My album comes out tomorrow! Click here for all of the information, and I'll post an update as soon as I have a hard copy in my hand! (If you've pre-ordered the album from Sh-K-Boom.com, I'm told it already shipped!)
Monday, November 28, 2011
My Lifelong Love - November 29th Release!
My album comes out tomorrow! Click here for all of the information, and I'll post an update as soon as I have a hard copy in my hand! (If you've pre-ordered the album from Sh-K-Boom.com, I'm told it already shipped!)
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Blog Radio interview with Trish Causey
Loved doing this interview with Trish Causey, who asked me really musical questions. Also hear song clips from my songs KITES AND CHILDREN and SONNET 29, with shout-outs to Brian d'Arcy James, Anika Noni Rose, and Shoshana Bean. Your 30-minute distraction!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Behind the Scenes "Nina Doesn't Care"
Susan Egan has an album coming out on November 15th, and I produced it! Watch this behind-the-scenes movie as she takes you through the "making of" the music video. And if you watch closely, you'll see not just me, but someone little who looks an awful lot like me.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
I Can't Believe It's Been Ten Years
I can't believe it's been ten years. I don't want to write one of those maudlin essays about September 11th, because everywhere you look you can find someone who has written one of those. The emotion in them is overwhelming, and I'm not really ready to go there. Not yet. I know there are deep feelings of grief just barely under the surface of my skin, but it feels indulgent to succumb to them. I didn't know anyone who died on 9/11. It was not my personal tragedy. And yet, I lived in Manhattan at the time, in the West Village, and I experienced the attack on the city in an extremely visceral way. It changed me. It changed us. It was just yesterday and a lifetime ago. I can't believe it's been ten years.
My apartment was on West 11th Street, and our block was set up as the headquarters for information about survivors. All the streets downtown were closed to traffic, and if you needed to find out if your missing friend or family member had been taken to one of the nearby hospitals, they sent you to my block. Tables lined the street, like the press tables temporarily set up for picking up tickets at an opening night event. On one side of the tables sat weary officials behind huge stacks of paper. If your person had made it out of the Towers and had been taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, a few blocks away, you came here to find that out. On the other side of the table stood rows and rows of the most worried faces I have ever seen. And the brownstone steps, for blocks in either direction, were lined with people who didn't yet know anything. It was a place for waiting.
That was the view from my apartment.
On the actual morning of September 11th, however, I woke up in Jason's apartment on the Upper West Side. His phone rang, early. It was his mother, frantic, telling us the world was ending and we should turn on the TV. We turned it on and watched the second plane hit. I remember wondering if my 3 pm coaching was going to happen that afternoon. (It was Alyssa Van Gorder. Funny what you don't forget.) I didn't understand the magnitude of what I was seeing. I had this surreal experience of watching something on TV that was happening only a few miles away. I felt removed from it, like it was a movie, a fictionalized Hollywood horror story. But by the afternoon, the smell in the air made it clear how close we actually were. New York was acrid and pungent for months. You kind of got used to it, which was horrifying in its own way.
A few weeks later, in early October, Jason and I flew to Japan with our friends and colleagues Sally Wilfert and Keith Byron Kirk. We were doing concerts of our own music for the 2001 Tono American Music Festival, created and hosted by my college friend Kevin Simmonds. The plane was empty enough that we spread out and each slept in our own row. When we arrived, the Japanese people seemed more grateful than ever that we had made the trip. They wanted to touch us, to feel that we were okay. We had anticipated being ambassadors of music; we wound up being ambassadors of New York and of America.
That November, my best friend Lisa's daughter Annie had her first birthday, and I tried to write a song to honor the occasion. The lyric was meant to be a celebration of this innocent young life, and instead it wound up being about September 11th. I never wrote the music. I couldn't find it. I put it in a file on my computer where I put lyrics that I intend to come back to later, when I'm ready. I've never gone back to it. I looked at it this week, in anticipation of today. I certainly see how I could edit this thing, fix it, make the words more original, the ideas less cliche. But I still don't hear any music. Ten years later, and I guess I'm still not ready.
I can't believe it's been ten years.
GROWING TO DO
for Annalise Francis Cole on her first birthday, November 17, 2001
Words and Music (?) by Georgia Stitt
©2001 Geocate Music (ASCAP)
Annie was born in November,
A bundle of warmth to a city of snow.
And the world changed
'Cause a baby had started to cry.
Wrapped in pink and all geared up to grow–
That’s how little Annalise said hi.
She giggles, she squeals, she drools,
And she laughs at cootchie-coo.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
Annie could crawl by September.
Pull herself up with her miniature hands.
But the world changed.
When the city outside tumbled down.
Lives and buildings snapped like rubber bands.
Annie didn’t even know to frown.
We struggle, we doubt, we mourn.
And we grieve until we’re blue.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
Sometimes a plane can fall out of the sky.
A war can break out in the wink of an eye,
And people who didn’t do anything wrong can die.
We ask, unanswered,
Why?
Annie was one this November –
A child full of warmth for a city in fright.
And the world changed.
When Annie revealed she could walk.
