I'm Terry Stratton, Director of Education and Outreach here at the Guild. On behalf of the Guild, I say happy holidays to everyone. Thank you so much for coming. And please turn off your cell phones, your pagers, your watch alarms, anything that's going to make noise, please. We are live streaming this evening, so if you could keep it down to the dull war, that would be fantastic. Save all of your questions for the end. We will have a dedicated question and answer session at the end of the event. And when you ask your questions, if you could please stand up and speak clearly so that people over at Livestream can hear them. They may have the exact same question and we want to make sure they can hear it. All right. Without further ado, I want to thank the fantastic Michael John Matisa, of whom I am the Beast fan. We're drama skill fellows and they will be playing a little bit of their wonderful stuff for Michael John. He will be critiquing it. That's for Michael John, so keep your critiques to yourself though I'm sure. It's so great to be here tonight. Thank you so much for Terry for having me here. I'm really excited about seeing all you guys here. I'm wonderful to see the fellows. I'm happy about this. It's going to be fun tonight to hear some of your new material. Some of these are some of my NYU students. I'm a petitioner of a program here. I'm very excited about hearing what they've been working on. I'm very excited about that. I'm assuming a lot of us are songwriters. You know, or involvement in theater playwrights, yes. So, I mean, to talk about songwriting in the theater, I mean, it's kind of, I feel like, you know, you probably know more about it than I do in a lot of respects, you know. When people ask me, I'm sure you get the same question, which comes first when people say, will you like the lyrics or do you like the music first? And I always say, well, I always need something to base the song on when I write. And if I'm writing my own libretto, generally I'll write like a great portion of it. And I just, it's anything goes. I'll write like a major passage of the scene. Once I find the project, I'll write a major passage of, you know, a lot of words, a lot of dialogue, like a monologue, a soliloquy, giant scenes. And then I feel like I've had enough material, and I feel like I can find a pulse beat in a particular scene. And I know which is the point where the characters are going to start singing. I'll go to the piano. And then it starts turning into lyric, and then it starts turning into melody. So it all begins with, I believe, the libretto. And I don't know how we do it without a good libretto. And that's one of the things that I've been working on all my life is to try to go, you know, when I write in my home, to write my own libretto, or if I'm working with another librettist, to help them, you know, because I believe that it's also the composer and the lyricist's responsibility to turn that play or that subject matter or that topic into the libretto as well as it can't lead it all up to the librettist to do that. And that's one of the things that makes songwriting for me so much fun, because I can help them. I can pick and choose what it is that I want to turn into a song and not have a librettist determining that for me necessarily. I mean, I've worked with collaborators, very, very good playwrights, too, who don't quite get the essence of what it is that we do as composers or songwriters when we look at a piece of material that we want to musicalize. And they very often will turn into a work, a long scene or, you know, characters, and at the end of the whole beautiful scene, beautifully brought beautiful, beautiful words, at the end of the scene goes in Brackett's song. And you go, I always go, well, no, I'm going to take your beautiful words, I'm going to take the best material, I'm going to take the heartbeat, I'm going to take the skeleton, you know, the gore, I'm going to turn that into the song. You know, I did actually, didn't do this one time to a collaborator, I did write them back up and I just wrote this music paper song. No music, nothing, whatever. It's hard to, sometimes a lot of playwrights, you know, when they watch you write music because they sometimes don't understand that the very, very best work is what's going to be the thing that's going to be at the basis for our song. Now, for myself, everybody has a different process, all have different processes when we really go into a song. I'd be so curious to know what yours are, maybe we can talk about that afterwards. Because I don't think any one person is the same when it comes to a time to, you know, turn something into a musical. I think it has a different take and different process to do that. For me, I always feel it comes from a character. And when it comes time for me to say, OK, this is where I want that song to happen, I have to put myself in that character's place. And it starts with, I started off as a drummer, a percussionist, not a piano player. And I think that's why I always go for the heartbeat of the scene. And if I can define what the heartbeat is in the scene, if the character is happy, it's here, if it's panicked, it's here, if it's in love, it's, you know, that. And I feel like that sort of helps define where I want to go musically with peace. So I always often hear y'all start with what that rhythm of that scene is going to be for me. And then, of course, all the other things fill in, if I have melody in my head that I've, you know, that's been bothering me all night in my dreams, I will write that down.  And you know, maybe that develops into something else that you could do someplace new. So it only starts with character forming. A lot of my songs are very, very much rooted in character. There are songs that, I mean, a lot of some guys will write songs that are like that in one number that can be taken and moved out of the show or whatever. But I find far more interesting to keep it really locked into the character and what that situation that the character may be in, because that to me is action. And I don't know if a lot of my stuff can be lifted from shows without the context of it all, but it's not something that I actually, as a goal, was ever particularly interesting then. I mean, everybody, I think y'all have had opportunities where we've been, you know, walking down, you're extremely going, do I go left or do I go right?  And I chose this, you know, that way to go as opposed to going left, which would have made me a lot of money now. Really seriously, I love writing the pop tunes and stuff, but very early on I said, you know, I wasn't going to do that. There was something about the theater to me that intrigued me more, made me live happier, even though now I, you know, I live as poor as possible. You know, I'm barely keeping that roof on my head and feeding myself, although I can tell it from, I just don't have any giants, so I'm fat, are we looking fat? So, you got that on the camera, right? The theater for me, maybe it's also too, because I'm a good Catholic boy, that the mass was always the most theatrical thing I've ever experienced, still is, you know, one of the most theatrical things to go and visit. And I feel like the theater is that ritual. And I feel like through the song we're consecrating something, we're re-enacting something, some sort of cathartic thing that is through song, that that happens, right? I was teaching in Korea just recently, and a lot of songwriters are very interested in writing in Korea now, but theater, very intrigued by it all. And their influences are quite European, very few of them know, very little of Russian Hammerstein material, or even songtime is very not relatively known over there. And their basis of information, what they learn from songs, is sort of the European take on things, maybe the Frank Wilde one stuff. And a lot of those songs, for me, and again, it's all subjective, somebody may love the stuff, you know, somebody who may agree with me, some of those songs stay in one place. There's no A to B to see development in the character. And I find it very difficult for actors to do that kind of stuff, and I want to always write something that's going to challenge that actor to take me through a cathartic experience for that character. And it's very tricky when I was teaching there in Korea to explain to some of the artists that were performing these songs that there's no development in this. There's absolutely no journey that the character is going on in here. So therefore, myself as an audience member, I'm listening to you sing really well, and you're singing very powerful notes, and the melody has a nice hook, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do in that. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel at the end of it all, except to give you praise, you know? And I don't know if that's theater for me. I want to feel something, and that's what I strive in my songs about, in the theater that I do, to try to have that effect happen to me. If I don't have it, then I know I've done something wrong with it all. And so that's sort of the fast, that was fascinating, you know, a little tangibly going to Korea and learning more about writing musicals than I ever thought I would learn about writing them. Obviously, when we teach it in my workshop, how many of you have done it in my workshop here? So you know how that's all you survived. Just surviving it, gosh. I made it through three years of that, and I said, oh, this is hurting. But all those programs are really great because they also do break it down into structure, and I think that is so fundamental to all of us who write songs that... And until my first year of students at NYU, I really find it okay to, when you're starting out to write songs, to go to the classics. It's okay to emulate Gershwin's lyrics. It's okay to emulate Cole Porter's lyrics. It's okay to emulate that. You want to imitate them, but it's good to emulate them because there's structure. Once you've learned those classic structures, you can take that structure out to its length wherever you want it to go. And that to me is something that's very, very, very important. The hardest thing you need to write is, you know, the 32-bar song. I mean, that's hard. I don't know what's in 32 bars anymore these days, but those things are tricky, and you realize the genius behind the Tim Pannelli writers. And once you grasp that and sort of hold it in your own, and make it your own, and filter it through yourself, there's more... Many more paths are open to you as a songwriter. So, I always say, go back to the classics. I myself do it all the time too. My mom used to collect sheet music.  I mean, it doesn't start like at six o'clock in the evening, and it'd be like two o'clock in the evening, and ladies wailing at the top of their long, just fabulous. But through the process of doing that, I also learned a wealth of information about songs from the turn of the century, last turn of the century, all the way through to the next turn of the century. So that was a great, great experience. And I always say to students, please, business always go and explore and do your research that way too. Because it just offers you such a valuable tool when you sit down and say, your show is set in the 40s and you want that flavor, that soup song of the 40s. Well, what song would you pick for that? You know, and to know that and have that at your fingertips and available to you is really, really healthy because you can live in that place there, that world, as long as you filter it through your own sense of realism. I think that's the hardest part about it for me is when it comes time to sit down and do and write musicals, because it takes so long to write them.  Like 10 years later, you get your show happening, Giants happening downtown, and we started that, gosh, I think in 2007 it was. Of course, time writing it is like if you were to condense it, it would come down to about two months, you know, really. But the length of time that it takes to get a show up and all the mechanics involved with it all and all that stuff that goes on with it all, you could be well into five years. So you want to make sure for yourself at least for myself, when I go into my music room and sit at that piano, I want to go back to that world. I want to make sure that I go back to that place where the music is going to transport me back to wherever this show is taking place in. If I'm setting it in, you know, Siam, I want to make sure that I want to go back to that place. And that's the hardest thing. And you always know that. I always know when I don't have it. I go, oh, I've got to fill that one out. That's not engagement. That's not transporting me to the new place. And that to me is very, very important for people. I mean, we have to do some things sometimes, I think, for professional reasons to make our monies and do that. I write for Wonder Pets. I love that series. It's really, really a lot of fun.   So go for this, you know. But I'm on the job. The thing is that to make sure that I'm in that world and because you're going to have to live in that world for so long in that process, you have to want to go back to that world every morning and live in there. It's a very, very, very, very tricky thing to do. How many of you are involved in collaborations here?  I wish that there's no way to teach collaboration except to do it, you know. Because that's what it's all about. People say, so, that song is so beautiful. Thank you. Oh my God, I love that song so much. You know, you write a really good song. I go, I mean, it's not just me. This comes from the source material. This comes from my book writer. This comes from the director's ideas. He's saying it's too quick and long. Cut it. All those things, they feed into that kind of collaboration. I think that's the healthiest thing and it is also to the most dangerous thing. It's very difficult. Sometimes I work alone. I do it in a book, in my own lyrics, in my own music. But it's primarily for expediency sake. You know, because I've worked with so many slow book writers that I just want to scream about it. And because I want to work fast just that I want to get the job done. But it is very, very lonely and I don't recommend it to people to do that. I think you should go home. It's like the civil complex.  Yes, yes, the composer's yelling at the lyricist. The lyricist is just screaming and the book writer's giving everybody the silent treatment. Meanwhile, your cat's looking at you like, okay, give me, or leave me. So it's very, very lonely to do that without a collaborator. I always cherish it, but it is a very tricky negotiation. Am I right? Am I not right about the fun things in collaboration? People said, what are the do's and don'ts of collaboration and how that makes a poor, better song? I think that that is the thing that... In your first draft, I always say to my collaborators, whatever, give me whatever. There was no judgment call in the song. I respect the very fact that you said kind of paper. And I think it all begins there, because if you can have respect for your collaborator, you can have respect for your song. And it makes it a stronger way of dealing with things. Because you really need that strength somewhere down the line. You want your collaborator to respect you too when you turn in a song that just doesn't quite make it. And as opposed to saying to your collaborator, oh man, I can't work with this at all, you have to offer the suggestions as to how to make it work better. If you're collaborators, you're willing to listen to it all. So it's a joint thing. I just hold hands and jump off the deep end of the pool as I did a civil writing. Now, civil peers remember from a giant downtown right now playing down there. She did a magnificent job with that thing, translating that tone into this show downtown there. It took a lot of work, but you work very, very closely together and have great mutual respect for each other. And I had a kicker a lot to get the work done. She knows that I had to do it because we're all past her neighbors, I think, to a certain extent. But she really delivered the goods. And gave me moments of the most beautiful things that I could musicalize as a songwriter. It was a really, really great thing to do that within that collaboration. So if you could find that collaborator that you really feel the mutual respect with, that's giving you the material that's going to make you sing, and I've been for years, hang on to that collaborate for dear life, okay? Hang on to that person if that's something that should be really treasured, and will make your own work better in the long and short of it. I don't know, do you want to talk about basics and things? I don't know if maybe I'll seem to know the basics of it all. But I'm going to ask this guy in the Q&A. I'm just so curious about the rhyming thing.  