Happy New Year!
I thought I’d do a little year in review roundup. I’m not one for New Year’s as a holiday. In fact, I hate New Year’s and I wrote a song about it. But I do love taking stock of a specific period of time, and the secular new year cycle provides a nice timeline for that.
On New Year’s I was busy finishing up my 2023 books, TV, movies, and theater up to the last moment. I am always jealous of folks who post their end-of-year lists in mid-December and then get to relax for the next week or two. I go up to the deadline. Here is each one:
2023 Theater
2023 Movies
2023 Books and Podcasts
2023 TV
Articles!
I had three articles published this year, two for American Theatre magazine and one for Theatermania.
- Itamar Moses: Every Day He Writes the Book. I did this interview in 2019 for a different publication that folded. I then got permission to publish it for American Theatre. I’m so proud of this interview about being a musical theater bookwriter, writing The Band’s Visit, and working on various musicals, including 2023’s An American Tail. And it was featured on the Broadway Briefing (a daily email sent out to everyone in the “industry”).
- A Composer/Singer Collaboration That’s in the Show’s DNA. There were quite a few articles on the new musical Double Helix, and mine focused on the collaboration between writer Madeline Myers and star Samantha Massell for American Theatre magazine. I loved interviewing these awesome women.
- Interview: Meet Nitra McAuliffe, Coauthor of Broadway’s Rarely Seen Musical The Lieutenant. My Theatermania debut! This was a dream interview of mine. I’d wanted to interview Nitra since I came across her name and this show years ago. A Tony-nominated woman composer with barely any online footprint? That’s right in my wheelhouse. When the York Theater did the show this past year, I had my chance.
I also had a review of the recent Broadway revival of The Skin of Our Teeth published in the Thornton Wilder Journal!
Podcasts!
I’ll start with my own musical theater podcast, Scene to Song. Here are some highlights from the year:
- Celebrated the 5-year anniversary with a special live show episode.
- Hit episode 100!
- Released 17 episodes in Scene to Song season six with awesome guests talking about a range of topics in musical theater, from Kurt Weill to Dear Evan Hansen to song cycles. Listen to them all wherever you get podcasts.
I also continued to put out the Scene to Song monthly newsletter, as well as add bonus content to the Scene to Song Patreon.
I was also a guest on three other podcast episodes this year! I love being a guest.
- Grease! on The Original Cast with Patrick Flynn. The Original Cast has a guest come on to talk about an original musical cast album. Think you know Grease!? You don’t! Or maybe you do because you were in the musical in high school as I was. Either way, this was a good discussion about what the original production of Grease is actually like (as opposed to the popular movie), how we think about nostalgia, 70s musicals, and my own history with high school musicals.
- “Ah, But Underneath” on Kyle Marshall’s podcast Putting it Together. Putting it Together goes through Sondheim’s entire body of work, song by song, with different guests. For this string of episodes, Kyle was revisiting songs that were already covered, and I seized the opportunity to talk about why “Ah, But Underneath” is superior to “The Story of Lucy and Jessie.” Pretty niche, but if you are familiar with Follies you should be able to follow along because I talk about what’s fascinating about Phyllis’s character, the nuances of the Loveland sequence with all the follies songs, and more.
- “Move On” from Sunday in the Park with George on Putting it Together. I return to Putting it Together for the Sunday in the Park with George season to talk about a song that everyone seems to love, and I have a lot of thoughts about. I was thrilled to be asked back to talk about my favorite Sondheim show.
Musicals!
It was a big year for my musical Days of Rage with composer and bookwriter Hyeyoung Kim. We had an industry reading on December 4th, which was featured on Playbill and the Broadway Briefing.
More 2023 dramatic writing highlights:
- Finished a new draft of my musical Lightning Man with composer Jeffrey Dennis Smith
- Finished drafts of two TV pilots and took two TV writing classes at Primary Stages ESPA
Everything Else!
- Served on the board on the Thornton Wilder Society, putting out monthly member emails, running the Facebook page and updating the website, and organizing Zoom play and book readings. Interested in becoming a member and/or joining the readings? Learn more here or email thorntonwildersociety@gmail.com.
- Continued to take voice lessons with Innovative Voice Studio, performance classes with Tony-winner Randy Graff, and Alexander Technique with Karen Braga.
- Earned a certificate in Project Management from Cornell.
- Traveled to Montreal and Chicago, as well as my hometown of Philadelphia.
- Ran three races in NYC/Central Park: the 4-mile Pride Run, the 3.5-mile JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, and the 5K Abbott Dash to the Finish.
- Ate a lot of biscuits at Harlem Biscuit Company.