Category: Creativity

Creating something every day for 365 days

Workshop, 4/11 (Day 251/365)

Posted on by Dale

Lots of creativity today. I finished the kindergarten video, and it turned out pretty cute, although to my semi-trained eye there are way too many things wrong with it to make it actually useful. But the untrained were entertained.

At noon I went to meet with the Newnan Cultural Arts Commission to offer the proposal for William Blake’s Inn. Everyone was supportive and excited. They decided to sponsor the May 3 performance and to begin looking at finding funding for the entire project, so that’s exciting. (You can download a PDF version of the prospectus.)

We had workshop tonight again. Tonight we worked with Denise Johnson on Two Sunflowers. Melissa is stepping in for Ginny, who will be out of pocket in the days before the performance. (Grayson has to come home from college or something.) We played with the four sunflowers Carol Lee provided and got the Two Sunflowers’ part all blocked out.

We went back over Man in the Marmalade Hat and plugged Denise into that. Then after she left we played more with the Sunflower Waltz. We got the beginning blocked out, but it has become very clear that the big, big parts of the waltz can’t be worked out through focus on the movements of individual sunflowers. We will have to use the masses of sunflowers and their movements to make sense of the music. Somebody should have thought of that before they let me write all that huge ballet music.

We’re moving into a new phase, less brainstorming and more implementation. It’s harder work.

In other news, Marc has been playing with ArtRage and has produced the following images:

Striking, a beautiful use of the program.

Workshop, 4/10 (Day 250/365)

Posted on by Dale

Back to work at the workshop! Dale, Marc, Laura, Carol Lee, and Melissa in attendance.

Dale and Carol Lee shared their autographed copies of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, plus other fun stuff from New York. Dale talked about the meeting of the Cultural Arts Commission tomorrow and some of the ins and outs of getting ready for the backers auditions.

Our schedule called for us to work with members of the octet on their role for the May 3 performance. None showed up. Ginny did, but she was still dressed for work, and since Denise will be dropping by tomorrow night, we sent her home.

We decided instead to choreograph Man in the Marmalade Hat from start to finish. We worked on movement for the ToastHeads, and choreographed their movement onto the stage. We coordinated that with the ice sprites and left space for the MMH. (Galen will be in tomorrow night.)

We then switched to the Gang and their role in the piece, their close order drill. We had choreographed it before, but basically we had to reconstruct it.

Now it’s all written down, on our wall-size chart of the lyrics of the piece.

Before we left, Dale read through the prospectus he’s prepared for the Arts Commission. We discussed some kind of ideas for budget. We are having some phenomenal ideas, and it would be a shame to see them fall short because of a lack of funding. But all the indicators are that forces are lining up that will make it all possible.

Before I went to workshop, I pulled up Make Way and took a different tack with it. I had forced myself to hear the piece in my head and listen to what I was hearing. I was hearing “lighter,” so I stripped out the flute/oboe combo for the opening melody and gave it to a solo violin. As it happens, the “Strad” violin sound is pretty whiny, but you gotta hear it under lights, so to speak. I think it will work.

Editing (Day 249/365)

Posted on by Dale

This afternoon, after the power went out at school, I tinkered with the first eight measures or so of Make Way. (Laptops run on batteries when the power goes out. It’s a beautiful thing.) I think I’ve got it bearable.

My intention was to work on the next eight measures tonight, but after I got upstairs and sat down, there was an email from Mike Funt. Not only is he getting married in Las Vegas on a Monday in two weeks, preventing my attendance, he has the nerve to send me a script for House he wrote upon an agent’s request for a sample hour-long script. Well, it’s not so much the sending as the asking me to look it over that takes nerve.

First of all, of course, do I look like a script doctor to you? Am I sitting in That House in L.A., overlooking the Valley, cocktail in hand, multiple Emmys on the glass bookshelf behind me, as I look out at the lights of the city twinkle on below in the purple sunset? Is there a buxom starlet in the pool? Is she nude? Is there a pool? (No, no, and no.) Feh.

