Steven Blier on the NYFOS@Caramoor Residency: March 14 I’m happy to report that the show went beautifully yesterday. I quarantined myself for about 70 minutes beforehand (a few intruders tiptoed around me) and had a serious talk with my hands. They had a few things to say to me too, but after practicing gently (but […]
Read MoreSteven Blier on the NYFOS@Caramoor Residency: Day 6, March 12 We’re ready. Well anyway, the cast is. Dress rehearsal went quite beautifully. We have the luxury of actual lighting (a rarity in my concerts, something I don’t get at Juilliard or in San Francisco), and the show flows quite well. We’re not quite sure how long […]
Read MoreSteven Blier on the NYFOS@Caramoor Residency: Day 5, March 11 Today was finish-the-staging day; work-with-the-props day; make-the-choice-about-who-is-playing-which-song day; work-with-the-lighting guy day; and (most of all) do-our-first-run-through day. In other words, the penultimate day of a week-long rehearsal period. It is usually a white-knuckle experience, fraught with “we won’t get done in time.” But today, somehow not. […]
Read MoreSteven Blier on the NYFOS@Caramoor Residency: Day 4, March 10 Today was a very satisfying day, Caramoor Rising Stars at its best. The tentativeness of the beginning of the week has melted away, and the place was really buzzing with energy. Everyone brings high quality eyes, ears, and minds to the project, and I was struck […]
Read MoreSteven Blier on the NYFOS@Caramoor Residency: Day 3, March 9 Wednesday is usually the last day of free exploration before the reality of Sunday’s performance starts to assert a kind of Realpolitik. Soon we’ll all start to see where the boundaries of our techniques and stylistic flexibility are, and we’ll cut whatever deals are necessary. But […]
Read MoreSteven Blier on the NYFOS@Caramoor Residency: Day 2, March 8 Today was the first time we got into the hall, after a morning spent doing musical work in two rehearsal spaces (boys with Mikey, girls with me). It felt kind of a bit roguish, going off with just half the cast to do private work. […]
Read MoreSteven Blier on the NYFOS@Caramoor Residency: Day 1, March 7 This year’s residency at Caramoor was scheduled so close to my concert at San Francisco Opera that I simply collided into the first day of rehearsal today. I’d done as much as I could to get ready but I had to break one of my recent […]
Read MoreYesterday we had a break in our routine. It was our first day without Adam Cates, the choreographer, and that always makes us feel as if daddy has gone away. (Were we bad?) And Mary Birnbaum, our director, also took most of the day off for meetings time-sensitive chores; she just popped in for half […]
Read MoreA few years ago I had the brilliant inspiration to take another pianist on board to help me with the Juilliard rehearsals. We work six hours a day, seven days in a row, and in previous years I found myself morphing into a rehearsal pianist, exhausted, taking short cuts, husbanding resources, fighting for survival. By […]
Read MoreThe work continued today much as yesterday, with a significant difference. In the morning I received an email in which Sam Levine brought up a thorny question: “Do you think anyone will be bothered by the racial and gender politics in the show?” He was referring especially to an Arlen tune, “Two Ladies in the Shade of the Banana Tree” from House of Flowers. Clearly Sam, who is very smart and very aware, was uncomfortable with it, and I could see where all of this was coming from. The song is sung by what we would now call two sex workers in a brothel, and they extol the virtues of their island and the beauty of its women. It’s a rollicking piece with a great tune, sunny spirits, and a bit of sass. It is fun. It is not Brecht. And yes, it was written by white men, a straight Jew (Arlen) and a gay gentile (Truman Capote).
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