Walt Stepp: Siren's Heart/Skybox Interview

Photo Credit: Penny Landau/Maya PRWalt Stepp is writer/composer who writes thought-provoking and humorous shows and music. He once wrote a musical in which a Congressman's South American Songbird flings herself into the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., and unravels the whole knotty problem of a Watergate-like scenario. That was Dominoes: A Watergate Musical (1998). He had three plays produced at Altered Stages on 29th Street: Why We Shot Jack (2006), which re-tells the assassination from the point of view of Congressional conspirators; The View from K-Street Steakhouse (2007), which empathized with D.C. lobbyists who know that no amount of charm or cash alone can convince a Congressman, since ultimately, the party decides for its own mysterious reasons & Mark Twain's Blues, a play of Twainsongs (2008), wherein the author feels guilty about the ending of his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, because it was such a betrayal of his main characters. "Huck" & "Jim" come back to help him rewrite it. Last year, Only Love Will Do, a gay/straight romantic comedy, had an extended run at Theater For The New City. All the men in that show, straight or gay, circled around "Liz," played by Louisa Bradshaw. Siren's Heart was inspired by my friend Richard Geha's, As Marilyn Lay Dying. He soon found himself in the same paranoid narrative America has been reciting since her death in 1962 and went looking for another, more uplifting story about her. That's when Norma Jean as a "woman of a certain age" came to him. Not as the pretty teenager we all know, but as the more fulfilled person she always wanted to be.

Walt grew up on the Navajo Reservation in the Southwest; Gallup, New Mexico was the "Big Town" out there. Every Saturday, the BIA kids (Bureau of Indian Affairs) would go to town and see the new movies. Apart from Roy & Trigger, there were only two kinds: the Westerns (but horses and I didn't care for each other) and the Manhattan movie, which always opened with that Art Deco Skyline. It depicted a place far away where all the gleaming autos wore white-wall tires and everyone lived in gleaming white-wall apartments. It all said "Go East, Young man" and he did.

"Skybox", Photo Credit: Jonathan SlaffWalt has two shows running simultaneously, Siren's Heart: Norma Jean and Marilyn in Purgatory playing at The Actor's Temple (339 West 47th Street, between 8th & 9th Avenue) and Skybox playing at the Theater for the New City (155 1st Avenue, between 9th & 10th Streets). Click here for tickets to Siren's Heart and click here for tickets to Skybox.

1. Who or what inspired you to become a writer/composer? I'm first of all a songwriter, started in college when I discovered I could put any of the poems I was studying to music with just three chords. Actually, I'm a good singer - or a good imitator of Bing, Frank, Elvis, Doris Day and Ella Fitzgerald. And the music is already in the poetry. "If you can say it, you can sing it," I discovered early on, and I still think my freshman version of Shakespeare's With a Hey and a Ho and a Hey Nonny O is a real contender.

When it came time to write SIREN'S HEART: Norma Jean & Marilyn in Purgatory, I realized I had a whole catalogue of songs that seemed made for the "Marilyn Who Might Have Been" story I wanted to write. The songs seemed to write the book. Three are by Yeats - "The Mask" is the sexiest ("It was the mask that first engaged your mind"), "Love is Blonde" (re-titled by Lissa Moira, our director) has been turned into a mean, gutsy blues by our star, Louisa Bradshaw, and our musical director, Gregory Nissen. Louisa also does a winning French version of Yeats's "Brown Penny" when talking about her affair with Yves Montand during the making of Let's Make Love. ("We used each other terribly - gloriously. I used him to seal my divorce from Arthur.")

Gerard Manley Hopkins' classic "Margaret are you grieving/over Goldengrove Unleaving" is the basis for a touching lullaby Marilyn sings for "the child I lost that September." Our new opener, "Looking at Her" is based on a story Truman Capote tells in Music for Chameleons about walking around Manhattan with Marilyn. Later, in his apartment, he notices she's been very quiet in his bedroom. "What are you doing in there?" he calls, and then he sees her gazing into the mirror. "Looking at her," she says.

A related song is "Norma Jean's Lament," beautifully choreographed by Don Garverick ("Oh God, I gotta be this goddess to them all (but I'm just this chunky chick from East L. A."). My own best song is a very torchy ballad she sings to Arthur Miller, "If You Could See Me As I Am." ("Once we were America's dream couple. And then we weren't," is the lead-in).

