Preview

Note: Adam is not mentioned in this piece

Show Of Songs

TheaterWorks Revue Captures Breadth And Quality Of William Finn's Music

By FRANK RIZZO | COURANT STAFF WRITER

August 20 2006

Ask William Finn about a new revue based on his music, and the composer waves his hands in a what-do-I-know gesture as his voice rises an octave.

"I said, 'Whatever you can get a hold of, do,' but I have no idea what he's using," says the Tony Award-winning composer best known for the current Broadway hit "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" and 1992's "Falsettos." "I'm not joking. I have no idea what he's doing — but it better be good, Rooooooob."

"Rooooooob" is Rob Ruggiero, associate artistic director of Hartford's TheaterWorks, which is presenting the premiere of "Make Me a Song: The Music of William Finn." Ruggiero conceived the show for four performers and a pianist and is staging the entertainment, which runs through Sept. 24.

It's the first time a show of the composer's music has been put together as a theatrical revue. In 2001, Finn hosted "Infinite Joy," a cabaret evening at Joe's Pub in New York. He and friends performed a collection of his songs, which was released on CD. But that was a special event and not a show. "Make Me a Song" may have a longer shelf life if Finn, audiences and other potential theaters respond well to the show.

The Finn show marks the second time the theater has presented a musical revue premier: Last summer's popular "Ella: Off the Record," was also staged by Ruggiero. That now-revised show is receiving several productions at regional theaters.

"I wanted to do 'Make Me a Song' because I love Bill Finn's music," says Ruggiero.

Ruggiero got to know Finn when the director was doing a production of the composer's "Falsettos" in 2002 and the song cycle "Elegies" last summer at Barrington Stage in the Massachusetts Berkshires. After an association as writer-in-residence at Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Barrington Stage (now in Pittsfield, Mass.) is the theater Finn calls home. For good reason: Barrington Stage developed and presented the premier of "Spelling Bee," the composer's biggest commercial hit. The show also allowed Barrington Stage to create a Music Theater Laboratory for new composers and writers, which Finn co-produces with artistic director Julianne Boyd.

When Ruggiero said he wanted to do an evening of the composer's songs from throughout his career, Finn said sure, go ahead. Just don't involve him.

"I just relate to his work because of its spontaneity and ruthless honesty," Ruggiero said last week before the first performance. "After doing two of his shows and seeing 'Spelling Bee' and other shows of his, I've come to realize the scope of his work and the magnitude of his talent."

The two-act revue features Sandy Binion, Joe Cassidy, Adam Heller and Sally Wilfert. John DiPinto is the pianist, and Michael Morris is the music director.

Ruggiero says the show evolved during rehearsals and that changes in the song list were made through last week's previews.

There's no narrative to the show, nor is it presented in a chronological, "and-then-he-wrote" structure. Ruggiero says the entertainment is more of a song cycle with the individual numbers often linked in a thematic, atmospheric or dramatic ways that show the breadth of Finn's career.

"Sometimes the connections among the songs are very clear, and other times they're more subtle," says Ruggiero. "I think it's thrilling to hear Bill's musical diversity, with a song like [the ballad] 'Anything' next to something like 'Four Jews in a Room Bitching.'"

Also of note is that there is no amplification in the show, a rarity even at small theaters.

"I was inspired to do it [without electronic enhancement] when, during the opening of 'Elegies' last year, the sound system went out, and the show went on anyway. It was this beautiful experience between the audience and the actor that was so pure."

Ruggiero says he was allowed to use anything from Finn's career but was limited to just one song from "Spelling Bee," which is launching its national tour this week in Atlanta (and will come to Hartford's Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in October).

There is also a collection of songs from "Falsettos," the show that earned Finn his Tony Award. (The show, which was first presented at Hartford Stage in 1991, combined Finn's two earlier short off-Broadway musicals, 1981's "March of the Falsettos" and 1990's "Falsettoland.")

Other shows tapped for tunes are Finn's off-Broadway works: 1978's "In Trousers" (a precursor to "Falsettos," and featuring that show's leading characters); 1997's "A New Brain" (dealing with the composer's own medical emergency); 2003's "Elegies: A Song Cycle" (dealing with the effects of dearly departed — both real and imagined); and "America Kicks Up Its Heels," later revised as "Romance in Hard Times."