Baby steps and holding on too tight.
Maybe little Annie’s got it right.
And maybe all the rest of it is talk.
We stumble. We stretch. We cry,
But in time, we will renew.
Baby steps and holding on too tight.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
My apartment was on West 11th Street, and our block was set up as the headquarters for information about survivors. All the streets downtown were closed to traffic, and if you needed to find out if your missing friend or family member had been taken to one of the nearby hospitals, they sent you to my block. Tables lined the street, like the press tables temporarily set up for picking up tickets at an opening night event. On one side of the tables sat weary officials behind huge stacks of paper. If your person had made it out of the Towers and had been taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, a few blocks away, you came here to find that out. On the other side of the table stood rows and rows of the most worried faces I have ever seen. And the brownstone steps, for blocks in either direction, were lined with people who didn't yet know anything. It was a place for waiting.
That was the view from my apartment.
On the actual morning of September 11th, however, I woke up in Jason's apartment on the Upper West Side. His phone rang, early. It was his mother, frantic, telling us the world was ending and we should turn on the TV. We turned it on and watched the second plane hit. I remember wondering if my 3 pm coaching was going to happen that afternoon. (It was Alyssa Van Gorder. Funny what you don't forget.) I didn't understand the magnitude of what I was seeing. I had this surreal experience of watching something on TV that was happening only a few miles away. I felt removed from it, like it was a movie, a fictionalized Hollywood horror story. But by the afternoon, the smell in the air made it clear how close we actually were. New York was acrid and pungent for months. You kind of got used to it, which was horrifying in its own way.
A few weeks later, in early October, Jason and I flew to Japan with our friends and colleagues Sally Wilfert and Keith Byron Kirk. We were doing concerts of our own music for the 2001 Tono American Music Festival, created and hosted by my college friend Kevin Simmonds. The plane was empty enough that we spread out and each slept in our own row. When we arrived, the Japanese people seemed more grateful than ever that we had made the trip. They wanted to touch us, to feel that we were okay. We had anticipated being ambassadors of music; we wound up being ambassadors of New York and of America.
That November, my best friend Lisa's daughter Annie had her first birthday, and I tried to write a song to honor the occasion. The lyric was meant to be a celebration of this innocent young life, and instead it wound up being about September 11th. I never wrote the music. I couldn't find it. I put it in a file on my computer where I put lyrics that I intend to come back to later, when I'm ready. I've never gone back to it. I looked at it this week, in anticipation of today. I certainly see how I could edit this thing, fix it, make the words more original, the ideas less cliche. But I still don't hear any music. Ten years later, and I guess I'm still not ready.
I can't believe it's been ten years.
GROWING TO DO
for Annalise Francis Cole on her first birthday, November 17, 2001
Words and Music (?) by Georgia Stitt
©2001 Geocate Music (ASCAP)
Annie was born in November,
A bundle of warmth to a city of snow.
And the world changed
'Cause a baby had started to cry.
Wrapped in pink and all geared up to grow–
That’s how little Annalise said hi.
She giggles, she squeals, she drools,
And she laughs at cootchie-coo.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
Annie could crawl by September.
Pull herself up with her miniature hands.
But the world changed.
When the city outside tumbled down.
Lives and buildings snapped like rubber bands.
Annie didn’t even know to frown.
We struggle, we doubt, we mourn.
And we grieve until we’re blue.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
Sometimes a plane can fall out of the sky.
A war can break out in the wink of an eye,
And people who didn’t do anything wrong can die.
We ask, unanswered,
Why?
Annie was one this November –
A child full of warmth for a city in fright.
And the world changed.
When Annie revealed she could walk.
Baby steps and holding on too tight.
Maybe little Annie’s got it right.
And maybe all the rest of it is talk.
We stumble. We stretch. We cry,
But in time, we will renew.
Baby steps and holding on too tight.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
We’ve all got some growing to do.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
HELLO! MY BABY at the Village Theatre in Seattle
It's super exciting to have a show in a festival of new musicals, and Cheri Steinkellner and I are lucky enough to have had that experience a few times now. After having had readings at CAP21 and Goodspeed and a youth theater production at the Rubicon Theatre, this week we are at the Village Theatre Festival of New Musicals in Issaquah, Washington, just outside of Seattle. Here's the view from where I sit right now.
That's the end of the first act, where Frances and Junior realize they might be falling in love. But as usual, shenanigans will conspire to keep them apart until the end of the second act. I hope you all get a chance to see the show eventually. We've got a lot of development opportunities coming up, and I'll blog about them as they materialize. I can't announce (ahem...) until the theaters announce... but it's looking more and more like there will be things to announce very soon. How's that for cryptic?
Set on the sidewalks of New York in the 19teens, Hello! My Baby is a riotous new-fashioned musical-comedy chronicling the beginnings of that original all-American art-form: Popular Music. A new take on the classic songbook musical, H!MB updates the greatest hits of Berlin, Gershwin, Kern, Cohan, and a score of others, weaving them into a timely romantic farce that sings to all ages.