And Louisa's own "Shiksa Strip" ("I know it wasn't your decision/but I just love your circumcision") always gets a big hand.

Louisa Bradshaw as "Marilyn Monroe" in "Siren's Heart...Norma Jean/Marilyn in Purgatory", Photo Credit: Henry Joseph2. You currently have two shows running Off-Broadway. The first show is Siren's Heart...Norma Jean/Marilyn in Purgatory. What made you want to write this show? What is about Norma Jean/Marilyn's life that you identify most with? I didn't really want to write about Marilyn's real life on earth - too grim, too sad - and it's been done better by too many other writers. Then I came across an interesting story in Don Spoto's great biography of her - that the only time of Real Happiness in her life was during her only live performance before 17,000 GI's in Korea. "They treated me with a respect I'd never known. I was their 'girl next door.' " It 's a touching moment, but I couldn't find any other moment of unconditional happiness in her actual life. So I started looking in the next world, where I found her in purgatory - now a much happier, more fulfilled and less haunted woman - the person she always wanted to be. "It's like celestial rehab," she jokes. And now she wants to tell her worldwide fans how she's been faring. We always knew there was so much more to the beauty trapped beneath that golden mask.

3. The second show you have running is Skybox. How did you come up with the idea for this show? I was reading Nicholas Kristof's column about the inequality of wealth in America, and he spoke of "the skyboxification of America." Skybox! The idea came to me practically written: a plutocrat buys a baseball team and the accompanying luxury skybox - and immediately has an affair with his gorgeous personal assistant. After a while, I realized I was riffing on the flirty, father-daughter relationship Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa had on TV. I loved it; he'd always challenge her in some impossible way and she'd always rise to the challenge in some very witty way. Those two characters, played so well by Bill Tatum and Chelsey Clime, were inspired by Regis and Kelly. The trophy wife has turned out to be more than I was aware I'd written - such comic delivery - thanks to her being played by Rachel Daye Adams and directed by Lissa Moira. And the "staff" players Lissa cast - Maisha Azadi, Kenny Steven Fuentes and Steve Brustien - are wonderful too.

4. Siren's Heart started its life at Theater for the New City and Skybox currently plays there. What is it about Theater for the New City that you keep having your shows there? What does their venue offer that another one does not? The great thing about The Theater for the New City is that if you have a good script you can produce your own play - in the one place on earth that is flooded with great theatrical talent that is out of work. It's amazing how many excellent actors and designers we had to turn away on just this show.

Louisa Bradshaw as "Marilyn Monroe" in "Siren's Heart...Norma Jean/Marilyn in Purgatory", Photo Credit: Henry Joseph5. You have worked with Louisa Bradshaw (current star of Siren's Heart) and Lissa Moira (current director/dramaturg on both Siren's Heart and Skybox) on several of your shows. What do you enjoy most about working with them? What have you learned from them? There was no such problem on Siren's Heart because, having worked with them before at TNC on Only Love Will Do - (a gay male couple have dinner with a straight couple; they're still talking bout sex), I knew (or hoped) they'd be the director and actress for my Marilyn play. Lissa's directed so many plays - theatre's her life - I knew she'd contribute greatly to the work, and Louisa's so drop-dead gorgeous - well, that shouldn't matter when one is doing a play about Marilyn Monroe, but it helps. And I knew from the previous play what a fine actress and singer she is. I've watched her get even better and better in countless performances of the play. She and Lissa are both consummate professionals.

6. What was it like to grow up on the Navajo Reservation? Do you feel growing up there influenced your artistic style at all? If so, how? For me, growing up on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico was nothing out of the ordinary. I've never thought of how it might have shaped my art. Perhaps it made me more observant because as the "billegona" (white boy) in town, I was a bit of an outsider. But it was never a big issue between me and my Navajo buddies.

7. What have you learned about yourself from being a writer/composer? I'm a composer who writes "words-first," usually the words of a character, and I'm often surprised how it often brings out a side of myself (and the character's) I wasn't quite aware of before. "Looking at Her" led to music I hadn't written before, but when I start a song with a musical lick, I tend to repeat the music I've already done. The music's in the words for me.