Second of all, there is no second of all. I’m still stuck on the first of all: why would Mike Funt, who is clearly talented and headed for great things, think I knew enough to do anything but correct his spelling? Which I did, needless to say.

Very flattering, to be sure, but nothing throws one into a panic as being thought of as competent in fields one knows nothing about. My tirade about the Pirate Queen does not count; any idiot could have done that, except, apparently, for Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Richard Maltby, Frank Galati, and Graciela Daniele.

Oh well, I’ll work on the music Thursday and Friday.

Very little (Day 248/365)

Posted on by Dale

Very little today, as we traveled back from Greensboro.

However, I did get the article on lunch with Nancy Willard written and submitted. That’s a little something.

And I did take a stab at listening to the orchestration for Make Way, but it’s still not working for me. I played with it for a moment, but it’s too late and I’m too tired. I’ll be back to it tomorrow, because I have to get it done.

In other news, I got home today to find several packages. One was a book I’d ordered from Amazon, the catalog for an exhibit of Alice and Martin Provensen’s illustrations for children’s books, with an intro by Nancy Willard. The others were from Nancy herself. One was her new book, The Flying Bed, and it was her usual magical storytelling. Another was a book of Erik’s photography in Florence (where The Flying Bed is set.) He makes beautiful photographs, these from an apparently crappy little camera. (I haven’t finished reading the accompanying material yet.)

But the other two were my copies of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn.

In the paperback, the one I’ve used for twenty-five years in writing this music, Nancy had painted the Sun and the Moon, and an inscription thanking me for my music.

The hardback one, the one I bought thinking it might come in handy to display if we ever performed this work, has an angel bearing a banner made of my music, also with an inscription.

She was unable to find Alice Provensen at home, but that’s all right. We’ll invite Alice down for the premiere. This makes me very happy indeed.

No, I’m not posting pictures. Come to the workshop, or come to the performance on May 3.

Last night, we went to a production of Man of La Mancha, at Guilford College. A couple of Grayson’s friends were in it, but mostly I wanted to see what kind of theatre Guilford was capable of.

The idea of the show, “The Impossible Dream” and all that, is very easy to sneer at, but the show itself sucks you in. It’s too good. Every song is a winner, and you find you cannot get “I am I, Don Quixote” out of your head. Already, you are singing “…Lord of La Mancha, my destiny calls and I go…” in your head if not out loud.

The set was good, the orchestra was good, the costumes were credible, and for the most part, the performance was not bad. The leads needed to be miked, but their voices were not unpleasant. The young man playing Cervantes/Quixote was good, as were the other leads. The only real problem, and I don’t know that it could be fixed, is the almost total lack of specificity of many of the actors in their choices. Lines were just said. Most comic opportunities were missed because they didn’t seem to understand how to play the scenes. It’s a common issue with college-age actors; the production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile I saw at VSU was almost completely devoid of life, except for Mike and Bailee and their friend who played Picasso. Those three understood characterization, they understood comic timing, they understood that lines must be delivered, not just uttered.

I got the feeling that many of the performers in La Mancha were vocal majors; they had lovely singing voices. But actors? Not so much. Wasn’t enough to ruin the show for me, after all, I have just witnessed The Pirate Queen, so it takes a lot to disgust me these days.

Taking stock (Day 246/365)

Posted on by Dale

I’m on the road today, heading to Greensboro to visit Grayson for the weekend, so there’s not a lot of time to actively create… not unlike the entire past week.

However, I have written an article about our lunch with Nancy Willard, so there is that.

Also, I think I need to assess where I am with the music for William Blake and set some goals for the next few weeks.

I have gone over the first four pieces and tinkered with the orchestration to make them better. Overall, I think as I work my way back over this familiar territory, I will be stripping out more than I add. My experience in Broadway houses over the past week has impressed upon me the need for greater transparency of orchestral accompaniment.

