Tuesday afternoon-The Frank Loesser Legacy with Jo Loesser, Sal Viviano and Liz Larsen
In many ways this was my favorite workshop. Jo Loesser is an amazingly spunky lady (about 75ish) who spends most of her time touring and sharing stories about her late husband Frank Loesser and promoting and protecting his legacy in Musical Theatre history. Frank is best known as the author of Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella and How to Succeed in Business without really trying.
Jo is a legitimate performer in her own right having starring in The Most Happy Fella and The ThreePenny Opera. In recent years she has overseen several Frank Loesser revivals.
Much of what she shared with us was her late husband’s process as a writer, his successful, and unsuccessful, partnerships and how Broadway musicals came together in the ‘50s and ‘60s. An interesting fact was that Frank wrote the songs for both Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed before the book was written. In the case of Guys and Dolls the original book was thrown out and the new book was written to fit his songs.
Jo sang two numbers for us. One was her personal favorite-Someone to be Needed- that Frank wrote and threw out of a show.
Two singers came along with Jo-Sal Viviano and Liz Larsen. They are a husband/wife duo who have at least ten BW shows between them. Liz sang Adelaide’s Lament from G & D and Frank sang Joey from MHF. They performed the duet Baby It’s Cold Outside.
Adelaide’s Lament/Joey from MHF. Baby It’s Cold Outside from Neptune’s Daughter which won Frank Loesser the Academy Award for Best Song.
Jo also shared the years where Frank went to Hollywood and wrote for musicals. He considered it something he did for money, but enjoyed some of the collaborations on the West Coast.
One of fun facts of the afternoon was finding out that Liz Larsen originated the role of Eleanor/Bizarbara in Starmites on Broadway. This is how she met her husband (who also was cast in the show and turned it down). After the session I introduced myself and told her I had just taken a production of SM to the International Thespian Festival. She asked lots of questions and we talked about the show, it’s history and my upcoming lunch with Barry Keating (writer of Starmites). I have some great photos of the two of us.
Tuesday night we all saw Spiderman as part of the BTW package. It’s hard to explain SM. Since my brother in law is a long time collaborator with Julie Taymor I’ve heard stories about the production since it’s inception. I also knew some backstage stories from my student, Ana Rose Greene, and her exploits with building the theatre. My fun fact about SM was a phone call interrupting our Thanksgiving ’10 dinner so that Robert Elhai could answer some pressing questions about music (apparently, most of the creative team was at the theatre that day-more on that later).
The show was visually spectacular. The comic book “look” was a complete package-set, costumes, lights etc). I loved the pop up/pop open sets and the unforgettable Chrysler building as it jutted out into the audience and opened to the rafters. I was very happy that I had my workshop with Rob Bessenger before I attended the show so I knew the design concepts and what technology had been designed specifically for the show. I spent a great deal of time looking at the five LED filled legs that could move towards the center of the stage, tilt towards center and tilt towards the wings. The technology was amazing!
I thought there were some distinct Julie Taymor moments of the show-the weaving ballet and the Arachne and Peter duet were two that stood out.
The actual flying of the Spiderman (five actors-we learned during the Q & A) and the other characters was great-especially as they landed often in the balcony. Since my seat was in the orchestra I actually felt like a missed some nice moments since I couldn’t see the actors land up there.
In spite of the great technology I am sad to report that the show has a very weak book and no memorable songs. How sad-the show has potential, but outside of the tech it has little substance. It will probably run for years.
The Q & A after the show brought out the real “A” team of cast and crew. We learned tons about the running of the show, the choreography of the set changes
and how many Stage Managers it takes to run the show. Reeve Carney, who plays Peter Parker, as well as most of the leads and several of the actors who fly spent over 45 minutes with us answering all of our questions. Many of the questions had to do with the two versions of the show and learning how the cast transitioned from one to the next. The actors/crew were joined by Kim Grigsby, the musical director and conductor. Kim had been one of the guest workshop teachers in our program (a workshop running while I was with Rob Bessenger) and she wanted to know what we thought and answered questions about where she conducts (barefoot it turns out) backstage.
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