8. What's the best advice you've ever received? When I started to make my way to New York, my Okie dad said, "Son, don't eat the chili in West Little Rock."

9. If you could dream about anyone while you sleep, who would it be? One can dream about anyone one wants while conscious and awake. Why would anyone want dream about someone while asleep? Ah, for a much deeper experience with the full panorama of emotion? Well, I can't tell you that.

Steven Cagan: Love Songs: A Musical Interview

From musical director for the First National Company of "Dreamgirls," (starring the extraordinary Jennifer Holliday), to composing, arranging, and conducting for some of the great performers of our time, including Melissa Manchester, Bette Midler, Diahann Carroll, and Georgia Brown, to his work for film, television and Madison Avenue, Steven Cagan has done it all in the music world. He has worked with some of the theatrical giants of our time, including the legendary Michael Bennett, Lester Wilson, Michael Peters, Bob Avian, and Joe Layton. He is a classically trained musician, graduating from the esteemed New College at Hofstra University. His choral works were premiered there, as well as early theater pieces, some performed by his classmate, the late great theater and film star Madeline Kahn. He studied composition with Elie Seigmeister, David Diamond, Lukas Foss and George Rochberg, and arranging with Kermit Levinsky and Tommy Newsom.

Cast of "Love Songs: A Musical"Steven was in the inaugural class of the famed Lehman Engel B.M.I. Musical Theatre Workshop. At the same time, he launched one of the busiest commercial music companies on Madison Avenue. He wrote and arranged many popular jingles for television and radio for Chevrolet, Ford, State Farm Insurance, Coppertone, (which launched Melissa Manchester’s singing career when she was fifteen years old), and many others. Concurrently, he composed a number of ballet scores for Tony-winning choreographer-director Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Theatre Dance Collection. Among his early film assignments was as arranger and orchestrator for Woody Allen’s classic, "Take the Money and Run." Later, his original score for the film "The Cat and the Canary," starring Dame Wendy Hiller, Olivia Hussey, Wilfred Hude-White and Honor Blackman helped make it a cult favorite, and it was recently released in a 'classic package' DVD. He has scored countless TV series and specials, including those with "Spinal Tap," Robert Klein, Michael Keaton, Lainie Kazan and Rob Reiner.

He appeared as a guest musical director on the famed "Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" numerous times. Steven has guest conducted the Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas and Honolulu Symphony Orchestras, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, the Houston Pops, and others.

Now, Steven is "previewing" his musical "Love Songs" at NYC's famed nightclub Feinstein's at Loews Regency from August 26-30. Starring Ashley Kate Adams, Kevin Spirtas, Debbie Gravitte, Ken Clark, Fleur Phillips and Bryce Ryness and directed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, "Love Songs: A Musical" tells the tale of a wedding weekend at a luxury resort hotel. At the outset, the groom is stuck out of town on business and the bride has discovered that she's pregnant, while the other two couples, members of the wedding party, appear to be mismatched and ill-fated. As the piece runs its course, however, all is sorted out. Everything and everyone winds up in proper place for the nuptials. Happy ending!

"Love Songs: A Musical" will play Feinstein's at Loews Regency (540 Park Avenue at 61st Street) from August 26-30 at 8pm. Click here for tickets!

For more on the show visit http://www.lovesongs-amusical.com and follow them on Facebook!

1. Who or what inspired you to become an author, composer, and lyricist? 1957 I staggered into the Winter Garden Theatre as a young kid and experienced something called "West Side Story" and it changed my life. All I ever wanted to do was move an audience with music and words the way I was moved that day. And I've been chasing the dream ever since.

2. Who haven't you worked with that you would like to? That's an interesting question. Pretty much like Sondheim, I'm a self-contained entity. I do my own music, my own lyrics, and my own book. I have worked with other book writers and lyricists in the past and I've found that I am my own best collaborator. I prefer to work alone. There are some great Broadway singers I'd love to hear sing my music like the Marin Mazzie's and Jason Danieley's of this world. I'd love to work with some great theatre directors like the James Lapines'.