And I'm like, wow, but I think we've broken, they keep saying, that's been broken down now. You know, we're all done with that. I'm thinking, I don't think so. Because I just don't think so. Because if you don't love word play, and if you're not in love with word play as a lyricist, I don't know why, first of all, you're a lyricist because you don't love it. And then I don't know why you would not, if you don't love puzzles and solving mysteries, why you would be doing that, because that's essentially what it's all about. Now, composers, we have to be math petitions. There's a lot of math. You don't have to know any law. But we do have to know our math when we're composers. There's just a different thing. It's like solving that jigsaw puzzle or doing that engram, or just doing all that stuff. And I don't know how you don't want to find out or realize that solution. And I keep saying, you know, how things fall on the ear is part of the joy of songwriting. So that's my biggest, I'll share with you. That's one of my big things when I teach at MIU, is to talk to the students and say, you know, it's okay to express yourself the way you need to express yourself. But, on the other hand, there's something about craft and due diligence about that, that makes you a better person, I think, that you've gone an extra yard to craft the right sound. You know, to tickle my ear, to make myself delight. To be our favorite part of a goal, your part of a thing there, the song is that three-dimensional entity that combines the brain, which is the ear, and the heart, which is the music. And by combining these two things, we have the three-dimensional idea, an idea in three-dimensional form. And all ideas are about the brain and the heart. And I just think if there's a diligence about trying to be, I don't know, you have to be perfect with it, and what the right and the wrongs are about that thing. Because craftspersonship, I think, is just so important, and you can't lose that. And I've seen an awful lot of that happen in a lot of songs, so I've done songs that are here on Broadway, or on Broadway, even Young Capoe's just coming up, and I go, oh, look, look, you know, why did you do that? Now I'm unhappy, you know. You know, and so are my students. You can have a Michael John out there, and that onion's in the dark. At mine. Well, come into your dreams like Freddy Krueger, a different brain out or something like that. You know? But the diligence is really important. And you have to have the soul with it, too, as well. And it can't be all about rhyme. There has to be reason for all of that. But that was just initially that came up the other day in the lab. The friend was very, very fascinating. My students kind of went, but why? Joanie Mitchell does it. She's not writing for the theater where you hear it one time.  There's just something scrolled by. You can't open up the album to follow along with lyrics in the theater. We're hearing the theme for the fair the first time, possibly the last time, if a show sucks. You know? You want your song to land in the best way that you want to do is to try to find that lyric that's going to make sure it doesn't hurt anyone else. And the same token I was telling the composers to do that. What notes are you choosing? What poems are you choosing? How is your scan check? It was a very fascinating teaching. I'm going to go back to Korea and my fascination. I've talked about it a lot in Korea. It's a very fascinating journey for me to be over there and enjoy it so much. Because in Korean language it's very interesting that Korean and correct me if I'm wrong, Korean colleagues, a lot of the information in the sentence is all in front and the less important words are at the end of the sentence. So if you were to write a song in Korean, how would you make that information so important? In English we generally mix and match and do, particularly for lyrics here. We zap, if you want to point up something we point it at the end of the line. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba and we rhyme that. But in Korean it's ba-da-da-da-da-da and it was fascinating because when I have Korean students at NYU very often scansion is always just that scan is going they speak it well, they speak it very, very well. I understand that. So why does that scansion thing it's something that's fascinating that they're all native language has that rhythm, it's got a romance there. Chris says, that's going to fascinate me too but I also get mad at my English-speaking American students who start sounding like they are from Korea with their scansion. Because without scansion you just have an unintelligent song going on there. And again it's just like that first time I always try to make sure that in my own shows that you hear it once and if you get it it's great. And the singer has to make sure they're very much aware of it too. Some of the dilemmas that I deal with now in theater are of course sound. Because everybody's mic'd now when I was starting off we just had invented body mics. It's how old I am.  I know we're controlling that. What do I do as a songwriter now? How do I make that happen? How do I inform that mixing guy that, you know you're there, you know that's not supposed to be buried in something else there. So that's a new learning curve for me as to train the mixer guy. It's not necessarily the sound designer. Sound designers are wonderful. There's a lot of great sound designers out there but that little guy that they hire do that thing there that's actually dictate how your songs are going to be heard every night. And that's a little trick. And also do what your orchestra is going to be doing you know how to make sure that the stuff could be sung over that orchestra. And that includes working with a good orchestrator that understands the basics of, you know pretend there isn't any microphone that's orchestrated or coordinated which is what I've sort of worked with. I've worked with a stereo band, Michael's stereo band, Bruce Hoffner or Jonathan Tuneck, you know they understand, okay pretend there isn't sound this is what it would sound like. And I like that. That's going way low in the test of Torah. You've got this big musical thing there you can't have that note there. You've got to pop that one out. And that's what I learned the most is when that element comes in. But it's fascinating working downtown in Giant because that space down there is a little trick you know I wasn't sure if I could do this because I had a orchestra on stage in the back then and I wasn't sure oh my god I'm going to lose some of these lyrics what's going to happen here. But it would be very, very good sort of results. But only because you have to work again to the way that we do theater. So I don't know the life of the songwriter I don't know I mean maybe I should have gone down the left street as opposed to going down the right street but I really love the right street. I love living in this theater world I love writing the songs for theater I feel like they I feel like being in the theater is where it's at I've never lost that feeling maybe it's because I had a fourth grade teacher Mrs. Hammer when I was a fourth grade I wrote a little musical for my class and then she said to me Mrs. Hammer we should write musicals when you grow up and you never doubted the woman too scary Mrs. Hammer but I did and I said okay I'll do that and I just thought that's what you did and I think we all should write musicals when we grow up so you know I encourage everybody to do that so maybe doing a Q&A can ask you some questions and you can ask me some questions about the life of what it means and what we do but I'm not really curious about this hearing some song we do that today let's dive in let's hear some tunes there introduce yourselves to everybody you might be helpful to me if you have one I always recommend that way hi everyone I'm Joel Wagner I'm Laurie Manette we're going to do a song from our show Dead Woman Crossing it is based on a true life ghost story set in Georgia in 1905 school teacher Katie wins a rare divorce from her jealous husband Martin and turns up ahead the next day the main suspect in the case was a prostitute named Fanny in this particular song it takes place near the end of act one our jealous husband Martin has become more and more suspicious of Katie's erratic behavior so he's become convinced that she's cheating on him we envision this number taking place a little bit out of time and space so we're seeing kind of a tableau of Katie maybe in her real life and also in his mind's eye doing things that she's not really doing so it's a bit filmic in that way and we're both fellows from this year last year actually we're done now we just finished talking about the glasses I'm old now where are you going now where in the story does it take place in this musical where is he not physically but where in terms of the it's towards the end of act one okay great so my question would be this what is it that he's going to be doing now we wanted him to come to the decisions within this song that he's going to kill her not himself but he's going to come up with a plan to get rid of her forever okay because I'm not clear on that the music didn't suggest to me although it's twisty and it's you know got its creepy quality to it all I got that this it's complex and it's dark and there's many many angles to it all musically and strange little so you're telling me something but I didn't know the specifics of of