Sondheim is Alive ( with links to Sondheim tributes )

Sondheim lives. At the time of his death last week, his shows Company and Assassins were on stage in New York, the new film adaptation of West Side Story was ready to hit theatres December 10, and he himself was a character in a film of Jonathan Larson's Tick, Tick, Boom that started streaming around the time. Sondheim shows play around the world 12 months of every year.

That may be surprising, as the "smash hit" always eluded Sondheim, and many of his shows lost money (a lot!) in their original productions.

But Sondheim will live because actors love him. That's the strong message that comes through in tributes since his death.

[PHOTO: Actors and fans gathered in Times Square after his death to sing "Sunday," Sondheim's anthem about art that transforms ordinary life into something that lives "Forever"]

On screen and in print, actors have testified how Sondheim's words and music are so particularly expressive, giving them so much to do. Bernadette Peters said that a quarter note rest in a Sondheim song is there because of something the character is feeling. Patti Lupone suggested to Sondheim that his acting in student productions carried over into his songwriting, and he agreed. When she asked about characters he'd created, he reminded her that his collaborators created them, but he explored them the way good actors do. (He admitted to her that Mama Rose from GYPSY was his favorite - such a monster, and "so full of life.")

In my teens, guided by critics, I loved Sondheim for all the wrong reasons. He revolutionized the art form, he dared to write dissonances in his music, he used the word "Goddam" in a musical, he chose dark subjects.  By touting the difficulty of Sondheim's music and the cleverness of his rhymes, I claimed my own sophistication. 

In the same way, professors and critics teach how Shakespeare advanced the art form, examined dark themes, and wrote dense poetry.  But Shakespeare has lived in spite of being reduced to quiz points and essay topics.   Since Shakespeare's grateful actor friends published his work in 1623, actors and directors have delighted in the challenges of his work. They've related to the characters; they've owned the insights; they've enjoyed opportunities that Shakespeare gives them to show off their range.

Likewise, Sondheim.

I've already seen well-regarded novelists, favorites of mine, fade into irrelevance within a couple of years of their deaths. I expect Sondheim to live on. 

[See my grown-up reflection on Sondheim's virtuosity in music and lyrics. See my Sondheim page for many more articles about him, his craft, shows, collaborators, friends, and competitors.]

Links to Sondheim Tributes

• Central Synagogue in New York did a solemn, beautiful tribute with thoughtful words and a medley of Sondheim songs that fit the context of a religious service. Synagogue Tribute.
• A British actor/musician has put together a wonderful video using clips from shows with animated snippets of piano score and lyrics to explain why Sondheim's work is so compelling. He ends with a heartfelt thank-you to Sondheim for the "humanity" (understanding, honesty, acceptance) that helped the author through difficult teen years. See Why Sondheim's Music is so Addictive
• NPR's tribute by Jeff Lunden
• NPR critic Bob Mondelo's tribute is both comprehensive and personal. The conclusion got to me: Sondheim always did "Move On," and "now we must, too."(My friend Susan and I chatted with Mondelo about Sondheim's Road Show during our visit to NPR HQ the day we saw that musical.)
• A New York Times article celebrates Sondheim's lifelong mission to encourage theatre writers and performers, often with typewritten notes.  (I have four examples framed on my wall.)
  
• Scott Simon on Sondheim's Essential Lyrics: A Soundtrack for Life is the most personal assessment, and strong. I especially appreciate how Simon draws from the song "Someone in a Tree" for Sondheim's celebration of the particulars in life that we hold in our hearts.
• Broadway actors sing SUNDAY
• Patti Lupone's tribute incorporates her interview with Sondheim at his home when COMPANY was about to open, just before the pandemic closed everything down. She focuses on his early experiences as actor, and there are surprises and laughs. She tries to tell him directly "thank you" for all of us and tears up, but he gets the message.
• Max Freedman, journalist and former actor from a musical theatre family, creates a "playlist" of Sondheim songs by way of showing what the bard of ambivalence taught him in life. It's great!
• Not a posthumous tribute, this compilation of teenagers telling what Sondheim has meant for them is very affecting. It's posted by the guy who does the wonderful YouTube series Musical Theatre Mash.
• NPR's list of 10 Sondheim songs we'll never stop listening to
• Video from PBS News Hour features Sondheim on rhymes, then an interview with critic Ben Brantley and theatre director Eric Schaeffer
• New York Post obituary
• Classical music figures including Jake Heggie and Renee Fleming share their tributes to Sondheim
• An appreciation in LGBTQ Nation focuses on Sondheim's growth from closeted gay man to gay icon.
• Michael Granoff wrote Sondheim and Me, personal memories of the composer, who was a family friend.

Chris Thile, in Atlanta, Alone

We've seen Chris Thile in Atlanta with his group Nickel Creek and with a large cast of actors and musicians for his variety show Live from Here [see my blog posts of 04/2017 and 05/2018]. He's always been the life of the party, playing off the others on stage.

So what could he do all alone last Monday, November 22 at the vast Symphony Hall of Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Center? In disbelief before the show, several members of the audience took photos of the forlorn stage, draped in black, bare except for a microphone stand and stool.