HELLO! MY BABY
Book and New Lyrics by Cheri Steinkellner
New Music and Arrangements by Georgia Stitt
Directed by Rich Gray
Music Directed by RJ Tancioco
Sunday night, August 14th, 7 pm
More info here
Follow HELLO! MY BABY on Facebook or on Twitter.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Songwriting Master Class in North Hollywood
Everyone's process is different, and we all know something about how to write or else we wouldn't be here. But how do we write on a deadline? What does it mean to have technique? How much do we depend on our collaborators, and how much do we push them? In this two-day workshop, we will tackle a number of songwriting challenges. Exercises (depending on the desires of the group) could include writing a simple and clear 32-bar song, writing a song based on someone else's experience, writing a (not boring!) list song, writing comedy, writing a song for a character in a found photograph, setting a piece of poetry, and/or writing lyrics to a pre-existing melody or writing music to a pre-existing lyric. Ideally, we will do some small group collaborating and assuredly we will have some overnight homework. Writers must be willing to attempt to write both lyric and melody even if experience is more significant in one area than the other. (Participants need not be pianists but must have some way (sing? guitar? demo?) to present original music.) Think 'theater games' for the writer. Class needs a minimum of four participants.
-----------
SONGWRITING MASTERCLASS with Georgia Stitt
Instructor: Georgia Stitt
Saturday/Sunday 2pm to 6pm
July 23 & 24
Course Fee: $195 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $150)
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
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SONGWRITING MASTERCLASS with Georgia Stitt
Instructor: Georgia Stitt
Saturday/Sunday 2pm to 6pm
July 23 & 24
Course Fee: $195 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $150)
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Monday, June 20, 2011
Censorship in Texas
I received this letter from my friend Kaitlin Hopkins, who is the head of the musical theater department at Texas State University. I am sharing it here. Regardless of your thoughts on religion or gay rights, these are issues of censorship, hatred, bigotry, and misinformation. If you are in a position to support Kaitlin and her student, I encourage you to do so. Thanks. G.
Dear Friends in San Antonio and Austin (and a few in New York/LA too),
One of my students is working at the San Perdro Playhouse in San Antonio, Texas where they are doing Terrance McNally's play Corpus Christi.
It was greatly upsetting to hear that protestors were showing up every night of the run (thru July 10th) due to the subject matter. If you are not familiar with the play, it depicts Jesus and the Apostles as gay men living in modern-day Texas. See photos of the protests.
My student Joe (who is in the production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in other theater space there) was squirted with holy water by a Catholic woman in the crowd last night trying to get into the theater. I am not sure if she thought it might melt him like the Wicked Witch, ensure he not burn in hell or just give him some relief from the heat in Texas right now but regardless of her reasons, I am asking friends to help in whatever way you can to show support for this play, the theater and this company of actors and director who are going through this. Last night the casts were not allowed to leave the theater once they were in the building.
Those of you that are in the area, please go support the production and let your friends know about it. I am notifying the two student organizations on the Texas Sate campus that support the gay student community here, LAMBDA and the Bobcat Equality Alliance so they can lend their support and stand in solidarity with this company. This breaks my heart, I have many gay young men and woman students here who need to know they are not alone and can be who they are and not be humiliated or punished for it.
Those of you in New York: if you have blogs or in any way can let people know, I would greatly appreciate it. Last night the protest crowd was about 30 strong, some with signs that were just awful. My guess is the numbers will increase next week. I am hoping to get this company some support.
Dear Friends in San Antonio and Austin (and a few in New York/LA too),
One of my students is working at the San Perdro Playhouse in San Antonio, Texas where they are doing Terrance McNally's play Corpus Christi.
It was greatly upsetting to hear that protestors were showing up every night of the run (thru July 10th) due to the subject matter. If you are not familiar with the play, it depicts Jesus and the Apostles as gay men living in modern-day Texas. See photos of the protests.
My student Joe (who is in the production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in other theater space there) was squirted with holy water by a Catholic woman in the crowd last night trying to get into the theater. I am not sure if she thought it might melt him like the Wicked Witch, ensure he not burn in hell or just give him some relief from the heat in Texas right now but regardless of her reasons, I am asking friends to help in whatever way you can to show support for this play, the theater and this company of actors and director who are going through this. Last night the casts were not allowed to leave the theater once they were in the building.
Those of you that are in the area, please go support the production and let your friends know about it. I am notifying the two student organizations on the Texas Sate campus that support the gay student community here, LAMBDA and the Bobcat Equality Alliance so they can lend their support and stand in solidarity with this company. This breaks my heart, I have many gay young men and woman students here who need to know they are not alone and can be who they are and not be humiliated or punished for it.
Those of you in New York: if you have blogs or in any way can let people know, I would greatly appreciate it. Last night the protest crowd was about 30 strong, some with signs that were just awful. My guess is the numbers will increase next week. I am hoping to get this company some support.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Internet Piracy of Sheet Music Panel at the Dramatists Guild Conference
Watch live streaming video from newplay at livestream.com
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
How To Treat Your Pianist
Oh my goodness she makes me laugh. I do not have issue with point number 6, though. Do you?
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