Theater

ASHBME on tour

 

"A Star Has Burnt My Eye" went on tour at the end of 2017, with performances presented by  Skidmore College, The Vermont Arts Exchange, and Castleton University.

Photo by Dante Haughton

At Skidmore, we worked with the college's theater students and staff on a brand new iteration of the project, what we unofficially called "The Lecture Version" -- a performance that stripped away the fictional elements of the BAM version that premiered in 2016, and intensified the show's primary focus on the music and life of Connie Converse.

photo by Dante Houghton

Two new cast members , Osei Essed and Dina Maccabee, joined myself joined myself and original cast member Charlotte Mundy for this tour, adding new musical elements and textures on viola, upright bass, mandolin, banjo, and electric guitar.

Photo by Dante Houghton

Skidmore's theater department ran a nice blog post about the experience, interviewing some of the students who worked with us on the show. You can read it here.

Photo by Dante Houghton

We took a break from preparations for the show to perform a multimedia evening at the Tang Museum, where we interacted with photographs from their collection.

26047057_10155385818027987_7104058497663465958_n.jpg

After the successful run in Saratoga Springs, the show traveled to Bennington, VT for a one-night only showing presented by the Vermont Arts Exchange -- the most intimate show of the tour, and one that featured no theatrical lights or amplified sound. It was a magical evening.

assembly.JPG

From there, we moved up to Castleton University, where we kicked off our brief stay with an assembly for local grammar schools kids who were bussed in to spend some time with us talking about music.

Photo by Martin Van Buren III

Our last show of the tour was also our biggest, performing at the university's 500-seat proscenium-style Casella Theater.  Here's the exhausted and relieved company after the final performance, with our trusty production stage/tour manager Mr. Nic Adams:

post show.JPG

For more photos from the tour, here's a gallery:

Heroic Odets

 

En route to The Theatre at St. Clements on West 46th Street in Manhattan last night, I mentioned to a friend that I wasn't sure I'd ever seen a truly great production of a Clifford Odets play, and that I'd never seen a revival of the relatively obscure one we were about to see -- Rocket To The Moon. I'm happy to report that both facts changed immediately as the lights came up on Harry Feiner's inspired set, and The Peccadillo Theater Company began its soulful, stirring staging of this neglected 1938 piece.


So often, in remounts of Odets, it can seem like the performers are acting in different plays; this actor thinks he’s in a 1930’s gangster movie, that actress thinks she’s Mae West on the vaudeville circuit, etc. More often than not, the proceedings are a total disaster, the performers and the material seemingly at odds with one another and both falling flat on their faces, hard. The result, in my experience, is never pretty, and often much worse than that.

Such is not the case here. The Peccadillo’s production is a delicately masterful ensemble endeavor. While there are stellar individual performances throughtout (as well as a couple of curious casting choices), it would be unfair to single out any one actor. The entire cast gives absolutely everything they have to the whole, and because of this, the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Every actor is fully invested in the material, and the material pays back in dividends.  This is Odets the way Odets was meant to be.

A sort of ugly-duckling relative to O’Neill, Williams and Miller, Odets sits uncomfortably in the pantheon of great American playwrights, and praise for him (when it's even given) generally comes saddled with qualifications like “problematic,” “early promise,” “unrealized potential,” and “Hollywood sellout.” His language and his characters can be extreme; it could never be said of a single page of Odets dialogue that the words are dull or lifeless. If anything, they can seem to have too much life. They bubble over --  with enthusiasm, with slang, with aphorisms, with jokes, with philosophy, with nerve, with joie de vivre. Play it too hard, the whole thing explodes in wince-worthy cliches. Play it too soft, and it falls apart -- the actors simply get crushed under the weight of exposed plot and dated speech.

Somehow, The Peccadillo company and director Dan Wackerman have achieved a perfect balance. The pace feels musical, which makes sense and is something of a revelation. It is fortissimo and furious when called for, soft and legate at others (given this rare and welcome sensitivity, it’s a bit surprising that the sound design by David Thomas includes a jarringly anachronistic between-scenes soundtrack; this is a minor quibble).  

The cast finds the ridiculous, and they make it natural.  They find the outsized emotions, and run straight into them --  the way we all can do when faced with crisis.  The people in the plays of Odets are almost always people in crisis. This doesn’t make them lunatics, or buffoons, as they are so often (wrongly) portrayed. Sure, they’re a little neurotic; so are we.  Sure, words come out of their mouths that they immediately regret; they come out of our mouths too.  Yes, they can be grandiose, obnoxious, sentimental, irrational. So can we. These are not characters peopling a museum devoted to a clumsy, bygone era. They’re us -- imperfect, striving for understanding, desperate for love, dissatisfied, trying to make sense of the world, alive.

