Ah, That's Why!

"I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well."

Johannes Sebastian Bach

Panned Before Opened

Spider-Man, the 65 million dollar Broadway musical doesn’t officially open until March 15. That date was postponed several times. Last Staturday, for the first time ever, the New York Times decided to send its critic, Ben Brantley, to a preview. His review was published in yesterday's paper; it is devastating. Brantley finds Spider-Man so grievously broken in every respect that he thinks it is beyond repair. Brantley is often unfair, so his judgement has to be taken with a grain of sugar. Nevertheless it is surprising that the show's director, the revered Julie Taymor who also wrote the book, is panned by one of her former admirers. Brantley writes: Spider-Man is not only the most expensive musical ever to hit Broadway; it may also rank among the worst." 

Community

One of the best things ever said about community is what Saint Paul said: "What I am for you frightens me, but what I am with you comforts me. For you, I am bishop; with you, I am a Christian."

Judging Greatness

"Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them." 

Arthur Schopenhauer 

Literature

"Nothing endures except change; nothing is constant except death. Every heartbeat wounds us, and life would be an eternal bleeding to death, were it not for literature. It grants us what nature does not: a golden time that doesn't rust, a springtime that never wilts, cloudless happiness and eternal youth." 

Ludwig Börne

Arrogance?

Songwriting collaboration is a volatile business at best. I have worked with composers who refused to rewrite melodies which did not fit the characters they were meant for, and for a time I suspected the refusal was based on arrogance. But I was wrong. Composers who stubbornly stick to what they have written are afraid they have no other notes in reserve. Their refusal to rewrite is just a ploy to cover their imagined infertility.

Auditions

I have witnessed a number of memorable auditions, often wondering why young actors and singers try to do stuff that exceeds their abilities while they would be very convincing if they just would show what they actually can do well. The best audition performance I ever saw was that of Wolfgang Pampel, a very experienced actor (he lip-synced J.R. of the tv series "Dallas" for the German screen). He came on stage with a little doll, sat down and, miming an old lady, started singing "O What A Beautiful Morning". We were so stunned that we hired him on the spot to play Duke Max in "Elisabeth".

The Artists' Drive

"Artists don't wonder, What is it good for? They aren't driven to create art, or to help or teach people or to make money. They are driven to lessen the burden of the unbearable disparity between their conscious and unconscious minds, and so to achieve peace."

David Mamet

Smarter

"I've been working with audiences for thirty years or more, in different venues. And I've never met an audience that wasn't collectively smarter than I am, and didn't beat me to the punch every time."

David Mamet

Perversity

Freud called music polymorphous perversity. We take pleasure in music because it states a theme, the theme elaborates itself and then resolves, and we are then as pleased as if it were a philosophical revelation - even though the resolution is devoid of verbal content.