that all because he just says this that's it I'll show you and then he goes back into the song and the key doesn't change at all so I'm not sure I go back into the same plane of music on there so I don't know what's changed in him in terms of like again that journey that I spoke of so that would be one thing I think I would love for you to take a look at you know what is that thing you could if your song I think we overstayed some of our welcome in some places because I'm wondering what's happening on the stage when he's going no no no over and over and over again I'm going okay you know it's that watch-looking time you know I get it I get it so it gets into that maybe performance level thing and maybe that's cool I get that but you could do something kind of really interesting because what's very interesting information wise is and I don't know if my baby's mine is that new information for us in the show yes oh well you know you could do something very clever here if you wanted to where he goes back into the the the chorus women where you're going now every night you leave women why you gotta go sneaking to this house as if I didn't know how can you go there now and I didn't know my baby's mine right there might be somewhere instead of going to that and then you might have some more power when you do return to it at the end of the song you might want to think about that that might be one way of just kind of kind of doing that little nip we expected to go to that place our ear expected to go to back into that where you know now now now but you don't know and then then my ear will go and then my you know I'll start going I'll go on this story because now you're telling me something new new information new information new information always keeps me active always keeps the generator running always keeps me on a path the minute that you start of you're on that path and you start dawdling around now now now now it's like yes okay go get to something important here and this seems to be a very big important moment this song for this character to me it sounds like it is and so keep that energy going with it and you might want to play something maybe if you do do some edit in the middle of here get to that important information you might discover for yourself as the composer if there is a intermodulation but you know you have so many intermodulations through the whole thing you may not need it I think it's a texture thing it could be maybe it could be textural but I definitely was going to ask you whatever your textures are whatever your harmonies are whatever your rhythms are you have to know as always what you're trying to tell me the audience about what he's going to do sometimes you we go a cappella and it could be even more scary you know sometimes texture and harmonies and rhythms tell me too much you know what I'm saying it's like the rock opera syndrome it's like okay great great great rhythm great for chords are you going to do anything differently to tell me something new so you might want to think about that with it all back to what you were saying about him making this decision which is not clear in the lyric it's not clear no would you suggest an additional lyric a new section or something like that or could it be solved with blocking is there like a better way you mean what is he doing goes to the cabinet and pulls out the gun yeah yeah you could do that oh my god yeah but if your director says I'm going to have him do a somersault it's preferable to put the decision right there in the words I don't know about that I think that there's got to be something better than that I'll show you there's got to be some clever more clever way of doing that you know what I'm saying are you tired of me or a little of both broke my heart and your oath that's it I'll show you and then whatever happens after that beat can be you know let me fill in blanks you know let me do some work as an audience member and now I'm going to get a gun you could do that that's not the thing you don't have to do that that's telling you didn't want to tell anything you know I mean you want a show it's a show thank you Jerry Robbins so I think they could give Roy doing that you could do it with stage directions too but it's more or less about what he feels about what that that moment is and once you define I mean what is it that I'll show you I'll show you I'll do something to you is what he's saying and it's going to end here so you have to sort of define what that is musically speaking and you have to find that in some way of your fun. Laurie Laurie Laurie you rhyme sometimes and you don't rhyme sometimes why do you do that well would it make you feel better if I fix some of the rhymes just for you you could do anything you want again it's your choice but the only thing the only note that I would have is like consistency tells me something about it in other words if you do rhyme and you rhyme correctly I think this is an interesting are you tired or mean or a little of both you broke my heart and you're old that's a fine rhyme and it's an unusual rhyme and you know my ear goes oh interesting I've never heard both an oath I can't remember when I've heard that so that's very clever but then home and stone it's like you know it just makes me depressed how do you feel about the now in town because I thought that's what you were getting at I don't know that's a big issue to me I mean what is it the Bronx is up and the battery's down people ride in the hole in the ground you know you got me on now those rhymes there you know what I mean if it was good enough for Betty and Adolf can I say of course they do like they do write ground in the lyrics it's G-R-O-U-N apostrophe so you know what I mean they made a choice you don't do that you know well the thing is that the thing that you would want to be careful of if you were to hear it in the theater and on stage whether or not we would know that you're singing lady of the towel T-A-O would your singer make sure that they were singing that N you know what I mean these things go into play when you're not properly doing that stuff or paying attention to that stuff because you set me up in your rhyme you set me up in the first beat there you have these inner rhymes in here right baby crying motherless I can't tell her I can't begin to guess another good rhyme she rhymed perfect right but then I'm thinking oh maybe that was a mistake on the singer's part that they rhyme town with now you know that whole thing goes through my head of course I'm the stupidest singer to go around the planet I am I'm dumb I don't know what it is I think of myself as I'm dumb when I go to the theater and I just go you know I'm dumb so you know watch for the dummies like me in the dump you know so it just depends on what the setup and punch is be consistent and then I think that then a lot of things fall into place with the advice the intriguing little beat there where is it set in again 1905 in Georgia yeah interesting I got the southern feeling at all I got the the darkness of a dog what is that called the moth Spanish moth yeah or in your lyrics Spanish moth I know otherwise very very good wishing the best luck on this song how many songs have you written for it all for this show 10-ish we sort of did a whole re-tumble so we're not sure that all of them are still going to be in it when we're finished well of course yes it's probably writing yeah kill the babies we got a 10 to 12 song good congratulations keep going on this is something really beautiful in here really nice very good work we'd like to do something nice Bill, hello Bill, hello Neanna go ahead and introduce yourselves to everybody I'm Bill Nelson this is Anna K. Jacobs we wrote a book about how many Kansas and we picked we're doing a song that's near the end of the show so I'm going to give you a little more a little more background information than normal just check my cards oh it's another screen I'm sorry go ahead Bill all right how many Kansas is about a guy named Heath who's a very conservative gay farmer in a rural community where it pays to blend in and he's obsessed with earning respect by fulfilling his perfect image of what a farmer is supposed to be meanwhile there's this group of rural gay guys in the community who get together once a week to sing and he's partner Julian who's from the city and much more open than he he bargains to joining the group and he ends up discovering a love for making music and a kinship that he didn't expect from these homosexuals but when the group considers performing in public it rocks his world and it threatens everything that matters to him his idea of the life he's supposed to be living and he's so thrown out of whack that he ends up telling Julian he should move out and return to the city which he does and then