Reprogramming Directive

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made late last year, once I had decided I was going to do something about pursuing my dreams.

Originally posted on Wed, 23 September 2009 at 01:12 while listening to “At The Beginning”, OST ‘Anastasia’ and feeling Inspired.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to start doing things about my current…situation of not being in the ideal job (promotions and all aside). So this year, during the week of my birthday, I took an afternoon off and got myself was a ticket to the Talent Development Project‘s “Start Me Up” Master Class.

Talent Development Project: Start Me Up – Master Class

Essentially, this was a two-hour Q&A session with a panel of music industry representatives across artists, A&R executives from major recording companies, representatives from copyright/royalties bodies, music publishers and music teachers, with some free musical entertainment thrown in (no, Jessica Mauboy did not perform. Yes, Wes Carr did perform!).

The event was very much targeted towards young performers trying to get into mainstream music, but they did have two members of the panel (Darren Coggan and Jonathon Welch) who are or have been involved in musical theatre. Most of the session consisted of the host, John Foreman, asking the panel a series of pre-determined questions aimed at facilitating discussion, with the last 15 minutes or so reserved for open questions. I wavered for a split second, decided I had nothing to lose and got to sneak in a very specific (and long) question at the very end about how to get into writing musical theatre.

And thank goodness I did. Had I not asked that question, I would not have found out about the…

APRA|AMCOS presents: Songwriter Speaks Evening – With Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty

Yup. Two weeks ago, I managed to get an invitation (courtesy of the generous Milly Petriella from APRA|AMCOS) to an intimate evening with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, directly as a result of asking that question in the Master Class. One of 21st Century Broadway’s dream teams who have multiple nominations for Grammy Awards, Academy Awards and Golden Globes, and have won multiple greatly coveted Tony Awards. For those who don’t know them, Ahrens and Flaherty are the team behind the music of the animated feature, “Anastasia”, including the theme song “At The Beginning” as sung by Donna Lewis and Richard Marx. The whole evening was an incredible opportunity as they talked about their backgrounds, their early careers, how they got to where they are today and performed a few of their wonderful songs.

It was really inspiring to hear that Lynn Ahrens used to work in a completely unrelated field, then got to a point where she found that she was meant to be writing for musical theatre, gathered her courage and made the jump to abandon her career in advertising to work as a freelance jingle writer. Stephen Flaherty’s story is also tremendously inspiring – having known what he wanted to do from a very young age, he pursued his dream through formal university music studies doggedly despite growing up in a state (state, not just suburb or city, state) where there was very little in the way of a musical theatre community, eventually making his way to Broadway, New York, New York.

And just when I thought the evening couldn’t get any better, I managed to meet both Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty afterwards to ask them for some words of advice (my paraphrasing) and get some pictures:

Education will only get you so far. My studies weren’t related to musical theatre at all and I didn’t find them helpful. Study the greats – like Sondheim, Hammerstein – and learn from them. Musical theatre relies heavily on collaboration; get out there and meet people, get involved in musical theatre clubs and societies, develop and use your network. Don’t be afraid to take your chances when you get them – just remember to find a way to keep paying the bills!
—Lynn Ahrens

(a very bad picture of) Me with Lynn Ahrens!

I found my formal education studies extremely relevant and valuable – to the extent that they arm you with the technical knowledge and skills to write music. Once you have those basic skills, you can continue to hone them on your own. But musical theatre is all about the art of storytelling; so in fact, I would suggest you study playwriting and drama to develop your storytelling skills and learn to marry them with music.
—Stephen Flaherty

Stephen Flaherty and (another very bad picture of) me!

…I know, I know…I’m such a fan girl. Honestly, I was so excited and nervous that I found it really difficult to sound intelligent and form coherent sentences since the words “OMG IT’S LYNN AHRENS AND STEPHEN FLAHERTY!!!” kept buzzing around in circles in my mind.

In summary:

• I’ve always believed it never hurts to ask and it never hurts to try. This past month has definitely confirmed this philosophy for me.
• Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are awesome and I hope I will get the chance to meet them again in the future and maybe even show them something I’ve written.
• I need more time to go and write stuff and learn and study stuff and join musical theatre groups and keep moving this forward.

Cats is undeniably one of the all-time great 20th century musicals. Having run for a record breaking 21 years in London’s West End, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s translation of T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats book to stage theatre is a must-see show for any musical theatre nut worth their playbills. So I was very excited when I heard last June that Cats was coming to Sydney and promptly booked some tickets for a girls’ night out.

