In a week and a half from now this will be art

I'm doing all this reading in hopes that I'll have some divine inspiration hit me about for this paragraph I have to write that just has to be the introduction paragraph to my thesis or a chapter in my book or whatever non-existent thing I'm creating for this class. So far I'm just getting more interested in more varied things and not really coming up with a condensed thought. Oh well. That and I always write my introductions last...so having to write this one first is slightly disconcerting.

So I've sort of gone through Ethan Mordden's The Happiest Corpse I've ever Seen aka the most depressing book I've ever read. Of course he likes a few things but mostly he's down on the whole state of musical theater. You wonder if the sub title "The last 25 years of the Broadway Musical" suggests that it covers the most recent 25 years or the final 25 years....As much as I agree with some of his complaints(can anyone really call Contact a musical?) I refuse to be that pesimistic. The important stuff in this book came out for me in his chapter about new talent. He talks about Lynn Ahrens with Stephen Flaherty noting that their scores are stronger when they have an exotic local or specific period of time to work with. I'd like to note that that's exactly what Rodger's and Hammerstein did...they went out looking for interesting places to set their musicals. Not much biographical about her in there but I'm sure I can find that elsewhere.

Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman get a nod for The Secret Garden. Oh and my favorite funny thing Mordden writes is a parody of some dialogue from the show:

Mary: Does everyone who dies become a ghost?
Archie: Only in concept musicals like this one.

Hehe. I laughed out loud when I read that...especailly because I could hear Mandy saying it in my head. Mostly an examination of SG. Not a lot except that we're sad they haven't written another show (We do have Zhivago but let's not go there).

In a disscussion of country style musical scores he talks about Roger Miller's Big River, Adam Guettle's Flyod Collins, but seems to be most happy with Jeanine Tesori's Violet. He likes her lively score which he describes as being "crafted to make simplicities elequent." He gives a nod to her contributions for Millie but the book's not new enough to cover Caroline or Change, probably her most signifigant contribution to date....oh wait...except for Shrek!!!! Yeah...probably won't make her career.

Thank you Lena (probably the only one actually reading this anyway) for the update on Swados. I also found her in here and did you know that she wrote the music to Doonesbury too? Sort of off her beaten track. Mordden doesn't seem wildly impressed with her...in fact her compares her scores to 5 year olds blowing bubbles in water. See I just think that's harsh but Mordden just eats it up.

It was nice to see a couple of pages devoted to A Man of No Importance, clumped in with Passions and Steel Pier as a good show that didn't do well. The show is a perfect example of an exotic local inspiring a lush score for Flaherty and Ahrens. Just listen to that opening number. Mmmmm and how I love Roger Reese. And the Irish. And Guiness. And we're done for now. More Mordden later.

I've been reading through The Musical: Race, Gender and Performance today. It's about film but it's sort of interesting. Will report on that next.

Pins.