God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - 2016 - Encores! Off-Center Highlights

Описание: Here is a highlight reel, featuring footage from the recent Encores! Off-Center revival of "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," the first collaboration between composer Alan Menken and writer, director, and lyricist Howard Ashman. The musical also features additional lyrics by lyricist Dennis Green.

This revival features Santino Fontana (as Eliot Rosewater), Skylar Astin (as Norman Mushari), Derrick Baskin, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Nick Choksi, Eddie Cooper, Kevin Del Aguila, Clark Johnson, James Earl Jones, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Kevin Ligon, Marla Louissaint, Liz McCartney, Bonnie Milligan, Brynn O’Malley, and Kate Wetherhead, with direction by Michael Mayer, choreography by Lorin Latarro, and music direction by Chris Fenwick.

This video is a composite of the following:
NYCityCenter's highlights video:    • Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewat...  
Playbill's highlights video:    • Check Out Highlights From "God Bless You, ...  
TheaterMania's highlights video:    • Skylar Astin, Santino Fontana, and More Ta...  
BroadwayWorld's highlights video: http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/...

Having heard of Howard's show "Dreamstuff" (which Howard only supplied the book for), Alan, a composer and lyricist at the time, was introduced to Howard through Maury Yeston. (Howard had recently directed a workshop of Maury's musical "Nine," while Alan and Maury knew each other through the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.) Alan, a fan of Kurt Vonnegut, agreed to meet Howard, who was looking for a composer, after learning that the project he was working on was a musical based off of "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater." Coming to Alan's apartment, Alan's recalls that his first impression of Howard was that "he seemed edgy and guarded. He wore torn jeans and a bomber jacket. He talked with a tight, intense energy, chain-smoking the entire time. And he was clearly very smart." ("Interview with Alan Menken, part one" http://howardashman.com/blog/intervie...)

Alan soon began work with the show's original lyricist, Dennis Green, before Howard decided to take over as lyricist. According to Green, " I wrote two songs with Alan: 'Thank God for the Volunteer Fire Brigade' and 'Since You Came to This Town,' which was then a solo for Diana Moon Glampers. Then Howard called and said, 'Why don’t we work on this together.' I took that as a signal that he wanted to write all the lyrics. And that’s basically what happened. He kept the two songs I had written, and tweaked them to make them work within his concept of the show." ("The Making of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," Playbill Online; http://www.playbill.com/article/the-m...)

Howard soon gave Alan his first set of lyrics, "I, Eliot Rosewater." According to Alan, "If I ever had any thoughts about auditioning Howard’s work as a possible songwriting partner, he put that to rest fast. He knew what he wanted and fully intended to keep the pressure on me to prove myself to him. [...] And after making the mistake of commenting on one lyric, I followed his explicit instructions about how he imagined the song working dramatically; the style, scan, build etc. Very quickly we [wrote] our first song together." ("Before Ariel, Belle, and Audrey II, There Was Mr. Rosewater"; https://www.tdf.org/articles/1486/Bef...)

Having the rights to the novel to just an Equity showcase, Vonnegut was supportive, though hands off, with the cast and crew not knowing if the show would be able to continue after it's run at the WPA Theatre. During one of the show's rehearsals, Vonnegut showed up to watch. According to Dennis Green, "My memory is he sat there expressionless through the whole thing, barely cracking a smile. I kept thinking, Oh, Jesus. (laughs) At the end, he just shook everyone’s hand and said 'Good work, nice job'—not 'I loved it,' or anything like that. But just as he was going out the door, he did what I can only describe as a caper. He sort of jumped up and clicked his heels together. [...] We all looked at each other and said, 'Well, I guess he liked it.' Very quickly he gave his blessing to the whole project. And, of course, insisted that it be called 'Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.'"

Alan later joked "We were very young, so god knows we would have taken anything. He could’ve titled it 'Who the Fuck Are These Composers?'" ("The Making of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," Playbill Online)