we'll talk about the song so this is a song for Heath and it's the penultimate song of the whole show and we picked the most challenging song for us to write in the whole show the show is premiered in San Diego in the spring and this was the one number that we still miss with our kids after the sword night after night so in this number the other guys in the group just told Heath that they're going to go ahead and sing in the festival whether or not he chooses to do it with him and so he said he won't and he has essentially separated himself from them and we wanted to make it clear in the song that he was struggling with that decision that he's just made that somewhere deep inside he wants to be performing with them but we don't want to reveal too much because the turn the way he does decide to perform has to happen in our opinion at the end of the show we're struggling with that and there's a running thing where the group of voices sing the song about the land of Kansas it's the men in the chorus that they also they see as ensemble kind of out of the narrative but then they recur and so at this point they're going to show up so when we're singing not Heath anymore and then I go back to being Heath so when you were explaining the song you mentioned the your heads what was that experience you heard this live in a theater was it orchestrated or ultimately was done with a piano in a double bass so it was orchestrated yeah what was challenging for us was that we were expecting the subtext to read clearer than it was and so the moment where he turns at the end we had to do a lot of really really heavy rewriting to poke around it to make it feel set up because we felt like the song wasn't doing this song wasn't doing all of the work but the other thing that we struggled with was we wanted to remain a director of this man who really is not all that self aware and we don't feel like he's still reaching the point of the show where he's able to come out and say what he really wants and we wanted to save the actual turn for the film deciding to join the guys and the next scene and the final scene where he does well you know always you know when you're the penultimate number penultimate beats but do keep in mind if you've experienced something with that particular number it may not be the number in and of itself that you may have had the dilemma with or that was the problem child it could have been the beat before you know what I mean how did you set this number up is as important if not more important than the number itself so did you analyze what happened before you have to do that because you have to do that because that may be the thing people have this misunderstanding that musicals are all about the songs you know really about the transitions musicals are all about what goes between the songs how you get from song to song is what's going to give your songs their import their landing, their ability to move your audience, the ability for your audience to go along with the story without those transitions and those beats that lead into the song and analyzed and looked at and really discovered this is the beat your songs can suffer an awful lot because of it and it just takes that it could be one matter of one line that can suddenly change the entire import of the song and suddenly you've gone from this to that you know you never know in the song itself though I was curious about something the ensemble comes in singing right the Kansas song right and then he says oh hell I want to go join and go sing a stupid ass song show well where's the surprise in all of that there's no surprise if he's going to say that right to me just hearing that I go oh he's going he's going to join he wants to, you know he wants to but I didn't hear any struggle in there musically speaking so I went back to this big anthony kind of thing and I didn't hear enough of the the no you know there's no no in the anthem you know the fight in there you know I can't do this you know I can't do that no I won't you know it's an inverse of I won't sing you know you know don't look at the penultimate numbers and some of the great classic musicals of course is Rose's turn which you want to try to do here you know what I mean that's what you're looking at trying to create here possibly because it has to be that soliloquy so that's the dilemma for me I mean you say the top of the song they've got this whole thing wrong if they cared about me they'd listen to me and see what they were doing wrong see what they have to do what does that in reference to they're all going to be called fags and they're going to be left out of town okay great cool because this is all averse here right this is what we call averse disverse go and end why call me the friend I miss my family things like I miss my family things like oh hell I want to go join them and sing this stupidism think about this are there ways for you to put that into the music of that the yearning of that is that something that can be unspoken because that to me is the song sometimes it's the unspoken things that make the song work for me my favorite song on the planet probably is one of my most favorite songs would be if I loved you you know which is all about I love you you know what I mean just the most brilliant way of going about doing that just to be here you know what I mean it's just to me that thing of the thing that's not spoken so we will know he misses his family if musically I hear it when he sings about since the day I told my father I'd be back soon you know and ran away no you know what I mean again the struggle against what he's feeling emotionally and what he comes to maybe explore a little bit more deeply in the song I can be nothing more it would be great if there was something to address within the song itself if it feels generalized to me the idea of I can be nothing more is a very general statement and I can be nothing more than a man who farms a man who does these things in there but I really need to tie that in because I'm not sure what it means I can be nothing more than I will be the man I'm supposed to be and I can be nothing more I like this verse here a man whose work makes him strong who doesn't care that the days are long a man who can depend on a man who makes you proud whose hands are cut and bleeding no selfish crap allowed gotta see this through the work there I will be the man I'm supposed to be and I can be nothing more I will be the man that I am in nothing more so there's some tenses about some tense things and some conditional phrases that I wish there was a little bit more clarity in all that and less generalization because that's really a very, very, very good way of making your character not be too self aware but totally acknowledging what he is I'm this, my hands are cut I work really hard I can't do that stuff I can't be any more than that maybe what you need to do is also address in the penultimate song of I don't know if the Kansas song is something that he does in the Kansas song and then this and gets out of that you know as opposed to singing oh hell I want to go join him go sing this stupid ass song if you show him wanting to do that and then no no I'm not going to do that and I think his basic fear of joining them is something that he might want to explore to psychologically what is that I don't know the whole show the whole character or anything or what you've set up for the character but what is the psychology he's not going to join them because he doesn't have fun with them he's scared of being called a faggot or something he feels that he needs to be a perfect farmer and that means masculine and non frivolous like very Midwestern the deeper reason is that he because he ran off from his home to go be gay then his family was losing their farm they'll die and so like they'll die their family oh my gosh oh man I want to hear that musically a little bit more in here I think that's your mama mama mama moment you know what I mean if you want to go that dark with the whole thing it is a drama right musical drama is it or is it just you know it's like a dramatic moment from the majority the majority of the first act is like this is the this is the darkest moment we have in the whole show and definitely the most dramatic it seems to me that this is a dramatic moment I mean there's just no getting around it's a musical drama get over it but you have to find your tone for it all if it is campy and a disparity and then I don't know if there's any room for moments like this because this is a dark thing this is very very dark where's that beat there what he did to his family that's what this song is about to me or should be about you want your penultimate thing it's time for him to look directly to the mirror go oh my god no no no no you know no no no so um but it sounds