Hairspray

The study and/or simple enjoyment of musical theatre could last forever. Which makes any of the annoyances along the way, like rejection and being stuck and seeing no way through, seem unimportant. 
So says that paragraph.
Anyway, I decided to study scripts more closely, understanding the purpose of every song in its book context. I've started with Hairspray because it was top of the pile. It's a hoot, for starters. Funny in a way that doesn't make fun of its characters. A bare-bones description of this play (based, of course, on the John Waters movie (and Waters apparently digs the adaptation, thank goodness)): a character wants to break through what's holding her back. She does. To a pop score (think 1962) that swings. And the eventual triumph registers on a cultural level (struggle for racial integration) that works on a personal level varying with each character. (Here the stakes include identity, sexual orientation, power, personal freedom . . .). 
It would be a gas to see or be in this show, I'm pretty sure. Because all of the above is rendered--as I imagine it would be--with love.

Oak Floors! -- Live from the Crossroads

I say "crossroads"  because there, maybe, the devil stirs usefully. I dodge saying "doldrums" because there, for sure, the devil has dug in and won't budge.

In one direction (south on Hamilton St.) lies pushing the Patty story. Get more serious about investing my personal elements into her journey through love and loneliness. Pro: gives the audience a story to follow. Con: I'm suspicious of grand narratives, even local grand narratives. (Problem with that: as a musical theatre addict, I'm utterly swept away by them.) 

What to do today: Write Patty's song of loneliness, her determination to reach out to people. Make that determination drive everything that follows. Make my own determination (to get this show before an audience) ride with her.

In the other direction (either west or east on Victoria), lies what in the middle of last night came to me as "Oak Floors! a Heritage Cabaret" which would be conducted by my Flaneur figure. For this I would resurrect the historical material and understate the personal stories. Pro: the archive excites me, and I love the Flaneur. Con: who would care? What would this give an audience?

What to do today: go back into an earlier, longer draft. Re-animate the Flaneur as cabaret MC. Follow his determination to put on a show for his audience. 

Rhyme

Hanging out with Beauty and the Beast, in rehearsal at Globe Theatre (I'm prepping for my live audio description on June 12), I hear the famous "tale as old as rhyme" line. I do believe rhyme is old. In my Artist Lab coming up May 19, I'll propose why.
In doing so, I may employ one or two of these scenarios:
1.
You have ventured far from home until you find yourself alone in the wild, a terrifying place of strange sounds, any one of which could mean great danger. Then you perceive the sound of your mother humming, or your father's footsteps, or the call of Goldilocks, your pet retriever.
2.
You've arrived in a foreign country, surrounded by spoken language you do not understand. Your needs for food, clean water or shelter have become intense. Exhausted, you're not sure how you will solve the problems you face. Just then, you hear a voice in your own language. You connect.
3.
You are chanting among strangers in a yoga studio along 17th Ave in Calgary circa 1973. You were reluctant to take part but got caught up in it. You manage to focus deeply enough for that cosmic hum to resonate through you. You are neither source nor recipient of this energy, just the medium of its passage. For a moment, there is only one sound.
4.
Your car that you bought new and have driven 200,000 km in twelve years begins to squeal, scrape or choke from deep in its driveshaft, engine or wheels. You have no idea how serious the breakdown, or how costly the inevitable repair (your savings thin enough already). You park that night in denial. But next morning, it sounds good as ever.
5.
You stated the question, now you search for the answer. The search takes you far along one line and down several more. You're suspended in doubt re how far you can go, until even coming back seems risky, until you do it.
6.
You're worried about your mother. She stays in bed. She no longer smiles. She goes through the motions unmoved. Then she rallies, up and at 'em like always.
Somewhere in these scenarios, I will suggest, lies (at least an analog to) the power of rhyme. 
I will name and try to explore the Sondheim conviction that pure rhyme is better than near rhyme, though the latter has slacked its way into becoming what we mean when we say "rhyme." (To illustrate this point: see a recent facebook poll that asked readers to pick the "best rhyme" in the Steve Miller Band classic "Take the Money and Run": Is it "El Paso / hassle" or "Texas / facts is." Well, they're both near rhymes, not true rhymes.) It'll be a Broadway vs pop/rock tussle.

More Light in the Piazza

I came across the PBS version of this show. I should say that I haven't viewed the entire show, and it might turn out to be a hoax of some kind, possibly parody. But check out the transition when Clara's mom leaves Fabrizio's parents' place. She takes a few steps. Lights down on the previous scene, up a few steps away. She's arrived at her bed in the hotel, removing her scarf and lighting a smoke. Her steps must be just right, of course, as must the lighting design and costume elements. The result is supple, subtle, beautiful. And man, the woman (Victoria Clark, I think) can sing.
On top of all that, this musical delivers one of the deepest of the poly-lingual moments that matter so much in the arts these days.

The Light in the Piazza

book by Craig Lucas, music and lyrics by Adam Guettel. It was just warm enough this aft to sit in the park and read this love story set in Florence, 1953. (I know what you're thinking, dear reader: Haven't I gone on about the fact that musicals need their music, not just their script (not to mention staging, lights, set and costume and, above and below all, performance by some beautiful actor/singer/dancer)? But today, script only. The park bench is my piazza, was my thinking.)
I wonder if Lucas and Guettel needed the period setting to give such full rein to love and how it levels us. That's where the story goes. It ends with the wedding, though how we get there . . . well, that's the whole piece.
And, in a play in which both the literal light of old Florence in summer and that familiar but freshly rendered light-as-new-understanding have been played up throughout, imagine this last moment: The last pair of characters (father of the groom, mother of the bride) "join the wedding party as the lights fade."
In the audience, I'm satisfied.

Next Time I Sat Down at the Piano

Well it went fine, that song demo session I spoke of in the previous post. Some day if I'm brave enough I'll post a link to me singing my song (the flaneur's song, in fact).
I suppose first I'll have to listen to it, which I can't yet bring myself to do.
In the course of preparing for and executing yesterday's session, I learned more about the songs. This is what I love about writing Oak Floors!--the discovery of what movement and voice and music do to text. 
I've been saying for weeks now that as much as I may have accomplished in the work so far, it means nothing until performed.
(A digression: that fact explains why a URegina Theatre teacher's presentation about past work lacks credibility, at least for me. Only the performance matters, not subsequent theorizing, power pointing, video sampling, or academic discussion.)
Continuing in this vein . . .
There can be no finishing of the work until it's put before an audience, which reminds of a point I was trying to make from Andalusia in 2014: flamenco performers and their audience suspended in mutual need. 

Song Demo

I wouldn't write such a title unless I had to produce two song demos tomorrow. By produce, I mean sing (one of them). People who have heard me sing . . . well that's about as many who have heard me speak Swahili. But I'm at the mic tomorrow morning around 10 for "Flaneur's Song," the opening scene of Oak Floors! 
This guy, the flaneur, comes on, calls himself our guide for the journey ahead, and adds that even when we expected someone else--someone of wit, for instance, or artistry or wisdom--"you got me," as the song goes. 
I should be able to sell it well enough. Why I'm doing this is to apply to a Toronto company for a commission to finish the show. They want to hear a couple of samples.
The second sample, in which we meet our Patty, the principle in that "journey" mentioned above, will feature Sarah Bergbusch, the young Regina actor who played Patty in that TicTocTen Short Performance festival piece we did last month.
Why I mention any of this is to say that what I love about creating Oak Floors! why it's such a frickin challenge, is that I'm doing stuff I haven't done before. Like paint the tree and build the truck for TicTocTen. Like learn to play my own music. Like sing.