I still have three pieces to orchestrate: The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives, The Wise Cow Makes Way, Room, & Believe, and Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor. All three are big, and my tendency is to err on the big side. Witness the issues I had with the Sunflower Waltz.

I think that I will tackle Make Way, because the other two already sound orchestrated even though they’re not.

New York, Day 6 (Day 245/365)

Posted on by Dale

Since we spent the entire day getting to LaGuardia, waiting at LaGuardia, being searched at LaGuardia, flying to Atlanta, getting to the bottom of why our tickets were cancelled last Friday and who was going to reimburse us for everything, and getting back home after a lovely last meal at André’s Off the Square, I’ll flesh out this post later on Saturday, after we make the drive to Greensboro.

Hi ho, the glamorous life.

New York, Day 5 (Day 244/365)

Posted on by Dale

When we got downstairs, we found the Honeas getting coffee, so we parted with them then. They’re going home today. They had enjoyed Curtains, so that gave us a little hope heading into the afternoon.

Off we went to Chinatown in the cold, cold rain. After getting turned around, one never can tell which direction one is facing after emerging from the subway, particularly on a cloudy day, we began strolling up the street and checking out the trashy stores. I bought a rain hat and a surprise present for Kathy Bizarth. (No clues here, just in case anyone who would care is reading this.)

We came across one of many Pearl art stores, where I was able to replace some tubes of gouache that have dried up on me back home. They had a complete line of Moleskine notebooks, so I succumbed to the charms of a small storyboard version. As we begin getting heavy duty with William Blake’s Inn, it will be handy to record some staging ideas.

We made the turn into Little Italy and came across Ferrara, the fabulous pastry shop we had visited a couple of years ago when we chaperoned that ill-fated chorus trip. (“Ew, we don’t know what all that stuff is…”) We paused for coffee and sugar. At that point, we made our contact with Lynne Jebens, Ginny’s college roommate and an agent here in NYC. She was going to find us a nice Italian restaurant for dinner, so that sort of made our search for lunch in Little Italy redundant.

I suggested perhaps finding Le Streghe, the fabulous restaurant we ate at four years ago, but it was decided that we would go ahead to the next main goal of the day, getting Ginny’s eyebrows done at Sephora. It had been decided that the Sephora on Times Square was too crowded, so we would use the Herald Square one. Off we went on the subway to Herald Square, but it turns out that the eyebrow studio, who knew there was such a thing?, is only at the Times Square location.

And so we walked, in the cold, cold rain, up Broadway to Times Square. Great walk, if my feet weren’t soaking. When we got to Times Square, which I officially hate and avoid now, I left Ginny and Carol Lee at Sephora and went to Garvey’s the bar at the hotel, where I ordered multiple life-restoring gin & tonics and some lunch. I figured that I would lower my defenses before heading into Curtains, so that if it were even halfway funny I would laugh hysterically. Of course, if I had had multiple life-restoring gin & tonics before last night, I would have been shouting my notes at the stage.

Soon I was joined by the ladies, who had given up on the eyebrow job. We quickly got them drinks and burgers, and they finished in time for us to walk the half a block to the theatre.

Curtains was a delightful throwback, a gag-filled, tuneful, old-fashioned Broadway musical. Not a thing wrong with it, and it even had a fairly interesting mystery plot. Debra Monk is divine as the tough old producer; David Hyde Pierce is wonderful as the stage-struck detective. It was relaxing to be in the presence of competence and craft, unlike last night.

After the show, we went back to the hotel to dry out and rest. I called AirTran to double-check our reservations. Here’s a reservation code, I said. Call it up and tell me what you see. Well, she saw that we had reservations for the 3:06 flight (good) but wait, there was a notation that we were sending our old paper tickets back to the travel agent (bad). Never heard of that, I said. Oh, she said. You need to have your agent call us.

Forty minutes later, whoever my agent was this time at BB&T finally talked AirTran through their issues and assured me that they had made a note in the file that said explicitly that they would exchange our old paper tickets for new ones. I will call again in the morning to make sure.