very intriguing here what happens at the end join them they sing they sing the Kansas song do they sing the Kansas song the festival oh that's okay um the Kansas this Kansas land or the Kansas land this Kansas land with fields of gold is our home room to be who we will be this is home come and stand here in the open where the sun warms you through and you'll know beauty you've never never knew before okay you know it's and you'll know beauty you've never known before never knew it's weird syntax going on in there Bill you know you follow what I'm saying yeah and you'll know beauty as you've never known before it's really what you want to say there and this sounds real clumsy you know what I mean unless that's what you want them to sound like like it was written by you know dummies you know city hits you know what I mean so that's something make sure that you're clear about that because if it is a homemade song you can play around with that idea but you gotta be really gotta make sure that the audience number two that it's a homemade song you know what I mean so that I'm not thinking I don't quite get that because if it is a real Texas anthem or a Kansas anthem it has to really follow within those guidelines of that which is very strict grammar and all that so just be aware of that or you know put your tizzes and stuff when was the anthem written for you, your mind this anthem, when was it written it's a folk song turn of the century great oh 30s turn of the century or 30s oh always make a decision about those kind of things it's a folk song that's been around for a long time but why decide for yourself when that song was written these moments of past t-shirts are so important to your scores when you use them well you know they're really really important but you have to know when and where they were done you have to get in the mind of the composer that wrote that little pastiche number you have to pretend you have to like sometimes in the entire biography of the brothers that wrote this swing song you have to invent the whole biography in your head live that because these pastiche moments are always great to use in a score because they add to the tapestry they add to the bloodline these wonderful colors to things but don't just write something that sounds like it all really go there and filter it through yourself which is what you did but also know for yourself who wrote this who was that composer that wrote this just have all those things make it rich it just will add more color because I wasn't sure if it was here or there I kind of want to know that it is either turn of the century or something like I said because there is some always period flavor about things and if it is a turn of the century song I really want that color that would be great to have so I'm very curious to see how many of you have done this as a show already right wow do you have some good singers this is really high what was it when you sang it Hannah is it for tenor I was singing about the octave oh I don't mean I don't have a music friend I don't have a lady oh you don't have a lady this is like you would hear this is it written for tenor no it's written for a barry tenor it goes up to an E flat or an F okay that's always curious because something doesn't seem really up there I thought no no no I'm not in that range but I was just assuming that there would be baritone thing tenor right great great and you have big chorus in it and stuff and everything it's only a seven man show oh okay it's not a chorus it's like a little singing group oh jeez well this is wonderful this is very very good though what are you going to do next we're working on that I love that you chose the hard stuff and that's very important today I'm working on a new show and that's the first thing I went to and that's the piano was the hard moment you know got my coffee got my packed cigarettes got my vodka it's seven o'clock in the morning I'm ready I do the hard thing first it's always great because then like you've done the hard thing you know you do the hard thing and it might suck but it's like you did it just to give you that you know get you through the rest of the day that's so good that you did that I love that you did that good very good thanks very much I'll introduce yourself so I'm Andrea let's go and this is Kevin Ray Kevin Ray wrote music and lyrics and Kevin and I wrote the book with a digital story we actually did the show in Korea believe it or not we were there at the same time we could talk subtitles we were in our hotels and they had come there to go to your work oh wonderful where were you guys staying were you in Daegu I think so I thought you were far from here anyways so send a message tell the story of two brothers Bill a confident ten of sax players finds easy success in the 20s he finds easy success in the swing era while his talented brother Jim a bebop composer and innovative alto sax player struggles for recognition the evolution of jazz and the rise and fall of the Central Avenue community driving the action of the story the song comes the end of act one Bill wins work with a big band and heads to New York still in LA Jim gets pulled into the darker side of the jazz scene the brother's father William brings a cop into a drug den kind of safe he has a rough fatally entering William this song comes early act two at the funeral where devastated Jim eulogizes his father the scene to the father that's just been killed right the uncle's still around too his brother's not home his brother's in New York his father and two brothers father and two brothers okay great I just want to make sure I got the family lineage off down there and this is a musician this guy's a jazz musician too right my one question here and it's a good song Kevin I felt it was in the country Western Bay did you feel was that intentional that it was sort of like a country lament styling it's not a liberal country yeah I mean it has a little of that blues country but it felt very country to me and I thought where is this set at and where is this taking place it takes place in Los Angeles they are from Mississippi well then maybe that makes sense to me I just was expecting I heard jazz I heard bebop I heard jazz they're very really vast majority of the shows so I thought interesting it would be interesting to see how this song falls into the monopoly of other jazz things because it stuck out this is like one of those like a very very top 40s very recognizable you know that's good melody strong melody but it was in that country vein I thought oh we're in the fields of Texas or Kansas or wherever we were at so that would be my one thing in a bump you know I mean that's sort of that's very country and I thought it was very intriguing that you used that there you know what I really liked Andrea one thing here and these lyrics too so what are you doing in it I'm booked and whose orchestration okay so Kevin the lyrics here too where did you get the lyrics from when you adapted the song to make it into a song from the original concert so in other words when you got a script let me interject for just a second Kevin wrote and created this originally in 2000 and then as he and I were working on it we needed a more experienced writer to come on and help us with the like the foundational seed foundation but it was originally sung through from the beginning to out and the family coming from New Jersey, Mississippi actually comes and sings this very country song called California for he digging into this jazz like but the father is a failed jazz musician and the two brothers one is sort of the voice of swing and one is the voice of Bob this brother is kind of the voice of Bob and he was never able his father realized how talented he was and it was very hard for the two of them because of his feelings great I think I'm just asking like a real practical question about for Kevin is like what did you when you first began writing the songs what did you where did you come to write the lyrics from where the lyrics something that from a script you saw there was like a monologue and it said oh I'm going to take that moment there and turn it to the concept was the original Germany idea was a king naval type story but practically when you sat down to write the song how did you do just write the lyrics first or practically I was stuck and you said I was just like I want to write the lyrics so you wrote but I think this is a really good moment for a song I have to say it's a really great great moment for a song no doubt in my mind you know this is singing over the body of your you know someone that failed you and now you're in fear that you're going to fail yourself I think it's a very interesting dilemma I think it's definitely worthy of the song you know those kind of moments are really great to