Summing it All Up

I've had lots of excuses for failing to post anything new in the last six weeks. The biggest one is that in order to work on CLASH OF THE CHOIRS (for NBC -- did you watch it?) I had to sign a confidentiality agreement stating I wouldn't go around talking about the show. And since that project took up every hour of my every single day from Thanksgiving to Christmas, there wasn't much I could write about, and even if there had been, there wasn't time to write, anyway. I don't know if I've ever worked on something that consumed so much of my time. Truly, I woke up and checked my email, then started dealing with things for the show until my husband finally screamed at me to log off and come to bed somewhere around midnight. In the midst of all that, somehow the Christmas tree got decorated, the presents got wrapped and the babysitter made a fortune.

I'm going to share just a little bit about the show and specifically my role in it. The show was a reality TV competition featuring five stars who went back to their hometowns and each hand-picked 20 singers to form a choir. Those five choirs rehearsed (in five different cities) for 40 hours each and then came to NY and competed in a sing-off on national TV. The winning celebrity got $250,000 donated to his chosen local charity, and the others each got $50,000 donated to their chosen charities, as well. (Click here to see some YouTube footage.) I was the assistant music director, which means I handled all things musical from choosing the songs (along with a team of several other people from network execs to choirmasters to celebrity managers) to supervising the choirmasters and their arrangements to conducting the orchestra (in rehearsal only -- the magnificent Nigel Wright conducted them for the actual TV shows) to overseeing audio for the TV broadcast.

What I loved about the show was how very much in the spirit of the holiday it was. Everything was in the spirit of good will and good fun, and the attention paid to the charities was lovely and sincere. Nobody said anything mean-spirited (well, at least not on the air). Also, there's something extremely bonding about groups of people that are thrown together in intense situations for short amounts of time. (Those of us in the theater know this to be true.) Those choirs were made up of unlikely mixes of people and I'm told several of them are still very close. The winning team, led by Nick Lachey, has been asked to perform several future engagements -- a Cincinnati Reds game, a corporate event, and even possibly singing back up on Nick's next album-- so I get the sense they're going to continue to be a choir. Hopefully the others will do the same.

I made some great friendships with some great musicians and I'd like particularly to draw attention to the five choirmasters who did fantastic behind-the-scenes work making real music and celebrating the choral arts with their choirs of amateurs. Take a look at these five diverse talents.

Kim Burse, for Kelly Rowland

Gary Eckert, for Blake Shelton

Steve Zegree, for Nick Lachey

John Stanley, for Patti LaBelle

Shelton Becton, for Michael Bolton

You'd be lucky to cross paths with any of these fine musicians.

So, the biggest stress of my life, aside from the usual stress of working at such a high level of pressure on such tight deadlines, is that the day I arrived in NYC to start working on the live shows, I left my computer in the back of a cab. The first wave of panic was the "how-am-I-ever-going-to-get-my-work-done" kind of panic, followed quickly by the "oh-my-God-everything-I've-ever-written-is-on-that-computer" panic and the third and most lasting panic was the "what-if-someone-tries-to-steal-my-identity-and-wipe-out-my-bank-account" kind of panic.

So, the production rented me a computer to get through the week, the hard-drive backups I've been doing at home seem to have worked, and the fraud alert I placed on all my accounts has so far had no activity. So my best hope is that whoever found my computer wiped it clean and gave it to himself for Christmas. Lucky me -- I had to buy another one. My friend Marcy Heisler tells me to enjoy the "clean slate" feeling, and that's a good way to wrap up this last post of 2007. Look forward to your clean slate of the new year, and for God's sake -- ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR WORK!

Happy New Year, everyone, and thanks for reading.

Georgia

Giving Thanks

I'm heading out tomorrow to start the Thanksgiving holiday week and as always, the last day before you go on a trip becomes a nightmare of organizing and trying not to forget anything important. I'm nursing a cold, too, which didn't help the singing issue I talked about last week, but hey -- the concert went well and I got a little bit closer to overcoming stage fright. Just before I went onstage in Santa Monica this week, one of the volunteers said to me, "Do you get nervous before these things?" I thought, "Well, I was doing a pretty good job at avoiding it this time, but now that you've brought it up...." Hmmph.

Broadway's dark. The writers in LA are on strike. I suppose Thanksgiving week is the time to say outloud that I'm grateful I'm working on a reality TV show. Who knew? I'll tell you more about CLASH OF THE CHOIRS as soon as they'll let me, but if you're in New Haven, Philly, Cincy, Houston, or Oklahoma City, you've probably already heard about it. And by this time next month, you will definitely have heard about it. Especially since there will be nothing else to watch on TV.

Here's a photo from the concert I did at the Madison Theater at Santa Monica College this week. That's Tim Christensen (bass) and Shannon Ford (drums) flanking me in the back, and Susan Egan and Kevin Earley sitting in front. If you put a little bubble over my head it would be saying, "Hurry up and take the pictures because I have to figure out what I'm going to talk about in fifteen minutes when the concert starts." But, as always, I'm glad someone was there taking photos to document the event, even though I might have been a little bit cranky as it was happening.

Since we're doing photos, here are two from the master class I taught at the Orange County High School of the Arts. In the first photo, that's Hannah Solow, Lamont O'Neil, Robert Anderson and Nina Herzog. And the second photo is everyone who was in the room while I was working with the first four people. That's an amazing program they've got there, and if it weren't an hour and a half from my house I'd be trying to get my two-year-old daughter on the wait list right now.I've been so lucky to get to see inside lots of fantastic musical theater training programs this year -- both in the US and the UK -- and I'm excited about the interest there is from young people in the future of Broadway musicals. Now, if we could just get the lights back on in the theaters. I know I sound flip, but it's really a problem. In case you haven't been following it, the Broadway stagehands union has been on strike for a week, and even though talks resumed this weekend, they didn't solve the issues at hand. Now it looks like the theaters will be dark over Thanksgiving week -- which means all those people in for the Macy's parade... well, I can't even think about it. Fingers crossed.