Then we walked over a block to 44 SW, an Italian restaurant over on 9th Avenue. Lots of good restaurants over there. I had never ventured over to 9th, which is stupid. We will remember this for next time as a place to explore at dinner time.

The food was good, and Lynne is as always great. She looks good, she’s holding it together, and we had a great time catching up. At one point, she and the ladies began an earnest discussion about menopause, so I left and went to the bar.

Since Lynne lives in Jersey, she couldn’t stay too late, so we got back to the room at a human hour. It would be nice to get a decent night’s sleep on our last night here.

New York, Day 4, Part 2 (Day 243/365)

Posted on by Dale

Oh. My. God.

And I don’t mean that in a good way.

After a quick bite of pizza for supper, we gathered ourselves and went to see The Pirate Queen, Schönberg and Boublil’s new show. I had not heard a great deal of excited buzz about the show, it’s still in previews, and I had heard a few negative rumors, but I liked Les Miserables, so I booked it.

I should have known better.

After an excruciatingly soggy opening sequence, which didn’t tell us anything except that Grace O’Malley wanted to be a sailor and her daddy the chieftain wouldn’t let her because she was a girl, we finally sort of got under way when she sneaked on board the ship anyway. In disguise! As a boy! And when a storm will capsize the ship unless somebody , somebody!, climbs up there! and gets! that! sail! down!, and look, the cabin boy we’ve never seen before in ultra-closeknit Clan O’Malley is brave! But it’s only Grace. Bad Grace. And then the English attack. Good thing Grace is good with a sword, huh?

::sigh::

There’s a true love, natch, but she’s married off to handsome but creepy Donal of the rival O’Flaherty clan, natch, but none of this goes anywhere. (Donal looks like a buff Legolas, an unfortunate design choice which is only reinforced in the tavern scene with curly-headed drinking partners: oh, look, they’ve got hobbits, too!) More “You’re a girl” crap. And then we meet Elizabeth I. It is a measure of this show that the English court under Elizabeth I is the comic relief.

Act II (I’m going to skip some here) opens with Grace having a baby on board her ship. The English attack, and her scum husband Donal wants to surrender. Thank goodness Tiernan, her true love, suggests otherwise, and of course Grace rouses herself from her childbed to stab an English or two. Then she sends Donal packing, under a peculiarly generous hold-harmless clause in sixteenth-century Irish marriage law.

I will spare you the rest of the show.

It is hopeless, this show. I cannot wait to read the review after it opens Thursday night.

However, if anyone knows Frank Galati, the director, or Graciela Danielle, the “musical staging” person, pass them these notes:

Cut the opening. Start with the storm. Same scenario, and that’s how we meet our star.

Give her one “Ariel” number, then don’t bring up the “You’re a girl” thing again until the inevitable song paralleling Grace and Elizabeth’s boy troubles.

After we discover, gasp, that the cabin boy is a girl, and do not mention the chieftain’s daughter before that, please, have Dad decide to send her home. But then the English attack. Then she gets to stay. Introduce the boyfriend then.

Cut to Elizabeth. Establish her as Grace’s equal in spirit. Spread the wit/venom/comedy around Ireland as well as England.

Cut back to Ireland. Just as boytoy Tiernan is about to ask for Grace’s hand, Daddy, flush with victory, announces the O’Flaherty alliance.

They’ll have to figure out how to make the Grace/Tiernan/Donal triangle work, I can’t do everything, but I do have one more critical idea for them.

Lord Bingham is a highlight of the show, but cut him. Instead of him, use Essex. If you’re going to screw with history, at least use the good parts. Essex was and could be in this show Elizabeth’s love and bête noire. Elizabeth sends her boytoy to fight Grace. He could succeed. Go ahead and imprison Grace (as happens in the show now). But blend Essex’s betrayal of Elizabeth with Tiernan’s sacrifice for Grace. Elizabeth executes Essex; Grace sails home with Tiernan. Big number for all.

