone thinks of music theory in the same way. Write in to the comments section if you have something illuminating to say about all of this.

(Welcome back.)

Actors sometimes need their music transposed for the purposes of auditions. A song that's just a bit too high in F might sound fantastic in E. Or someone who wants to show off her belt might be disappointed that the high note in her song is only an A, and raising the key a whole step allows the climax to mean something in her voice. I encountered a situation in my class this week where someone was singing a song that tends to be the make-or-break song tenors use in auditions, and he wanted to transpose it down a step. In that particular case I advised him to sing something else, rather than have all the musicians behind the audition table scratching their most-likely-masculine chins and wondering why it sounded so low. Sometimes transposing doesn't matter. Sometimes it does. Sometimes a bright song can seem darker when you change the key, or vice versa. Regardless, if you're an actor, you should NEVER EVER NEVER EVER NEVER take a piece in to an audition and say to the pianist, "I usually do this in the key of G." You might get a pianist who's great at it. Or you might get "Sing for me, my Meadow-CLUNK." Better to be in control of your own destiny. Either have your music printed out in the proper key or take along a pianist who isn't going to stomp all over your audition.

All right, I've ranted long enough. In closing, I'll pass along this one-liner I love. Another musician once told me, "You know you're a musician when you can't see a dot on a page without hearing it in your head."

The question then becomes, "In which key?"