Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

I'm sitting in a small study, 19 stories up, with the New York skyline spreading wide beneath me. The sight makes me a little dizzy. In the room with me are Charles Strouse, Barbara Siman, two successful Broadway actors, an alumna of the NYU Graduate Music Theatre Writing Program, and a professor from NAU who is working on some kind of an article.

The group is discussing the latest Charles Strouse musical revue--a line-up of catchy showtunes, jazzy ballads, and Sondheim-esque art songs. We're searching for a unifying theme. The conversation is snappy, and everybody seems able to speak at once while somehow still paying attention to the others. Alan, a polished musician, begins singing "Love" (an outtake from Annie Warbucks) in his rich baritone voice, and suddenly all the splendor of a Broadway stage is right here in this modest room. (Strip Broadway of its spectacle and glitz, and what've you got? The true magic: Sheer creative energy and raw talent!)

Soon the dialogue turns to Alan's solo, "It Was Worth the Price."

Charles: "This is a song about the love of theater."

Jason: "It's also about paving the way for future generations, you know? I hear young actors complaining about union requirements all the time, and I think, 'You have no idea what it was like before the union. . .'"

Alan: "But this idea of something being worth the price doesn't have to be generic. It hits home for me because, although there were struggles then, there are struggles now too. My grandfather may have paved the way for me, but I continue fighting my own battles, and I learn from his perseverance. His triumph motivates mine."

Charles: "You just wrote the piece for me! I'll work in the new bits."

If only I could snap my fingers and conjure up a brainstorming session like this every time I'm trying to work out a musical kink. Get enough creative minds in one room and it seems there's no obstacle too large to overcome.

After a couple of hours, Charles' wife, Barbara, whisks him off to another engagement. A few others stay on, discussing the structure and feel of the show, but most start gathering their things. As Alan leaves, he winks and says, "Bye, Mary Ann." I smile politely, assuming he's forgotten my name. "You know Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island, right? The one with the pigtails? You look just like her!"

I've never seen "Gilligan's Island," so of course I had to come home and google "Mary Ann." And you know what? I can totally see the resemblance between us:

Kidding!!! :-) I don't really see the likeness. But, in fairness, here's how I actually looked on the day of the rehearsal:

So I guess I get to play the role of the li'l corn-fed gal moving to the big ol' city for the very first time. :-) I don't mind. I'm certainly not the first idealistic dreamer to land in New York City!

NYC definitely moves at a quick pace--quicker even than a place like Boston. I feel like I'm living life in fast-forward these days! Let's play a little game of, say, five truths and a lie, and you can guess which has NOT happened within the last 48 hours:

*****

1. Jewel offered me Charles' free VIP tickets to a performance of several new one-act plays. . .and I turned them down to attend Institute at the LDS chapel instead. (Travel tip: The LDS chapel across from the Lincoln Center is an OASIS of cool air in the desert of New York heat!) And speaking of LDS buildings, Jewel told me that, when she lived in Las Vegas, she used to take her coffee to the Mormon temple grounds and soak in the atmosphere. Ironic, but sweet. :-)

2. I went BACK to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to buy a second fan. . .and the fans were gone! There must've been a massive rush because the entire section was stripped clean. To console myself, I pushed my cart onto one of those nifty little cart-only escalators only to discover that I'd sent it all the way up to the exit above the store! Hoping the security guard didn't think I was trying to steal a shopping cart, I ran up after it, smiled at him benignly, and wheeled that cart right back down again.

3. I met a friendly girl from France who is doing an internship in architecture. She wants to go to a Broadway show with me sometime. I also discovered that there are free Yoga classes in both Bryant Park and Central Park.

4. I was informed that I am now third in line to inherit designer clothes. Jewel told me that Barbara, Charles' wife, clears out her closet consistently and gives everything away. The housekeeper gets first picks, Jewel gets second, and apparently I'm #3. (Charles' wife, by the way, looks about 60. She's actually 78, and Charles himself is 82, turning 83 on Tuesday!)

5. I'm attending a performance of the ballet Giselle tonight at the Metropolitan Opera House.

6. Charles and I held a spontaneous 30-minute conversation about the future of music when I poked my head into his study today to ask if the horn part I was transcribing is concert pitch or transposed. He kept apologizing for the fact that this internship is unpaid and saying he wished he could do more for me.

*****

Okay, you caught me. Everything on my list is true. :-) I'm terrible at fabricating convincing lies, and anyway, they say that truth is often stranger than fiction. (So far for me in New York, that's proven absolutely true!)

But a bit more about my chat with Charles:

The two of us discussed some of the developments he's seen in music over the course of his lifetime and talked about the modern public's relative openness to almost any kind of music but classical (especially contemporary classical).

I love the way Charles hears things: To him, there aren't really "kinds" of music--there's just music itself. He doesn't seem to care for all the academic terminology or for divisive categorization. He describes style in terms of sound and mood, not in terms of formal analysis or harmonic structure.

"You can justify an F# all you like," he said, "but eventually you've got to let that F# lead you somewhere and develop into something you love. Alan J. Lerner used to tell me that the public has an 'idiot instinct' that musicians sometimes train out of themselves. A Broadway audience is the best, most honest critic. I've never gotten the sort of genuine, joyful responses from classical audiences that I've gotten from my audiences here. And I love that spontaneous sincerity."

I can't help wondering if there's a way to bring that sincerity of intent and genuine excitement in reception back into the world of classical music. I need to chew on the idea some more.

Charles also told me that I've got the talent and ambition to really make it someday (sweet of him to say since he's never heard any of my compositions!). I mentioned that I'd just finished a musical, and he expressed an interest in hearing the demo recordings sometime. "I hope that, in the future, I can give you the opportunities you deserve in a more lucrative situation," he said.

What a wonderful, good-hearted man!