3. What made you want to write "Love Songs: A Musical"? The way I work is a textbook case in how not to write a musical. I do things backwards. For me, the process starts with melody, the stringing together of the notes, but I'm a devout melodist, I think that's the ultimate pursuit in musical composition, so if I latch onto a melody that works for me and I think it's worthy then I will try to drape some lyrics around it and turn it into a song. The process with "Love Songs," was I written a few songs and Michael Feinstein had sampled one of them called "Carpe Diem," and I took a step back and said "Okay, these songs fit into an evening." So I conjured up a scheme to continue writing these songs and what came after the melody and lyrics came a concept for book and a concept for characters. Some writers will stagger into a movie house and say "Okay, lets turn this into a musical and sing some of this." My process it completely different. It begins, as I said, with melody.

Me: I like that your process is different than most people. I think that's what makes you special, that you do things differently than everyone else. This show will be my first introduction to your music, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Steven: Well, bless you for saying that. I think after listening to my music and seeing the piece, this conversation will make much more sense to you in retrospect.

Me: Yes, I think so too.

4. What do you hope audiences come away with after seeing "Love Songs: A Musical"? Tunes. I want melodies to stick. I want them to walk out humming the tunes. Remember Richard Rogers and all those guys Jerome Kern and Lerner and Loewe, it was all about leaving the theatre humming the tunes. I don't feel that is what musical theatre is today. I feel it's an E-ride at Disneyland and all about the spectacle, trickiness, and special effects. "Love Songs" is the opposite of that. The prototype for me writing "Love Songs," when I first started working on it, was a piece called "The Fantasticks," which basically is half-a-dozen characters who sing their hearts out and the piece can be done in its most simple form, with just gifted actors singing and a piano without the need for props and sets and costumes and special effects. Just barebones.

At the other end of the spectrum, after this run of "Love Songs" at Feinstein's, I'm envisioning this show in it's full two act form, in a theatre with a chorus, with an orchestra, which is to say this can be done as big or as small as we'd like it and that was all done by design, none of that is accidental. I wanted to make the show as cost effective as possible for anybody to produce it. My dream is that years from now "Love Songs" will be performed at schools and community theatres around the country. I hope it has that kind of life in it. I believe that all depends on the quality of the songs and whether or not they have value. I think they do and Michael Feinstein, God Bless him, is a huge champion of the work, which is why we are doing it at Feinstein's. I should add that, this is very unlike me, there was a very, very long time when I despaired that there was a place on this planet for my music and what I do and now it's quite the opposite, I'm convinced that there is not only a place for it, but a need for it. We need to get back to simple, beautiful, lovely, elegant melodies and words with honest emotion and affection. We'll find out that soon enough whether "Love Songs" has resonance with the audience when it takes off at Feinstein's at the end of August.

5. What excites about debuting some of the songs at Feinstein's? What made you want to have this "preview" of the show at Feinstein's? The quality of the audience. Feinstein's attracts people who are used to good songs. They are used to meaningful melodies and good impactful lyrics. Michael prides himself on having coined the term Great American Songbook and I am privileged and proud that he considers my work to be part of that package. That is his audience and I firmly believe that that is "Love Songs" audience as well.

I wanted the opportunity to get the songs in the air and heard by an audience. One of the greatest frustrations in doing what I do is that unless it's performed it doesn't exist. It's an interpretative art form and it needs voice. Unlike a painter or sculptor, who when finished, can walk away and their work is there. With music/songwriting it's different. If it's not performed, it might as well never have been written. So, just to have been given this opportunity to have my music heard is wonderful. Michael is my hero and I've been so grateful to him for all these years. He's a real champion of my work, so to be able to have this first incarnation at Feinstein's is very special to me.

6. What do you like about this cast that will be performing "Love Songs" at Feinstein's? I love their passion for the work. I've gotten some of the most glorious voices that there are. I am pleased to tell you that I did all the casting myself. In this day and age if somebody mentions a name, we're able to go to Youtube to see these people sing and that is pretty much how I cast this, purely by voice, who could best sing this music of mine. The best part is that everybody is grateful to sing my music because these voices don't get the chance anymore. They don't get to sing such songs. Their enthusiasm is so sky high and that is a reward with in of itself. I love this cast dearly for their commitment to "Love Songs."

