The Kennedy Center

The series is called “Broadway: Today & Tomorrow” and runs Feb 8-13. It features some terrific emerging writers and performers: Peter Mills (Feb 8), Ryan Scott Oliver/Jay Armstrong Johnson/Alex Brightman/Lindsay Mendez (Feb 9), Steven Lutvak (Feb 10), Alan Schmuckler/Michael Mahler (Feb 11), Jordan Beck/Oliver May (Feb 12). We finish out the series on Feb 13.

From the Gay & Lesbian Times:

Long Story Short covers a romance and 50-year marriage in 98 minutes and 17 songs.

That’s quite a feat in itself – but it’s not half so impressive as the way it makes this old story seem fresh and new. Valerie Vigoda and Brendan Milburn, two-thirds of the folk-pop-rock trio GrooveLily, workshopped the show last year; it has been updated and reworked for this delightful production…which plays through Sunday, Nov. 1, at San Diego Repertory Theatre. Kent Nicholson directs…

The show sports a live five-piece band (strings and piano) and an eclectic mix of music by Milburn, generally of the folk-rock type, enhanced by Vigoda’s clever lyrics. It’s an old story, told (and sung) engagingly by a talented pair of convincing actors and fine singers. Will you learn anything new? No. Will you be reaffirmed in your humanity? Oh, yes. – Jean Lowerison

Read the full story here.

Logo courtesy of San Diego Rep

Melody Butiu as Hope and Robert Brewer as Charles in LONG STORY SHORT

The 3 of us had a blast at opening night on October 9. Apparently, so did the critics: we are absolutely delighted, and it’s clear the momentum of this show is now revitalized. We have very high hopes for the future, as does the San Diego Union-Tribune: “Long question short: when does it go to New York?” (see below)

Meanwhile, get thee to this production if you can! The show runs through November 1 at San Diego Rep – and this weekend ONLY, 2-for-1 tickets are available. Full price tickets are $39-53, and you can use code CPLS to get 2 for 1: call the box office at 619.544.1000.

“Every time I look at you, I turn into me.” It’s the kind of clever, compact line that pops up again and again in the dialogue and lyrics of Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda, the show’s married writer-composers (and co-founders of the band GrooveLily). Their music is equally distinctive. Vigoda is a top-notch violinist, and while neither she nor Milburn are part of the production’s five-piece ensemble, strings and piano (Milburn’s specialty) are a key to their score’s melodic pop-rock pleasures. The show’s sound turns out to be a blissful departure from the usual musical-theater tropes, with plenty of stylistic shifts but enough unity to hold together the unorthodox storytelling…This smart and surprising show — still in just its third production — is already more than a match for other small-scale musicals I can think of that managed good runs off-Broadway. Long question short: When does it go to New York? — James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune (read FULL STORY HERE)

The work is funny and true, and, like any marriage, Charles and Hope’s is beset by misunderstandings, negotiations, adjustments and tragedy. Humor is what gets them through. Expect to laugh a lot, weep a bit, and be totally swept up in an almost through-sung tale that’s told through expert language, (Vigoda) gentle lyricism (Milburn) and a grand feel for the inside of a long term relationship. As with the musical Striking 12, also written by Milburn and Vigoda and performed by their GrooveLily three-person band at the Old Globe in 2003, the music is not easily categorized, because it is a seamless marriage of rock ‘n’ jazz ‘n’ folk with an abiding musical theatre sensibility…Particularly haunting are the musical numbers “It Happens in a Moment” and “Live Like This,” and much midlife angst and gentle humor are limned by “Empowered,” Hope’s experience with being a middle-aged divorced woman. Many thanks to San Diego Rep for bringing GrooveLily’s Milburn and Vigoda’s music back to our ears and hearts. Fans may have to see/hear this more than once.
Bottom Line: BEST BET — Charlene Baldridge, San Diego Theatre Scene (read FULL STORY here)

Everything old is new again with likable LONG STORY SHORT: Contemporary, hummable and concise…Fans who saw GrooveLily’s musical STRIKING 12 at the Old Globe in 2003 will be familiar with Milburn’s songwriting — breezy, jazzy/pop numbers where the electric violin and keyboard lead the melody (the most memorable numbers are “One Hundredth of the Love” and “Letting Go”)…Vigoda’s clever lyrics make each number unique, particularly “Unpacking the Suitcase” (where the newly married couple catalog their likes and dislikes with the apologetic “I don’t mean to be a jerk but …”); “There She Goes” (where with each verse, a daughter goes from first grade, to her bat mitzvah, to rebellious teen, to UCLA freshman); and “Empowered” (where 50something Hope’s dating experiences take her from “empowered” to “emboldened” to “embarrassed”). — Pam Kragen, North County Times (read FULL STORY HERE)