Wackerman and his actors do not condescend to Odets.  There are no tongues in cheeks here.  The company believes in the material, and so we do too.  They jump into the fire, and we follow them.  The approach here is one of humility, dignity, and respect, and it's moving and effective to watch.  The play is given the treatment it asks for, and we are all enriched for it -- audience, company, and playwright.

Bravo to The Peccadillo.  This is a production that deserves a much longer and more prominent run than the limited engagement it’s just begun. See it while you can.

 

Hotchkiss Thoughts

I had the wonderful good fortune to be invited to spend a week at The Hotchkiss School as their guest Artist in Residence this semester, and -- let me tell you -- it was an experience I will not soon forget.

My time there was profoundly meaningful, primarily because of how immersive it was.  I was engaged on so many different levels of interaction, in mind, body and spirit. 

On an intellectual level, I got to share my passion for the plays of Eugene O'Neill, as I worked with students looking at both his lesser-known early experimental work, and his late, last plays. 

In an American Literature class, we read through the Prologue of the great god brown, that fascinating, unhinged yowl of an angry young man from O'Neill's early prime.  We talked about the use of masks on stage, about hyper realism and expressionism, and about the power of the imagination -- how some plays can, perhaps, really only be performed on a stage (as opposed to being adapted to film, for example, which we would look at in a subsequent Film Studies class in which we read a scene from Long Day's Journey Into Night, followed by a screening from the classic film adaptation by Sidney Lumet).

In a double session with two combined Humanities classes, students and I used Greil Marcus's text The Old, Weird America as a launching pad for a wide-ranging discussion that touched on the subjects of violence in American music and culture (using recordings of songs by the banjo player/singer Dock Boggs and Bob Dylan as two examples); the changing role that music has played in our society in modern times; the merits (or otherwise) of contemporary recording techniques like Auto-tune; the value of authenticity;  and the similarities and discrepancies between old American murder ballads and contemporary Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap.

* * *

A hands-on workshop with students who are writing original music and/or honing their instrumental skills in the music department found us working on a full-band arrangement for one student's original song (utilizing piano, electric and acoustic guitars, upright bass, drums, saxophone and backup vocals), and then backing up another student singer as she led us through a soulful, jazzy arrangement of "Georgia on My Mind," complete with improvised solos from members of the student band. 

  * * *

 In several theater classes, and in another Humanities class that was engaged in making "Monument Projects," I talked with students about my Donner Party project "we are destroyed," discussing and showing examples of ways to interpret history, atypical ways to incorporate music and poetry into theater, and getting into the philosophy and idealism/hubris behind Westward Expansion in America.  Some of the kids read portions of my oratorio out loud in class (a thrill for me), and I played them some of the songs I wrote for the piece, like "Do What I Want" and "In Another Life."

I also had the opportunity to visit an acting class, where I talked about some of the craft and understanding of performance I've been able to glean as a working artist over the last decade and a half.

In two Musical Theater classes, students and I had lively discussions debating the merits of the contemporary musical theater form itself.  We had fun playing around with some of the songs that they knew or were working on as singers, as I accompanied them on guitar while they sang standards like "Fever" and "Crazy" -- some of them experimenting with vocal improvisation and tempo for the first time.

* * *

In a Documentary Film class, I shared my experience of what has gone into creating a documentary theater project about Connie Converse.  Here we talked about what elements are important in telling a nonfiction story, delved into what makes for a powerful narrative, and looked at similarities between Connie's mysterious story and Rodriguez from Searching For Sugar Man.

The poet and teacher Susan Kinsolving brought me in to her Creative Writing class to talk about the creative process, and what it means to be a working creative artist.  One of the students wanted to know whether my song Mary Ann was based on a real person, which led to a discussion about the power of imagination and how we can transmute specific real-life experiences into (hopefully) more universal art.

And I was fortunate enough to be able to be a fly on the wall for Mike Musillami's "Right Brain Logic" rehearsal, a massive ensemble of student instrumentalists working on one of Mike's original composition that employed changing meters and keys, and elements of conduction (conducted improvisation) that was really something to behold.  These are some advanced kids (and teachers)!

Finally, to cap it all off, my band came up from the city at the end of the week, and we gave a concert in Hotchkiss's beautiful Elfers Hall, for students, faculty and the general public. 