Two years ago we had a concert reading of "Love Songs" at The York Theatre, which was directed by Lynn Taylor-Corbett, who will be directing the piece again, and at that performance Robert Cuccioli sang the role of "Roy" for us and Robert was all set to do Feinstein's until two weeks ago when he got the call to go into "Spiderman" and God Bless him that is where he belongs, starring on Broadway. So, I had to reluctantly let him go, but the quality of the voice is what I am talking about, and I was lucky enough to get Kevin Spirtas to take over that particular role. A couple of the performers are reprising their roles from the York Theatre and earlier workshops and they've been dedicated to it and grateful for the chance to sing such music. That comes through in their performance.

7. You have worked with some of the biggest names in music/entertainment: Jennifer Holliday, Bette Midler, Melissa Manchester, and Diahann Carroll, just to name a few. What was the best part about getting to work with these legendary performers? The paycheck. Seriously, the work I did as an arranger/conductor/and sometimes pianist for these artists were very much work for hire. None of that satisfied my need to compose music; they were simply just jobs as if I were selling pianos or real estate. Some of those were more pleasurable than others.

8. While you were attending the New College at Hofstra University many of your choral works and early theater pieces premiered there. Some of the pieces were performed by your classmate, the late, great theater and film star Madeline Kahn. What do you remember most about working with her and what did you learn from working with her? Did you stay in touch with her after college? I learned two things. First of all, I learned how to be funny. Secondly, I learned how to laugh at what's funny. God Bless her may she rest in peace. She was one of the funniest people on earth with one of the greatest funny bones ever. She also taught me how to write for a coloratura soprano, which is what she was. I wrote certain things for her voice that only a coloratura could do, certain vocal enhancements, certain frills, ridiculous melodic intervals, etc. Maddy was up for all of it. She had those kinds of chops.

We did keep in touch after college, through "Blazing Saddles." I had a few friends that were in that movie with her. A couple of my buddies wrote the film. She unfortunately died much too young. The one thing I will always remember is how she kept me laughing.

9. Your music compositions have been featured in national commercials, films, and ballets. What does it mean to you have this kind of success? The truth is I haven't had success yet. I have had some performances, which is lovely, but nothing like success, success. Nobody knows Steven Cagan's music, but I'm hoping "Love Songs" is the success that finally gets my music heard.

Many years ago, I had written a song to Stephen Sondheim, who is my God, if I had a God (I'm an Atheist) called "Pitter Patter," which is an homage to Mr. Sondheim, and I wrote the song and sent it to him and ever since then, we've been writing letters back and forth. I'm hoping he'll come to a performance if he's in town. In his piece "Sunday in the Park with George," there is a song called "Children and Art," and those are the only two things we leave behind on this planet. I hope "Love Songs" becomes my legacy, my "Children and Art." I also hope it empowers me to write more because I need the positive reinforcement and validation of my work for me to proceed with my writing and I'm hoping "Love Songs" does that for me so I can get back to doing what I love, which is writing.

10. What have you learned about yourself from your illustrious career? 

Me: And I do consider it illustrious.

Steven: Well, thank you! I am flattered and honored you think that. What I found out about myself is that I have patience and persistence that I never knew I had. The lack of exposure of my music put me into therapy, rather intensely, and had me considering all kinds of things. I have chased this dream around the block for years and years and years, so learning that I have this patience and persistence in me is very rewarding. It all comes from a belief in the quality of the work and to me it's the quality of everything.

Me: It's good that you have that belief.

Steven: It's required I think. Somehow I have survived all those trials and tribulations and reached a great truth here, so we shall see if the work speaks for itself. That's all I ever wanted, was the chance. Unlike my colleagues, I want people there at this "preview," I want the critics, I want the feedback. I want to know what people think. Some think I'm crazy for that, but I want people to sit in judgment of what I do. I've earned it. I'm old enough and been at it long enough to want to know what the Ben Brantley's think of my work.

11. What's the best advice you've ever received? If you believe in it, persist.

BONUS QUESTIONS:

12. If you could dream about anyone while you sleep, who would it be? I would love to spend some quality time with Leonard Bernstein. He's another one of my heroes. What a genius he was. He left some great music behind. I'm indebted to him.

13. Favorite way to spend your day off? Doing absolutely nothing. Lazing around the house, reading or doing crossword puzzles.