“Every time I look at you, I turn into me.” It’s the kind of clever, compact line that pops up again and again in the dialogue and lyrics of Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda, the show’s married writer-composers (and co-founders of the band GrooveLily). Their music is equally distinctive. Vigoda is a top-notch violinist, and while neither she nor Milburn are part of the production’s five-piece ensemble, strings and piano (Milburn’s specialty) are a key to their score’s melodic pop-rock pleasures. The show’s sound turns out to be a blissful departure from the usual musical-theater tropes, with plenty of stylistic shifts but enough unity to hold together the unorthodox storytelling…This smart and surprising show — still in just its third production — is already more than a match for other small-scale musicals I can think of that managed good runs off-Broadway. Long question short: When does it go to New York? — James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune

Read the full review here, and then if you can, get thee to San Diego to see LONG STORY SHORT! The show runs through November 1.

Last night we had a wonderful evening playing at Pepperdine, our first time in beautiful Malibu. Tonight we get to rest our voices but not our van, as we drive to San Diego for opening night of LONG STORY SHORT at San Diego Rep…and tomorrow Millie Van Lily really gets a workout, as we head northward to Castro Valley Center for the Arts.

Thanks to Karen Lam for pointing out that the address we had on our gigs calendar for Castro Valley was WRONG. It’s now been corrected, and if you’re coming to the show, please point yourself toward 19501 Redwood Road, Castro Valley, CA, 94546 (NOT Brierly Court – that appears to be someone’s house, probably someone who is not planning a house concert).

I know this is the season to give thanks, to express gratitude, to be appreciative – well, actually EVERY season is the season to do these things…and about a year ago, inspired by the example of our dear friends Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, Brendan and I started making a practice of listing things to be grateful for at the end of each day. (The existence of our 3-year-old son Mose, as well as the privilege and honor to be able to write and play music for a living, are on our lists a lot.)

Mose

Right now, when things are so difficult for everyone, it’s even more important to put positive/appreciative energy out into the world…so tonight, my list will include Stephen Sondheim, composer/lyricist of the incredibly inspiring “Road Show,” which I got to see last night at the Public Theatre. Sondheim (whom I consider probably the greatest living theater composer) is worthy of gratitude not only because he is brilliant, but (more importantly) because he simply keeps on writing. (I’m grateful also for John Weidman, who wrote the book for “Road Show” and has collaborated with Sondheim several times – but don’t know as much about him.)

Stephen Sondheim

“Road Show,” a tale of 2 brothers who succeed and fail spectacularly in real estate and other ventures in the early 20th century, has been written and rewritten, worked and reworked, titled and retitled, at least 4 times (former titles include “Bounce”, “Wise Guys” and “Gold”). It has yet to garner very positive reviews; somehow when critics compare it to Sondheim’s former work, they find that it comes up short. In my opinion, it’s an astounding piece; both Brendan and I were on our feet the moment the lights went out. It’s only playing through December 28; but if you get the chance, I strongly urge you to go and see it.

Some writers and performers never read reviews. Not sure if Sondheim does. I can’t help myself; I’m too curious. In the history of GrooveLily and the shows I’ve been involved in writing, I’ve been mostly lucky enough to get very good reviews…but in the case of our latest musical, “Long Story Short,” the reviews are now all in, and they have been very mixed. (Some extremely positive, some kinda lukewarm, and a few rather harsh.)

It’s tempting (and useful for our press kit) to keep the good ones and simply ignore the rest…but I feel that if you’re going to believe any of your positive press, you have to believe, or at least be open to, the negative. Also, it can be instructive. Brendan and I are definitely not finished writing this show; before the next production we have a good list of points to ponder and improvements to make.

Having a sense of humor about it all is crucial. (In retrospect, this will all be funny…so why waste time?) My favorite part of reading the reviews is that some critics, in comparing “Long Story Short” unfavorably to our first theatre piece “Striking 12,” have decided retroactively that they loved “Striking 12.” Excellent.

In any case, I’ve decided that four days is plenty of time to allow myself to give in to SAD, and now I’m done. Thank you, Stephen Sondheim, for setting such an amazing example of longevity and continued striving…and thank you, Karen and Andrew, for reminding us to be grateful.

More festive mood alteration will commence next week at the Zipper Factory Theatre in Manhattan, where we will have the honor of doing seven “Striking 12″ concert performances, December 26-31. Hope to see you there.

Two nights ago, at our second preview, everything seemed to click: Cliff the sound designer, along with his mix engineer Ryan, made huge leaps forward toward the kind of sound balance we’ve been hoping for: utter clarity of vocals plus good robust levels from the band. Together with Ben’s healthier voice, it made a huge difference: the audience heard every word, and stood up and cheered at the end. It was such a relief to know that the show actually is working like gangbusters, and that the rewrites we’ve done are good ones. (When the sound design isn’t finished, which is perfectly normal during previews, it can undermine a writer’s confidence when jokes aren’t landing or a song doesn’t have the impact you hope for…it makes you completely question yourself and your work.)