Photo by David Thompson

The show was a benefit for a local no-kill animal shelter, The Little Guild of St. Francis. Hearing my friend and sousaphone player Kenny Bentley in that hall hold forth on a song like "Pretty Polly" was quite an experience.

Photo by Carole Cohen

* * *

And if all this weren't enough, in between classes I got to play tennis matches with several of the varsity and junior varsity team members (in an ongoing game called "Crush The Artist in Residence"), took a hike out to the Hotchkiss Farm with faculty and students (where I was given an opportunity to swing an axe on the wood chopping block), and took my meals daily in the Hotchkiss Dining Hall, where much of the food is locally-sourced and organic, where there are vegetarian options a-plenty, and where compost is collected from finished plates and trays. This is a very hip institution, as far as sustainability and eco-awareness goes.

In fact, this is a very hip institution, period.  The community I felt there, and the warm embrace I was given by students, faculty and their families, made it difficult to leave.  The academics and creativity invigorated my mind.  The beautiful grounds, athletic facilities and sports engaged my body.  The sense of connection and mindfulness on display everywhere lifted my spirit.

Thank you, Hotchkiss. I'm deeply grateful for the experience.

Two Things You Should See Right Now

People often ask me where I draw my musical inspiration from, and I sometimes draw a blank. Reason being: most of the things that inspire me are not music.  Theater, film, art, literature, history, religion, thought...these are the things that really move me the most.

For me, there are few things worse than being stuck in the audience at a bad piece of theater, but the converse is also true: when theater is really effective, no other art form can touch it for the visceral, exciting, startling feeling it inspires. This week I had the opportunity to see The Goodman Theatre's production of O'Neill's DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS, as good and imaginative a production as I've seen on Broadway in a long time.  Today I read that the show is closing early (May 24) because of bad box office receipts, mainly due to getting shut out of the Tonys (a travesty).  Even if there are some casting issues, I still urge you to go see it before it's gone forever.

 

In the musical realm (although there was a good deal of theater in this too), I had another opportunity to see Leonard Cohen perform last night in Waterbury, CT.  I caught him for the first time last October in Obernberg, Germany, but Leonard and the show have only gotten better in the intervening months.  He's absolutely at the top of his game: totally present, giving, and fully cognizant of his tremendous power at this late stage of his career/life.  He's in NYC this weekend, then has a few more dates in North America before he heads back to Europe. Amazingly, there are still seats left at many of the shows. Really, if you can, do yourself a favor and go and see Leonard Cohen. You'll never forget the experience.

 

"we are destroyed" and Thursdays @ Pete's Candy

April is going to be a whole lot of fun in NY. 

"we are destroyed" (which we're now calling an opera, btw -- why not?) is about to go into rehearsals for its next showing, the first time that the piece has had a multi-night run and the first time that there will be movement, staged with elaborate brilliance by Ed Schmidt. You may remember Ed as the host and curator of DUMBOLIO, a very smart and entertaining monthly variety show that, sadly, has been on hiatus for a little while. 

Ed is directing a brand new cast, led by none other than the fabulous Susan Oetgen. "we are destroyed" will be at the ABRONS ARTS CENTER in NYC, on April 24-25 @8pm, and on April 26 @3pm. Tickets are here.

"Donner," by Howard Fishman, oil on canvas

Have a look at a nice piece on the project that just went online. I'm looking a little haggard in it, but the music sounds nice:

 

The other good news is that since I'll be here all month, I booked myself a residency at none other than PETE'S CANDY STORE, my old neighborhood haunt. I\ll be holding forth every Thursday night @11pm, and bringing in a variety of friends old and new to play with me. Lots of new material.  Week one (4/2) will be a rare outing of the MONKEY FARM, with Jon Flaugher joining me on bass and Dave Berger on drums.

Photo by Sean Gallagher

Meanwhile, work in the studio continues apace.  Stay tuned and thanks for listening.

10th ANNIVERSARY NIGHT #8

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16th, 2008

GALAPAGOS ART SPACE

DUMBO, Brooklyn

8PM SHARP!

"we are destroyed" by Howard Fishman

A newly-revised version of my music theater project, this time directed by Ed Schmidt and featuring actors Robert Boardman, Susan Oetgen, Justin Nestor and Nicole Pacent. Also featuring a version of my quartet including Mazz Swift (violin), Jon Flaugher (bass), Ben Holmes (trumpet) and yours truly on guitar and piano.