14. If you could have any super power, which one would you choose? I'd like to be able to fly, particularly living out here in LA with all the traffic. It would be great to just leap of a building and be where you need to be...hahaha.

Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin: Life of the Party

Photo Credit: Bruce GlikasLaurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin received the 2007 Tony and Drama Desk nomination for their work on "Legally Blonde, The Musical," (written by Heather Hach and directed/choreographed by Jerry Mitchell), which also won the Olivier Award for Best Musical in London. They are also the co-authors of "Cam Jensen" (Drama Desk nomination) and "The Mice," and wrote the music and lyrics for "Sarah, Plain and Tall" (Theatreworks USA).

Individually, Laurence won the Ed Kleban Award, the ASCAP Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award, and a Jonathan Larson award for his music and lyrics. His off-Broadway credits include "Bat Boy: The Musical" (Lucille Lortel, Richard Rodgers, Outer Critics’ Circle awards), which has received 100+ productions worldwide. Nell adapted "Pirates of Penzance" for Goodspeed Opera House. She won a Kleban Award and is the recipient of a Jonathan Larson Foundation grant, and is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild of America.

Laurence and Nell are once again collaborating together, with "Life of the Party," a new opera written especially for the students of La Guardia High School of Music and Arts. This new show is set in the Soviet Union in 1953. It's about a naive young Party apparatchik handed a suicidal mission: create a Communist movie musical to compete with the West and glorify Stalin. She tracks down her favorite director, now disgraced and laboring in the gulag, and he in turn hires the ex-wife who denounced him. A story of love, revenge, and trying to make art under tyranny, Life of the Party explores a very timely message: you can't escape cruelty by passing it on. "Life of the Party" plays a very limited run, from May 3-6, at Concert Hall at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in NYC (100 Amsterdam Avenue). Click here for tickets!

1. Who or what inspired you to become lyricist/composers?

Our parents raised us on Monty Python (full of silly songs), Gilbert & Sullivan (equally full of silly songs) and, oddly, a lot of Irish political songs (many beautiful but others among the silliest of them all). We grew up doing live theater and we both were drawn to working under the hood; the actual mechanics of writing and creating seemed as fascinating as performing. In college we worked on the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, America's oldest drag show, which features book, lyrics and music by undergrads. We competed and won the writing and composing jobs and got a great firsthand education in how you put a show together, with the instant feedback of 8 performances a week in front of live audiences.

We each noticed, growing up, that a joke can be funny, and a tune can be pretty, but neither alone is as awesome as both together. We can't imagine a better life than making a living writing funny songs.

2. How did you start working together? You married in 2001, has the dynamic of your work changed since getting married? If so, how do you feel it has changed?

We dated for two years before we wrote shows together, but even before that we were helping each other with various projects, and we've always loved making each other laugh. The great thing about working with your spouse is that you're working with the person you trust most in the room. And it gives us a lot of professional things to fight about, so things are less fraught when you have to work out the personal things, like who takes the garbage out. It is, however, funny to watch a roomful of people go all quiet in rehearsal when we argue over lyrics. They clearly think our disagreement is more fraught because we're a couple. They're waiting for one of us to shout "Divorce!" but really, that's quite rare.

3. What made you want to write "Life of the Party"? 

Back in 1997 we saw a documentary called "East Side Story" about the brave artists who made movie musicals in Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries. We were enthralled. Making a musical is tough enough without the threat of prison and death hanging over your head. The idea of a life or death struggle to make something as silly as a musical struck us as dark and absurd at the same time. And we love dark and absurd.

As we explored the idea, though, we realized it was a little bigger and weirder than your average musical. Initially we only thought of the absurdity: the comedy of numbers about grain production quotas and so on, but when you read some of the history of the Stalin era and discover the extent of the repression and tragedy, you can't just make a silly comedy out of it. You don't want to do a disservice to the people who lived -- sometimes bravely, sometimes less so -- through it. 

So as the story began to develop, loosely based on real people, and how they had loved and worked and betrayed or defended one another,  we realized that we couldn't be flippant; it wasn't just a traditional let's-put-on-a-show story set in the wacky Soviet Union; it couldn't be The Producers, because there already was a Producers. So that's when we weren't sure what to do with it. 