find in the show what makes this night more special than any other night is your rule of thumb you know what makes this night more special you have to boil it down to the very essence of it all when you're doing songwriting what makes this moment more important than any other moment so this is a good I think a very strong important moment in this song what would be really intriguing for me as if now you don't have to do this putting any feelings about it but there was something interesting in the lyric where he said I love all notes and I thought that's really specific and I like that the rest of it all had a very generalized feeling through it all and by the time I got to the end of the song I kind of went I know I get it I get it even though there's a journey in here too of it all but the generalization of it all I would encourage you maybe there is a rewrite to be done or maybe we talk about this with your book writers and whatever how to put in just what were some specific things that this dude remembers about his dad it smells when he did this when he sang that when he was this you know when he did bad when he did good that can all really specific things it's not enough to sing about and I it's a shame you couldn't hear or I never could find the right notes I love that but I was lost in the scene I was eager and green I could not understand what the lesson might mean the one thing I knew that really rang true the one thing that came through was that I never was good enough for you okay that's the end of the first verse it's tough now where do you go from that cause you just said but now you want to try to now we need to find some sort of exploration otherwise we're going to get ahead of the game you're honestly just going to get ahead of the game and it's going to be one of those moments where at the end of it all I'll go I'll applaud you for singing this really well and for it being a really good melody and a good song but I'm not sure if I've learned anything from it all at the end and I know you want to do that so maybe there's some sort of specifics that you could find in that second verse that keeps me on my toes a little bit more realizations of things more new information I see you've cut a big section in here what was this big section here nothing good in here and the job and your wife and your ordinary life not the same that you want to do those are some specific things in there that kind of got cut hey if I had another day I'd play another I'd play the song another way if I had another night I'd get the phrasing right I just need a little time I really could make it shine I just want something more specific in there some colors and stuff in there you know what I mean that would really make that melody stronger and more otherwise I'm sitting there playing okay stop crying get on with it all you want to make sure that I'm standing I couldn't figure out your rhythm in the beginning what is your rhythm in the top of the song what is the rhythm in the first verse I felt like it was like you were in 3 almost in 12, 8 like in the first page or anything at all what was the meter were you playing were you playing stick 4 it felt like there was like a 12, 8 going on but in a couple places there with the triplet stuff in there it was very intriguing I thought well let me switch the meter there or something a little bit here and there and I had a hard time locking into it all so again when I mentioned earlier I don't know if you were here but you know it's always good to sort of define what the heartbeat is of this character in this moment and build on that you know build on that and lock into something and build on that I think you could really gain an awful lot from it all have you done this show yet guys we were at the New York Theatre Festival in 2011 we won 5 awards there oh great well why are you coming away why are you coming away I think what we learn is it always comes back to structure it always comes back to structure so we want to do whatever we can to well it's hard I mean how are you willing to do it it's hard I mean it's hard when you bring in a whole bunch of new people and all of a sudden you know you've got a whole new book are you trying to work around the song that you had we're doing no we're doing both we've generated a lot of new songs and it comes up pretty pretty open if I say this ain't working yeah there's two really strong ladies there but it is it is really just a thought to you know come in and you've got to hold your guns but it's up to how do you respond to the songs that are there that everybody likes how do you when you're moving forward and changing the book around how do you accommodate a really good song well we ask ourselves specific questions in a collaboration we ask ourselves is this as specific as we can be is this a new song this is a new song and you know we talk about the fundamental reasons why to make the change we have a ton of interest in the show and we actually what you nailed us Michael Jung you nailed us when you said the audience get ahead of us we have so much good music going on and this is one of our biggest challenges this and length I mean already the song is good but you have to know when it's off it's like it's making a kick it really is making a kick you know it says three eggs and you put in five you don't have you know what I mean you just got to really watch it I think it's also to you may love something a great deal and it's important to love and cherish it and nurture it but you also have to know when it's enough enough and that is really really important for your audience because you don't want to lose them in too much beauty like this moment here again this is a really great moment to use what's a real life this idea this moment here oh funerals are so great I love when people die it's always so great but also too psychological for this character it's a great thing and I love the message I just love the message now I know thanks dad for fucking my life and it's just a great song actually right up against opening an act too it's this huge bruise number it could be a great contrast to it all but again you know how long we need to stay in this moment you may not need to stay in this moment as long as you think we do once we get it there was actually a little piece of it that I played that has already we've been we have been cutting this number we constantly talk about that nothing is too precious but at the same time Kevin's music has gotten such recognition that we want to also honor that and take the best of it it's lovely to honor one's music it's lovely to honor one's words it's lovely to do all the honoring stuff but the bottom line is it's your show that makes the art you know what the how are you doing it for I mean it's only about the show the show the show the show I really would love to honor the show so you just really have to really watch those things it's I had the same problems too I had to trim down from a five day event into two years ago so a lot of those babies were killed a long way and people really stuck up they said the bike is so beautiful you can't cut it we're going home now guys we've got to get this going so you have to be really aware and if you've got a good heart and a good soul and a good head on your shoulders and a good ego most importantly you're going to know that your beautiful music is always going to be beautiful music no matter in what form it's going to take it's place and if you can tell the story as much as you can with the music that's even better I feel like I've got in this song here I feel like maybe I'm wondering if I can add two of those really healthy choruses that verse really, with the wrong note stuff really landed for me and really playing it way you may not go back to the final verse I think it, yeah maybe there's something in there though sometimes when we condense we actually have more power in condensation than we have in the sprawling event of the song you know what I mean I find it an awful lot in a lot of your own musicals even like Les Mis which is a great favorite for a lot of people not for me do you find that it's a balance between condensing and also making sure that the song actually works musically yes that's the thing about the puzzle work the gameplay to love doing that and that's the puzzle that one has to figure out all the time going to just chop off my arm here by cutting this thing here you know oh my god it's walking with one leg now you know that you saw this composer but can it do without that extra tail can it do without the extra finger maybe maybe those are the things you know can it do without those extra pounds those are some of the things you have to look at when you look at it you'll know it too in the course of the thing you know that all this has to be