We’ve stopped making changes for this run, so that the actors and band can settle in to this version of the show. If no one else comes down with anything, we should have a great opening night!

Here are some beautiful photos taken a few days ago at the Lucie Stern, by Mark Kitaoka & Tracy Martin for TheatreWorks.

On a completely different note, after we open here we will gear up for two GrooveLily concerts in southern California (Dec 11 in Cerritos, and Dec 12 in Escondido), followed by two STRIKING 12 dates back in this area (Dec 14 in Carmel, and Dec 15 in Redwood City), and then a week of STRIKING 12 concerts back home in NYC (Dec 26-31 at the Zipper). There are many S12 productions happening this year without us, which is incredibly exciting…and we have yet to see one. However, today we ran across a photo of the current Santa Barbara production, and it’s the first 3-person version we’ve heard about. (Most often the licensed version has been done with larger casts.) Here is Doppelganger* GrooveLily: if anyone goes to see this show, please say hello from us and tell us all about it!

Santa Barbara, CA cast of STRIKING 12

*Some people think a “doppelganger” connotes bad luck…but in our opinion it’s just the opposite; the more GrooveLily stunt doubles out there, the better.

Pittsburgh City Paper preview article

Pittsburgh City Paper review

“…a must-see for anyone who loves theater, loves music and loves love.” – Michelle Pilecki, Pittsburgh City Paper

Also, our actors Ben and Pearl appeared on the TV show “Pittsburgh Today Live.” Click here and get to know them a bit.

We’ve made some changes from the Pittsburgh show; for instance, we’ve reinstated a song that was cut during previews at City Theatre, called “One Hundredth.” We’re very excited about that song, which comes in the middle section of the show – the section for which we’ve done the most rewrites and which has caused us the most grief.
We’ve also done some cutting in the early pages of the piece, where the characters are in their twenties. (It was very eye-opening to meet David Schulner last month in Pittsburgh for the first time. He admitted that since he wrote the play while he was in his twenties, he had placed a lot of emphasis on that time period in their lives and that maybe in the musical version we should adjust that imbalance…”Cut more of my stuff!” he said – and so we did.)
Most helpfully, I think, we’ve added several musical moments where we hear internal thoughts from Hope and Charles (for example, an interlude for Hope during “Fragile as Love,” and sections for both characters in a brand new short song called “Hope Moves On”) – these allow the audience to get to know our heroes a bit better, since they are singing privately to themselves rather than to the other person in the room.
I’m very curious to see what others think of these changes!

Physically, the show also feels a bit different because the Lucie Stern is narrower and deeper, with the seats more intimately/densely packed than in our Pittsburgh space. The musicians are now down in front, since there is no room for them on the sides; and with different mics and bigger sound system, the whole show feels louder and more rockin’. I think it will be a good match for the high-spirited TheatreWorks audiences we know and love.

Yesterday we got to tour the TheatreWorks costume and prop warehouse for the first time, and it is a truly amazing place. Now in its 39th season, the company has kept every costume piece, accessory and prop item ever used…so the warehouse goes on and on for acres. Everything is meticulously organized; so if you want to find, for example, headgear with green foliage sticking out of it, just search for the wall of hatboxes, and look within it until you find the one clearly marked “Hats With Fauna.” It even has a helpful picture.

TheatreWorks costume warehouse

Find Val in this photo

Wall of hatboxes

Hats with fauna

I have to say I adore being in California. Mose gets to play outside, race around on the pier, feed ducks and put his toes in the sand…and this afternoon I went for a run in my tank top through the sun-drenched, palm-tree-lined Stanford campus. I do have an admitted preference for LA over the Bay Area (mostly since I get cold very easily), but while Brooklyn is 34 degrees and rainy, I’ll take any left coast action I can get.

Mosey in the California sun

Back in tech: the narrower deeper backstage area is causing some interesting problems with props and costume changes. Ben and Pearl have to travel farther for each exit and entrance, and the extra time is throwing off the music cues. During “One Hundredth,” a song depicting the routine of daily married life with a toddler, Ben has to get out of bed after each verse and exit in various states of undress, and then return almost immediately, dressed for a day at the office. Just now, he skidded onstage several measures late, trying unsuccessfully to zip his pants while hopping up and down and trying to finish putting them on.

We’ll add a little music to cover the costume change. 3 1/2 hours of tech left. I’ll report back soon…

There’s also a nifty coffee machine that grinds the beans and brews you a cappucino at the touch of a button–Val and I are each enjoying a nice Americano as we sit and catch up on some computer work.