And then we had the very good fortune to see our friend Paul Lincoln's production of Kismet at LaGuardia High School.

4. What made you want to write "Life of the Party" specifically for the students of LaGuardia High School of Music and Arts?

Paul and the students did an amazing job on Kismet, with very little rehearsal time, very little budget and with all these other pressures hanging over their heads, which is not unlike what the Russian movie makers had to deal with.

When Paul asked us if we would consider writing an original opera for LaGuardia, we were thrilled, but having never written a big, fancy opera, we wondered what we would write it about. And then we remembered our old idea about Soviet movie musicals. And somehow the size of the cast and orchestra available suddenly made us realize how to do it; somehow making it with the opera program helped add the dignity and gravity that would balance our anarchic and facetious tendencies. 

It's a very adult piece with some difficult themes, and the students and the school are brave to take it on. Any original piece is a huge challenge because it's being written as you rehearse it. Things change every day. You learn your lines ahead of time and then some horrible writer changes them and you have to start all over.

You also don't have other productions to look at, nor the confidence of knowing your show has been approved by previous audiences. When you do South Pacific, or HMS Pinafore, you have the comfort of knowing people have responded positively to those shows for years. On a new piece, students take a leap of faith with us every day, and that is hugely inspiring and humbling to us.

5. What do you hope audiences come away with after seeing "Life of the Party"?

Our main point, which is as suitable for a high school as it is for a giant repressive regime, is that cruelty and tyranny begin or end with one person. When anyone passes even a small cruelty along, as we all do when we are stressed and scared-- it builds a system of fear and repression that soon feeds itself. All the characters in the show live in a place where standing up to injustice is unthinkable, and the only clear survival strategy is to pass the madness along. They may even feel justified doing it, for reasons of revenge or self-preservation.

But what's amazing is that the artists we studied found ways to communicate hope, joy, even secret messages of liberty and freedom, even after the movies were censored and butchered and re-edited by scores of censors and re-writers, even all the way up to Stalin himself.  Somehow these artists kept a spark alive. As a result many of these films are beloved in the former Iron Curtain countries even today. We wanted to honor that too.

6. What has been the best part about working with Paul Lincoln? How did this collaboration between you happen? 

The best part about working with Paul Lincoln is we trust one another.  We've known him for over a decade, and having been friends before we were collaborators, we try not to be rude to each other. Unless it results in a really good punchline. Paul has a huge amount of experience in a dozen disciplines - music, singing, acting, dance, directing, design. He also is tireless and generous and the kids know it. They sense how lucky they are, and it helps motivate and focus them. And motivating and focusing a cast of 65 seventeen-year-olds is hard.

But we should also add that these kids are among the most dedicated and talented people we've ever worked with. The amount of trust, commitment, energy and generosity which they have given to our untested, unproven show is probably a lot more than we deserve.

7. What is your favorite part of the creative process in writing lyrics/music for a show? Where is your favorite place to write? 

We like being in a rehearsal room when actors start saying their lines and you start rewriting specifically to suit them. This back-and-forth has all kinds of benefits - it helps them breathe better, time things better; sound better, land jokes and heartfelt moments better. It's much more exciting to hear what an actor does with your line than to listen to the voices in your head. Listening to the voices in your head is a dangerous long-term strategy.

8. Is your writing process different for stage work than film/television? If so, how?

The writing process for us is very similar; there are many similarities in the drafts, deadlines, readings, workshops, etc. The only real difference is the amount of money involved and the amount of power the employers have. But their goals are the same too; to protect their investment of time and money, and to make audiences happy.

I think the differences come less from the medium and more from who initiated the project. If you write your own show and sell it you have a different position than if you get hired to adapt someone else's preexisting property. But we try to take a consistent approach and always take jobs that offer a clear point and shows with a clear message that entertain and inspire us. And be as nice as we can from the first meeting on.

9. You have written the music and lyrics for two of my favorite theatrical shows "Legally Blonde" and "Bat Boy." Looking back, what was the best part about writing for these two shows?

So glad you like them! Thanks very much. Well, the saddest part about Bat Boy was that Nell didn't work on it. Larry regrets that. But Blonde was a great experience in tons of ways. Our favorite memory was the Sitzprobe in San Francisco, a few days before our first preview, when our cast and band packed into a tiny room to play and sing the full orchestrations for the first time. After three weeks of tech it was the best party we'd ever been to.