The whole point of the musical was not Grace’s love story. It’s the pitting of one powerful woman against another in an age that did not trust or value either one. Love’s part of a total person’s package, sure, yada yada yada, but I would never in this day and age have your plucky heroine who has spent the entire musical whining about how cool it is to be a woman to crown her story with a lyric about not being a real woman until she listens to her heart.

So yes, as usual, I think I could do better. But not with Boublil & Schönberg. They’ve lost any talent they had for songwriting. God, that music was boring! Get me Ahrens & Flaherty on the phone. Pirate Queen is going down with the ship.

New York, Day 4, part 1 (Day 243/365)

Posted on by Dale

New York, Day 4

Today was our museum day. I got up early to catch up on blogging for the last two days, but by 9:30 it was time to move out the door. We encountered the Honeas and Carol Lee on the way out; everyone marveled at Ginny’s new haircut.

Off we went to the Cooper-Hewitt, a design museum which is part of the Smithsonian and housed in Andrew Carnegie’s luscious Fifth Avenue mansion on 91st St. The main exhibit was the design triennial, and there were lots of pretty things. The exhibit that had attracted my attention was an exhibit of model staircases that apprentice designer/carpenters had to complete to join their guild in the 19th century. Almost all were wood, and almost all were spiral or double. Quite nice.

We dropped by the Guggenheim, but it’s being renovated. I glanced up at the atrium, saw it with my own eyes, and we were out of there. They had some special exhibits, but we didn’t care about seeing any of them. The main collection is on tour while the main building is being refurbished.

Next was the Metropolitan, where we caught two special exhibits, the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit and the Barcelona/Gaudi/Picasso/everybody else exhibit.

The Tiffany exhibit drew together objets and photographs from his country estate, which he designed from the ground up, inside and out. He was truly an amazing artist, one I had not appreciated until today, and he must have drawn/painted/sketched/whatever every waking moment of his life. His artistic output rivals Schubert’s in terms of volume and quality. I was most impressed.

The Barcelona exhibit was also quite lovely, with many recognizable works from that crowd, the Modernistes that revolved around Barcelona but also gravitated to Paris.

The only other area of the museum we really wanted to see was the Costume Institute, but of course it was closed. We have this knack of getting to costume exhibits only when they’re closed.

Next was the Frick, but we were hungry, so we walked over to Madison Avenue and stopped in the first little café we came to. It was called the Café Ambroeus, lovely northern Italian food, but heavens to betsy the clientele was the most insanely pretentious you have ever seen in any movie parodying upper West Side behavior. It was great. It was not until we were seated that I realized that I was wearing jeans… and no one else was. The ladies were of the variety that lunched. The men were the kind who said things like, “I think the foundation needs to…” and “…why would I pay a million dollars for a smaller apartment that wasn’t as nice?” Yes, I overheard both those phrases.

We hoped to stop at the Whitney, since we were on Madison, but it’s closed on Tuesdays.

On to the Frick, which I had never visited. It’s Henry Clay Frick’s Fifth Avenue Mansion, and it’s gorgeous. The museum is not called a museum; it’s the Frick Collection, and it is essentially his home as he decorated it. It’s huge, it’s lovely, and the man had phenomenal taste. And money.

I did develop a theory, however. There was a quite nice “Portrait of a Man” by Hans Memling. I know it from art history books, and that’s what got me to thinking. How much of our iconic art history, i.e., those paintings that are The Works That One Should Know, the ones that you see in museums with a pleasant little shock of recognition, how many of those are actually the most outstanding of their kind, and how many are those which were bought by the rich Americans of the last century and are now in museums and printed in books? In other words, is Hans Memling’s beautiful little portrait part of my artistic knowledge because it’s perfect, or is it regarded as perfect because Henry Clay Frick bought it and it entered my cultural bloodstream thereby?

Something to think about.