There are also songs from an aborted show "Hitchhiking Across America," the workshop of "The Royal Family of Broadway" (based on the play "The Royal Family" by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber) and last year's gala event for his alma mater, Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.

Finn, 54, grew up in Natick, Mass., and though an early lover of musicals (at 11 he played a thin Nicely Nicely in a summer camp production of "Guys and Dolls"), it wasn't until he received a guitar at his bar mitzvah that he began to compose, sort of. "I was interested in the Beatles, Randy Newman, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon — all the singer-songwriters — and I would buy their song books. But I never played the songs the way they were written. I would always re-harmonize and rewrite them. From the very beginning, I had no interest in doing other people's songs."

What was he like at Natick High (where future Finn regular Alison Fraser was a few years behind him)?

"I thought I was delightful."

Highly precocious and confident?

"I think people thought a little too much. I didn't think enough. I was probably very irritating."

A high school drama teacher, Gerald Dyer (whom Finn saluted when he received an award from Boston theater critics this year), was a major influence. "He was a real educator," says Finn, who is a teacher-mentor at New York University and at Barrington Stage.

"We were doing ridiculously difficult pieces," says Finn of his high school days. "I did 'Exit the King' when I was a senior. I was the king. I remember the king keeps on falling and falling, and it was done in the round, and like on my eighth fall, my father said, a little too loudly, to my mother, 'Tell him to stay down.'And I could hear this!" Finn roars with laughter.

"Dyer made us feel like we were Royal Shakespeare actors, not just because he complimented us but because he had such high expectations for us. In that way, we felt entitled for years, way beyond the time we should have. That's the greatest thing a teacher could do for someone — especially if they are talented."

But not everyone was a Finn fan.

"I remember my guidance counselor saying to me, 'You're not as talented or smart as you think, and you're not going to a good college.' And I said, 'Really? Really? REALLY?' No one had spoken to me this way before — perhaps for a reason. I went to Mr. Dyer after that, and he said, 'I'll be your guidance counselor, and don't worry, you'll be going to a fine college.' "

And he did. In 1970, Finn became an English major at Williams College — the same school attended 20 years earlier by composer Stephen Sondheim, a major influence in Finn's early life after he saw a production of "Company."

"Luckily, there was no theater major," he says. "There was a music major, but I couldn't pass a basic music class. I tell students now, 'Don't major in theater because you're going to do it anyway, so take the classes you want to take.' Theater departments want to kill me when I say that."

At Williams, Finn started writing shows, beginning with a revue his freshman year that caught the attention of upperclassman Charlie Rubin. "He asked me if I wanted to write a show together for the next year, but I played the guitar, not the piano. And he said, 'Well, can you learn?' Of course, at the time you think, 'Well, I have a whole year.' You could do a lot in a year — unlike now. So that's how that started. The first show was "Sizzle," a musical based on the Rosenbergs. The next was "Rape" ("based on a book by English artist Aubrey Beardsley, a book I never finished reading. I made up the rest.")

His senior show was "Scrambled Eggs," about a whorehouse.

Finn had found his forte — and a love of unconventional subjects not normally associated with the musical stage.

There's a line in "Make Me a Song," which Finn wrote several years ago for Mandy Patinkin, that goes: "I'll tell you why I love to make music/I feel like I belong." Finn says he identifies with that sentiment.

"I think it's just finding your place in the world, and that's what I'm talking about," he says. "Writing my music makes me belong to the world in a way that I might not otherwise. It's what I do. It's my contribution. It's the room in the house that I'm good in."

He's at the stage of his life where the body of his work and extent of influence are being recognized.

"It's getting a little out of hand, being feted all the time," he says, noting his run of awards, honorary degrees and, now, the revue.

"This year, [playwright] Wendy Wasserstein died, and she was one of my greatest friends. I know there are no lessons to be learned by anyone's dying or anything, except you'd better be gracious all the time because you never know when it's going to stop."

"Make Me a Song: The Music of William Finn" is playing through Sept. 24 at Hartford's TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl St. Performances are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30. . Tickets are $35 to $55. (The show is recommended for ages 12 and up, under 10 not allowed. Free tickets are available for ages 12 to 16 at select performances.) Tickets and information: 860-527-7838 or www.theaterworkshartford.org.

HOMEPAGE