10. What have you learned about yourselves from being lyricist/composers?

We have learned that we are competitive with each other. And we've learned how to edit, which is much harder than learning to write. It's very hard to learn to cut your own writing down, and to edit out your own fabulous ideas, but if your fabulous ideas don't work, they're not fabulous. And when your writing partner/spouse tells you to cut them, well, it's worth listening to.

11. What's the best advice you've ever received? 

Our favorite is: "If it can be cut, it must be cut." And the second best is: "all plot and all songs begin with the question, why is today different from all other days?"

12. If you could dream about anyone while you sleep, who would it be? 

A huge, happy audience. (It makes those dreams where you're naked so much better).

BONUS QUESTIONS:

13. Favorite way to spend your day off?

In a hotel room in a foreign country.

14. If you could have any super power, which would you choose?

Mind control. There are lots of superpowers that are great in a fight, but how much better if you don't have to fight at all because everyone always agrees with you. I often think of Star Wars: when you're young and you first see the Star Wars films you think "Light sabers are the coolest weapon to fight with!" and then you see the Jedi throwing things around and shooting lightning with their hands and think "No, that's the coolest weapon in a fight! You don't have to worry about where you put your lightsaber!" But then you re-watch Alec Guinness say "These are not the droids you're looking for" and realize "Not getting into a fight is the best of all."

Bobby Cronin

Bobby Cronin is a writer/director/composer to keep your eyes on. He writes in a contemporary musical theatre style with powerful, yet touching lyrics. Bobby's work has been seen in the U.S. & abroad. His musicals include: "B.R.A.T.T. CAMP", a contemporary pop/rock musical which had a capacity-max reading produced by New York Theatre Barn at MTC studios in 2007; "'TIL DEATH DO US PART", a large musical about the mystifying murder of a southern preacher;  "THAT'S ANDY", a new musical about a boy who wants to play "Annie" in his local town production; "A CHRISTMAS CAROL",  a musical adaptation of the classic story which has been seen at regional theaters across the country as well as on tour; and with the support and guidance of Stephen Schwartz himself,  Bobby directed, developed, and wrote a musical entitled "FROM THIS DAY FORWARD A SCHWARTZ MUSICAL JOURNEY", about four twenty-somethings living and loving in NYC, using over 100 songs of Mr. Schwartz' to tell this story. Bobby just completed a two-performance, one night only sold-out live recording concert of his music entitled "Reach The Sky" at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in NYC featuring some of today's biggest and brightest Broadway stars. If you missed this incredible concert, you do have a chance to catch an encore this Sunday, August 23 at 7pm at The Duplex in NYC. Be sure to catch this show! For more on Bobby, visit http://www.bobbycronin.com.

1. Who inspired you to become a composer? Ever since I was a little boy, I would make up songs; in the backyard, on the ice while playing hockey, in my bedroom while trying to fall asleep. I never took piano lessons but was obsessed with the piano. Composing was my greatest hobby. I would write to express my feelings of sorrow or elation or confusion. I found it easier to put those feelings into song.

Fast-forward to five years ago when I played one of my songs for a group of people at a party and they were adamant that I start sharing it with others. So, I came up with the idea of BRATT CAMP and began calling myself a composer. I guess you can say that my friends inspired me...

2. Who is the one person you haven't worked with that you would like to? Stephanie Block -- for real.

3. Do you have any strange or unusual talent that no one knows about? I am a great hockey player.

4.  Favorite way to stay in shape? Rollerblading, weight lifting, walking instead of taking the subway.

5. Boxer or Briefs? Boxer briefs!!

6. Animal Crackers or Oreos? I would say the inside of the Oreo.

7. Favorite drink? Diet coke, Iced Coffee, or Tequila!

8. Favorite author? I prefer biographies or autobiographies.

9. Favorite website? Facebook!

10. Superman or Wonder Woman? Superman can fly...

BONUS QUESTIONS:

11. Summer Resort or Winter Retreat? Summer Resort.

12. How old were you when you had your first "real" kiss? 5th grade...on the bus coming back from the haunted house.