Never!

“If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!”

J.M. Barrie

Victimized By Growing Up

“I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.”

Taylor Swift

Bad News For Songwriters

As sales of CDs plunged over the last decade, songwriters clung to one comfort: downloads continued to sell briskly as people filled their computers and iPods with songs by the billions. Now even that certainty seems to have disappeared, as downloads head toward decline. So far this year, 1.01 billion track downloads have been sold in the United States, down 4 percent from the same time last year, according to the tracking service Nielsen SoundScan. Album downloads are up 2 percent, to 91.9 million; combining these results using the industry’s standard yardstick of 10 tracks to an album, total digital sales are down almost 1 percent. After enjoying double-digit growth in the years after Apple opened its iTunes store in 2003, song downloads began to cool several years ago. But the rate of decline this year — weekly sales began to lag in February, and the drop has accelerated rapidly in recent months — has caught the business by surprise. A possible cause are streaming music services like Pandora, Spotify and YouTube. After a decade, consumers may be losing interest in buying downloads and instead turning to the streaming services, which make millions of songs available at the tap of a smartphone app, free or for a few dollars a month.

No Regrets

“Life is short, Break the Rules.
Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly.
Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably
And never regret anything
That makes you smile.”

Mark Twain

The Hunchback Will Ring The Bells Again

Disney will hold a developmental lab of a new stage adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, based on the 1996 animated film and classic Victor Hugo novel, which will take place in New York City in early 2014, according to an Equity casting notice. Featuring a score by composer Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, "Pocahontas") and lyricist Stephen Schwartz (Pippin, Wicked, "Pocahontas"), the upcoming lab will feature a new book by The Cider House Rules playwright Peter Parnell, who also penned the book for the revised 2011 Broadway production of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame made its original stage premiere in a German-language production that opened in Berlin in 1999 with a book by Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner James Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods).
Book and Lyrics of that production were adapted for the German stage by Guess Who.
The new version, to be helmed by Scott Schwartz, will be a departure from the earlier stage adaptation. According to Disney, "This is a reinvention of the 1999 German production Der Glockner von Notre Dame, with an eye toward a possible regional theatre production. This new approach to the material incorporates a 'story theatre' style of dramatization in an intimate staging. The epic tale is set in late 15th century Paris. The Hunchback of Notre Dame investigates 'what makes a monster and what makes a man.'"

How To Treat Ideas

"An idea, like a ghost, according to the common notion of ghosts, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself."

Charles Dickens

NewTube

I just read in the New York Times that YouTube will soon unveil a paid subscription service for music that will compete with outlets like Spotify, according to several people briefed on the company’s plans. YouTube, a division of Google, plans to introduce it by the end of the year, perhaps as early as next month, these people said. Subscriptions, at about $10 a month, would be tailored to mobile devices, and give users access to YouTube’s vast catalog of music videos without interruptions from advertising. The service will also let customers temporarily store videos on their smartphones and tablets to watch offline, according to these people, who were not authorized to discuss the service publicly. The new service, whose name was not known, would solve problems for both YouTube and the music industry. Mobile access to YouTube has exploded lately — Google recently announced that 40 percent of YouTube’s traffic is mobile, compared with 6 percent just two years ago — but the lower advertising rates on tablets and smartphones have caused some music labels to block their content from those devices. Through the subscription deals, YouTube would gain the licenses it needs to stream music to any device.In exchange, record labels, music publishers and authors, which have long complained that YouTube’s per-stream payouts were very low compared with other services, would earn higher royalty rates. Music companies would also be able to tame somewhat the chaos of content on YouTube by organizing music in full albums and playlists. Executives say that would be a help in promoting artists on the service, which has become the default listening platform for young consumers.

Merrily We Go To The Cinema Theater

The critically acclaimed West End revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Merrily We Roll Along, directed by Olivier Award winner Maria Friedman, is screened in cinemas across the U.S. Oct. 23 by CinemaLive and Digital Theatre. The revival premiered at the Menier Chocolate Factory in fall 2012 and began its West End engagement April 23 at the Harold Pinter Theatre for a limited run through July 27. The 7 PM screening also includes backstage interviews with the cast. Many screenings in the New York area have already sold out. Visit Fathomevents.com for ticket information. "This production of Merrily We Roll Along is not only the best I've seen, but one of those rare instances where casting, direction and show come together in perfect combination, resulting in the classic ideal of the sum being greater than the parts," Sondheim said in an earlier statement.

Paris!

“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets--as vast and indestructible as nature itself. All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower. Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her--and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.”

Anne Rice, Interview With The Vampire

Full Circle

Seventeen years ago I met Roman Polanski in Paris to discuss with him my adaptation of his movie, Le Bal des Vampires, for the musical theatre stage. We had lunch in a typical Parisian restaurant and a bottle of good red wine. I explained to him what I intended to do, and showed him my first exposé. Roman was very generous. He gave me all the liberty I needed to turn his wonderful film into a great musical libretto. Today the Mogador Theater will announce which show will open the fall season a year from now. After all the show comes back to the city where it all began.