Fast forward 11 months and $131.50 AUD a piece later, all 5 of us were seated in Star City’s Lyric Theatre last Saturday night, looking down at a gorgeous, fantastical set:

The stage of "Cats" at Star City's Lyric Theatre is a gorgeous, fantastical larger-than-life junkyard. The full moon, with wisps of cloud drifting across its face, looks down over a painted stage mural featuring a large tiger which is surrounded by a broken down car, dustbins, sewer pipes, an electric oven and other bits and pieces of people's discarded lives.

My personal philosophy is a truly great musical should be able to stand on its own. The audience should be able to understand the characters and the story with just the music, lyrics, book, stage design, costumes and performers; without the need of any accompanying souvenir programs or other explanatory aids. I was also determined to have no expectations, since my aunt had warned me strongly of how she had been quite disappointed when she watched it many years ago, due to the show not quite living up to all the hype she had heard about it.

As a result, I went into Cats knowing virtually nothing about the show, except that it was an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about cats and it’s where the theatre standard Memory comes from. Through the years I’ve briefly heard bits and pieces, like the term “Jellicle” and the Jellicle theme, but nothing in detail. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a quick reminder. I’ll bet you most people in the world will recognise this song instantaneously.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals I’m acquainted with to date are works like: The Phantom of the Opera; Jesus Christ Superstar; select songs from Sunset Boulevarde, Tell Me on a Sunday, Evita, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Musicals which are all very much through-composed with beautiful melodies, brilliant counterpoint and sweeping, dramatic scores. Musicals with unforgettable songs like Memory (think the title song from The Phantom Of The Opera, Any Dream Will Do, or Don’t Cry for Me Argentina). Even the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar was quite true to strict harmony. As a result, I was quite surprised by the stylistic range of Cats.

Cats is very different from the other Lloyd Webber musicals I’ve seen to date. Being based on a T.S. Eliot collection of poems for children, it has a Seussical feel to it, full of wild imagination, and doesn’t really have a plot-focused story line. In fact, the story is almost a backdrop for character exploration, kind of like how A Chorus Line is about exploring the dancers rather than the show. Going into the musical and not knowing this bit of information made it really hard for me to understand what was going in the first half as character after character was introduced and I kept wondering when the plot would start moving forward.

Once I did figure it out, I was able to strop stressing and actually relaxed and enjoyed it. Cats is a really fun musical, full of humor and whimsy. My favourite numbers (other than Memory) have to be Mungojerrie And Rumpleteazer, a song about two mischievous cat burglars and Growltiger’s Last Stand, an old cat reliving the glory of his youth as a reknowned actor in his finest moments. And like A Chorus Line, Cats is a show where the choreography is the focus. Instead of showstopping song after showstopping song and despite being based on poetry, it’s full of wonderful instrumental music which really lets the audience concentrate on the incredible acrobatics being pulled off by the performers, sometimes while singing! Some of the cast members are literally singing while doing back flips and somersaults without their voice wavering the slightly bit. Truly. Amazing.

Musically, Cats is kind of all over the place and not the usual Lloyd Webber fare. It starts off and is interspersed with a cacophony of urban night life (complete with cars revving, screeching, sirens, etc) which seems to inevitably meld into a very distinctive Jellicle Cat theme, which appears throughout the show:

It also features songs like The Rum Tum Tugger which are very pop/rock, jazz numbers (Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer), hymns (Old Deuteronomy, The Addressing Of Cats), comedic theatrical ballads (Growltiger’s Last Stand) and light-hearted fun pieces like Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat:

The great highlight of the evening was watching Delia Hannah perform Memory as Grizabella. For that one moment in time, she made us feel Grizabella’s anguish and yearning and when she sang:

Touch me
It’s so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You’ll understand what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun
—Memory, from Cats

there was this physical, soundless, heart-stopping instant where the whole audience sat breathless as the full emotional impact of the song came crashing down on us. Absolutely. Incredible.

Overall, I had a lot of fun watching Cats. It’s not going into my list of all favourite musicals – the trifecta of Rent, Wicked and The Phantom of the Opera is hard to beat – but I definitely recommend watching it while it’s in town. It’s a great production and makes for a really fun night out!

Cats poster by yuriybrisk from Flickr.