It’s been a whirlwind–since the opening of Long Story Short in Pittsburgh, we dashed home for a week, cranked out four more Sleeping Beauty Wakes mixes with Ben Wisch, and then flew to Los Angeles to work on the revision of Toy Story: the Musical for Disney. Three days at the Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel, where Mose ran rampant in loops around the vast lobby, pretending to be a fast-moving train engine with very important connecting rods. He rode the monorail, we rewrote Toy Story. He drove the cars at Autopia, we worked at the Disneyland Corporate Headquarters in a conference room, and on the stage of a rather magnificent, 2,000-seat acoustically-dead, incredibly high-tech bigger-than-Broadway theatre.

Following those three days in Anaheim, we moved back to the Oakwood corporate apartments in Marina Del Rey, where we had stayed with my Mom and our son Mose for about three and a half months in early 2007 during the run of Sleeping Beauty Wakes. For the NEXT three days, we worked on songs for the Disney Toon Studios Tinkerbell movies.

Those of you with female children below the age of 16 may or may not have become aware of the new Tinkerbell phenomemon. Essentially, Tinkerbell has been subtly re-envisioned, in this series of Peter-Pan prequels or reboots, as a super-cool tomboy with a talent for mechanical engineering. We got the chance to visit Pixie Hollow at Disneyland – and families were willing to wait up to 45 minutes (or more) for a chance for their daughter(s) to have some one-on-one time with the fairies. Val and I got to watch a 7-year-old girl light up with delight and awe and wonder at the opportunity to play animal charades with Silvermist and Fawn, and to talk to Tinkerbell herself. It sounds cheesy, but the look on that girl’s face reminded us of why we’re working our butts off crafting these songs for these movies–we are feeding the dreams and aspirations of literally millions of girls. Wow.

We met with Matt Walker and the Disney people to discuss tweaks to the song we’ve written. Originally, we’d pitched a song as a possible end-credits anthem for Tinker Bell–but instead, the directors of Tinker Bell movies #’s 2 and 3 (Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure and Tinker Bell: A Midsummer Storm, respectively) angled for our song. It’s nice to be fought over. In the end, our song has been brought into movie #2, in the opening and closing sequence, and the lyrics, formerly about the coming of Spring, have been tweaked to sound more Autumnal, in keeping with the “bringing Fall to the world” theme of movie #2.

Joel and his daughter, Claire

We also met with Joel McNeely, the composer of the scores of these films, to re-arrange our song for inclusion within the film. The original assignment was: “Make it sound world-music-y, but possibly hitworthy.” Accordingly, we made an afro-cuban, celtic, Peter-Gabriely song which was all over the map stylistically…and now, to match the rest of the score, it needs to sound Irish. Ish. Irishish. In any case, Joel McNeely is particularly awesome at making things sound Irishish, and we spent two glorious afternoons trying things out with his various pennywhistles and recorders. He hopes to record a killer 12-person chorus and bodhran players and a monster hurdy-gurdy player doing the score and our song. This is going to be quite a recording.

After this time with two very different divisions of Disney, Val and I dashed back to Pittsburgh to catch the last performance of Long Story Short before it closed. We had done some rewrites with the intention of putting them in the following week, but seeing the show reminded us of how much we wanted to change and fix…and how little time we would have to do it. Val flew back to LA that night to take care of our kid, and I stayed in Pittsburgh for the rest of the week to do more rewrites, reorchestrations of the rewrites, and to attend rehearsals and come up with solutions as we went. We had a mere 18 hours of rehearsal time over three days, and that was it…and we didn’t get to everything Val and I had wanted to do.

However, the show is already better than it was in Pittsburgh, and I’m really excited to see how the preview audiences react here in California.

While in Pittsburgh, I had a few moments to listen to a new album by Gabe Kahane. (Joel McNeely gifted me and Val with a copy, and I ferreted it away before she could get her hands on it.) It’s amazing. It’s wonderful, original, and at first blush might seem to be in the vein of Sufjan Stevens, but for some reason I just can’t listen to Mr. Stevens and I think I could listen to Mr. Kahane all day. Must hear this man some more.

I know I’m rambling, but it’s been a while since I’ve been able to blog–and SO MUCH has been going on I am starting to feel like my head will burst. There’s been so much good news, and so much exciting stuff going on that I feel it mitigates the bad news: we’re not going to be able to release the Sleeping Beauty Wakes album in December after all. We decided to include more music than originally planned, and PS Classics was so excited about the disc, they felt the material deserved the kind of lavish packaging that takes a few months to design and manufacture, so we’ve moved the release to early 2009. Gene’s singing the part of the King, and his vocals make me cry.

I end this entry from the conference room at the corporate housing place that Theatreworks is putting us up in–it’s beige, it’s comfortable, and my son likes to run up and down the halls with me pretending to be a steam train. It’s getting late and I need to feed the kid and then get to the band rehearsal in the theatre. It’s a very exciting time. Thanks for reading!