the moment you know give me a piece give me a piece yeah that goes on for 10 years okay yeah okay it's gonna be okay he's praying he's like you know tell you that audience goes you know so who am I I'm a fool about that yeah I've got 10 minutes thank you we call so much for being so brave and so bold and so generous with your gift anything what's your name you spoke about being a composer how to take the biggest chunk of the book or the best chunk of the book how do you feel when a writer tweets a lyric or he writes a lyric or cut sections out of a song to make it work for the moment wait that's my job that's my job it's job you do your job you may make suggestions about how I could do my job better it's all you're allowed to you really that's my job it's a job it's not camp you know what I mean it's marriage which you can't have sex you know what I mean that's the problem with collaboration you know it's marriage but you just can't have the makeup sex so listen to the suggestions and if they're good to you then you can make the cuts but that person should be going through your work that's disrespectful to you and don't do that I have to make myself clear about that thanks I'm Peter I'm just a comment on the perfect rhyme thing when sometimes people present me and they'll have the lyrics there and it's like the chock-full of I just say get Steven Soundtime's finishing the head book in the beginning he's got that chapter on rhyme I said read it memorize it tattoo it to yourself cause it isn't said any better than that I think Oscar Hammersmith says it better in his book and Steve learned everything from those guys but I would say yes they will look at those books cause they will tell you in wonderful ways and the joy of doing that and to find the joy of doing that it does drive one crazy doesn't it home and alone I'm only joking there's a time and shine in there you talked about rhyme originally could you tell me how you feel as a composer and an audience about phrasing and meter do you want it to be exactly the meter the lines have to be the same I think it all depends again on the dramatic moment if I'm in a happy mood and I'm singing about whatever I feel afraid I hold my head erect I was a little happy too and now I will say that feels weird do you know what I mean you know so therefore it's the situation the character in the context of the moment that I would pay attention to the only character that's out of her mind you know what I mean she's working all over the place Halloween is a good song from applause which I think is actually very good and that goes all over the place in all sorts of time meters it's like three different time meters in a ball it's all crazy that to me works cause why the character's kind of just going through liberalism is a really thing so that's when it all depends on does that answer your question about meter phrasing is a different thing phrasing is a different thing I like people to honor my phrasing that I've written into my music generally I don't let anybody breathe nice when when you're picking a story or a book for a new piece what's the advantage of picking something like a Shakespeare theme or something that doesn't specify like a sort of time as opposed to let's say the story of Mayor Koch or something very specific well nothing cannot not make amuseable I mean you can use some things in source material anything that's available can be used in Shakespeare or it's from today's headlines or a movie script or a poem or you know some myth anything and any topic is available to you there's no rule that says this cannot be amuseable did anybody come down to the mountain with that edge to the granite no so anything good anything goes there are advantages to using plays there may have a soliloquy in them Shakespeare of course is the prototype for I think American musicals a lot of respects because you have those soliloquies or you have those monologues and those are what songs are essentially are they're the close up on us you know on the movie close up Shakespeare you know his monologues are very much the songs in the plays you can do something very hard you always have to revert to drama you have to make sure that whatever you're doing it's an attempt for drama and if it means like taking a movie script but the problem with a lot of movie adaptations that we see in the Tremors of the Broadway shows is movies are done and I was saying this earlier that movie scripts are in three acts generally and some people say I'm going to adapt this as a movie they told them the dog movie but they don't bother taking that three act format that screenplays in and making it into a two act format they don't know how to do that so you have to know how to do that so there are specific problems with adapting certain things like a movie poem you have more freedom to be anything but as long as you can turn it into drama that's where it really you really have to find your way into and find a good dramatist to know how to do that so you talked about 32 bars structure yes, what is that yeah, I was very much brought up in that and so I struggle with breaking out of that and how do you know when to or why or how again, it all comes from character it all depends on the moment with the character's feeling if everything's been said that needs to be said then it's 18 bars I've written songs that are 6 bars they're not just songs but they're whatever they are it's done, that beat is done it depends on what that beat is for you and how it's defined I don't know measures are as important to you as they are to this composer or myself I don't know what measures mean to you and struggle, I don't know what struggle is I mean what is that to you, are you stuck in mindset of I must obey the pop songwriting rules or I must obey the imaginary rules of musical theater from the 40s and 50s if I'm going to be successful if you're going to do, if you're going to struggle against that then you're, I don't know you're never going to free yourself from it all so I say go and write as many 32 bars songs as you want put them all together and make it into a 48 bar song you know what I mean so it depends on what it is that you want to say that the character wants to say when that character has said enough about what he or she is saying and whether or not musically you formed a feeling of of getting into that character's soul and leaving me with the impression that I know something more about the character and about myself a couple more here it depends hi my name is let's say I have the germ of an idea I'm a librettist, lyricist I'm working with a composer now I have the germ and I'm working on a treatment and then I'm going to be working on a little reto to what extent depending on what circumstances would you involve a composer like in treatment going forward in the reto itself well I wait till I felt it was time it's always a very nerve-wracking thing when it's time to turn over work you know what I mean, you're always getting nervous if the composer is chopping on the bed give me material, give me material take a look at your contract if it's a commercial contract and you're supposed to be prepared on a certain date or something but if it's not you have to say I'm not ready to share this fight yet or if you really love your composer or your collaborators you can go oh my god, I really used the inspiration here take a look at this tell me what you think about this then it's time, you don't do the whole thing you can do it in sections I would say whatever you need to do them you have to dive in and do it there is no right or wrong and you have to know that you yourself are strong enough to take whatever crisis is going to come away and be ready for that but I don't think you're going to get that if you and your collaborator forge a good respectful relationship with each other but that's not judgmental and that's the time when you can turn over your work to your collaborator or your composer or if you're looking for a composer I would have enough material from what you have to finish the whole thing there's nothing scarier to a composer than when someone comes in with the box and the composer is going to be just that setting we're a work of art we work on that together maybe you know there's something scary about that so when you don't necessarily have to finish the whole thing do what you think is really representative that you love the kids that over here they went to the hardest song that they decided to do the hardest part in the germ of your idea but you can go to that one write that one out of your you know out of the head and come up with a bunch of that material and then you'll be ready to give it to your collaborator or you know find a composer that would be interesting I think I don't have to be hit I don't hear it