I'm gonna keep this one short because I've got to pack, but as this very special holiday approaches I want to thank all of you for reading my blog and supporting my music. This has been a big year, and I've got even bigger things in store for next year, but none of it would be possible if no one cared about the music. So, hey -- Happy Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for you.

Don't Worry That It's Not Good Enough For Anyone Else To Hear... Just Sing

I'm off this evening to play and sing a few songs in Susan Egan's "Broadway at Pomona" concert at Cal Poly. Those of you who know me personally know that I can play for anyone else without even a quickening of my pulse, but the minute I'm asked to sing in public I get so nervous I feel like I might pass out before I make it to the stage. It wasn't always this way. It used to be worse.

One year in college, I got so freaked out during my piano juries (which are like final exams for musicians) that I lost track of where I was in the middle of a Bach fugue. It's exactly a performer's worst nightmare -- forgetting your lyrics, forgetting the next chord, forgetting where you are in the music. You might as well be naked on stage. So, I did what any composition major would do. I made something up. I just improvised in the style of Bach until I got myself back to some place I recognized, and then I played out the piece to its end. My piano teacher's jaw hit the floor, I'm sure. Everyone in the room EXCEPT ME knew how it was supposed to go. The comments I got on my jury sheets (which ultimately constitute your grade for a semester of piano lessons) said things like "very creative" and "who knew?" Ugh. If I had been considering a career as a concert pianist, it went out the window that afternoon.

When I'm coaching singers on their audition material, I tell them what I believe: that if you're truly acting your text, if you're talking to the right person and your objective is clear and you've done your homework in terms of vocal technique, then you won't be nervous. Or, at least, your nerves will be manageable. I think it's part of why actors say they're never nervous when they're actually doing the show -- only when they're auditioning to be in the show. It's all about where you are inside your head, and if you're fully connected as your character and you're trying to accomplish something, you don't have room for the self-criticism that might otherwise fill your brain. Trouble is, when I'm singing my own songs, my character is usually me and my objective is to sing my songs well enough that someone might be interested in buying my album after the show. You can see why I prefer to leave it to the professionals.

That said, every time I sing in public people tell me that there's nothing like hearing a composer sing her own work, and having seen other composers do the same thing, I know it to be true. I had one very very very famous musical theater composer (not my husband) tell me that he takes drugs before he has to sing in front of an audience -- and then he told me where I could order the ... we'll call it an herbal downer ... online. And I know there are other songwriters who simply won't do it -- though they confess to be just as nervous sitting in the audience knowing that people are listening to their songs and judging them accordingly. Oh, it's so hard to be a performer. Why on earth do we do it?

If you're in LA and you want to come witness me torturing myself in public, I'm performing with Susan Egan and Kevin Earley in Santa Monica on Saturday, November 17th at 7 pm. I know I've mentioned it before, but the details I can give you now are that this is only a 99-seat house and the only way to make a reservation is to call and put your name on a list. If this thing sells out (and since it's FREE it won't really sell out, but you know what I mean), hopefully it will lead to me having a kind of residency at this theater -- a standing gig maybe once a month where I bring in special guests to sing my music and other fun theater tunes. So, let's overwhelm them with calls so they know that there's an interest in LA for contemporary musical theater. Especially mine. Call 310-434-3414 and tell them how many seats you want. The address is The Stage at Santa Monica/Second Space, Santa Monica Blvd and 11th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401.

All right. I'm off to warm up. And drink some tea. And figure out what to wear. And completely freak myself out. Here we go again.

Five Announcements

1. LAUREN KENNEDY's album Lauren Kennedy: Here and Nowis available! You can order the album today exclusively from PSClassics, but the official release is November 6th, at which point it will be available everywhere. Look for track #5, "My Lifelong Love," which is mine. I have several friends with songs on the album, too, so it's guaranteed to be a fun and interesting listen. Watch for it on iTunes in a few weeks, too.

2. I just got word that the goal for the published songbook for This Ordinary Thursday: The Songs of Georgia Stitt will be available mid-December, but they're already taking pre-orders at Amazon. Very exciting!

3. Thanks to conductor Judith Clurman, I've got another choral piece coming out for publication! This piece is called "De Profundis" and was premiered by International Orange Chorale in San Francisco under the direction of Jeremy Faust. After that, Judy Clurman conducted it with a choir at Girton College at Cambridge in England, and now it's to be published in her series with Hal Leonard. YAY! Watch for more details here. Unlike my other choral pieces, this one is a cappella SATB, but like some of the other choral pieces, the text is again by one of my favorite poets, Christina Rossetti.

4. Finally, I'm excited to announce that for the rest of the year I'm going to be working as the Assistant Music Director of a new NBC TV show called CLASH OF THE CHOIRS. It will air as a special holiday program for four nights the week before Christmas, and it will feature five celebrities and their choirs in a fantastically competitive but good-spirited "sing-off."

5. Coming up in the weeks ahead, I'm performing a few songs at Cal Poly Pomona University with Susan Egan on November 8th (info here), I'm doing a master class at the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA) on November 9th, and I'm doing a FREE concert at Santa Monica College on November 17th. Check my website for more details on all these appearances!

If you didn't read last week's blog, take a look. I'd love your input. Thanks!

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)