Thile filled the space and a good 90 minutes with a dozen or more characters. He greeted us as old friends that he hadn't seen in a long time -- which, in fact, we are.

He opened with a suite of songs and followed up with amusing stories about his connections to each one. He brought Bach into the mix, whose persona and imagination are crystal clear when Thile plays his mandolin. Later, he introduced Bach to an admirer, Bartok.

We got to meet young fundamentalist Chris Thile in dialogue with his older agnostic-but-still-searching self, performing songs on the theme of spirituality from his truly solo album Laysongs. He conjured the devil for a 12-minute musical drama "Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth." He explained, "The voice is Screwtape," a devil from C. S. Lewis's book The Screwtape Letters, "and the mandolin is me." (November 22 happens to be the day in 1963 Lewis died concomitantly with JFK. The Episcopal church honors Lewis on that date.)

Bob Dylan's fare-thee-well song "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" was a piece of musical theatre. When Thile sang, "It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe," the presence of that woman was reflected in his face and tone, and we felt as if we were witnessing the break-up of a tumultuous relationship.

Of course, Thile shared the spotlight with his mandolin, a character with a mind of its own. Between verses, it veered off into other keys, moods, and strange sound effects.

Thile's voice plays many parts. At times it's a crooner, a yodeler, and an operatic countertenor sustaining straight high tones. In a very affecting moment, Thile stepped away from the mic to sing softly with the house.

At age 62, now, I recognized the same mix of ages and types that I found so remarkable 20 years ago when he performed with Nickel Creek at the Variety Playhouse -- teens and their grandparents, and everyone in between - hipsters, ex-hippies, cowboys, churchgoers, Bohemians.

That bodes well for Thile's professional longevity. If mine holds up, I'll see him again.

Stewardship Message: "The Creator Doesn't Need Our Money, But..."

Good morning. Besides singing with the choir, I work with EfM, and I’m clerk of the Vestry. That means I take notes while others explore options and make hard decisions. That means I have all the fun with none of the responsibility.

But when I was a voting member of the Vestry, I would wake in the night worried because pledges came in so slowly. We saw needs and we saw opportunities, but without pledges to make the budget, our hands were tied. Worse, we had to contemplate cutting programs and staff. This happened every year that I was on the Vestry, and it has happened every year since. We’ve always made it, but it has always been a close call.

When I became Senior Warden, I read books on stewardship. They offered nothing that I didn’t already see here.

[PHOTO: The view from the lectern at evening. Photo by Susan Rouse, 2018.]

Then, doing research for EfM, I ran across a great stewardship message from the days of Queen Elizabeth (the First). For a pledge drive in 1599, Richard Hooker preached that “the Creator of Heaven and Earth does not need our money. Rather, it is we who need to give it.”

That message resonated with me, because of something a counselor said when I was just out of college and he was helping me to find my way. I was working a minimum wage job, and one hour with him cost as much as rent. But when I told him that I would ask Mom and Dad to foot the bill, he said no. He explained that money does more than pay for a product or service; money is a symbol. It expresses our values. He said that, unless I paid to the limit of my ability, I would not be committed to our work. He cut his fee in half so that what I gave would be mine, and would mean a lot to me.

Likewise at St. James Church. The more I’ve given, the more deeply I’ve felt invested in the ministries of the church, even the ones that don’t involve me.

For the sake of maintaining this campus, our staff, worship, music, education, and our ministry of hospitality;

for the sake of the youth and families, couples and singles, retired people and those beyond our walls that we want to draw in;

for the sake of our own faith and personal connection to the Body of Christ; and

for the sake of our Vestry’s getting a good night's sleep,

Pledge to the limit of your ability, and pledge now.

How Stephen Sondheim Responded When I Told Him His Impact on Me

Mr. Sondheim died at his home today at age 91. On his 80th birthday, I sent him my blogpost about him as my teacher (see my tribute).

His response, typed on the same tiny rectangle of stationery as communications going back to 1977, read "Dear Scott Smoot, Thank you for sending me the article. I blush."

I feel so much gratitude.

PS - Tonight my friend Jason sent this perfect selection from Sondheim's work:

If I cannot fly, let me sing.

See my Sondheim page for a curated list of articles about him, his work, his collaborators and competitors, and his impact on my personal life and faith.

Boston, "City on a Hill"

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356 miles from Shillington PA to Boston MA
October 19 - November 18

I've biked enough miles on trails around Atlanta this past month to reach Boston, latest stop on my virtual world tour of places I've lived and loved.

I visited Boston in 2013 with my friend Suzanne to see where the city's founder John Winthrop and his nemesis Anne Hutchinson faced each other in the 1630s. Since 1992, I've drafted three or four scripts for an opera that I want to compose about them. Their confrontation is mythical, i.e., a true story that keeps happening -- and not just because their descendants faced off for President in 2004 (Kerry descended from Winthrop, Bush from Hutchinson).

[PHOTO: My friend Suzanne happened to be in Boston again Saturday, where she photographed one of the public gardens. I slipped in a selfie from my ride in downtown Atlanta the week before.]

My opera's working title is City on a Hill, because John Winthrop made that Biblical epithet for Jerusalem into the Massachusetts Bay Company's mission statement. Preaching on the deck of the Arbella before they landed, he said the Puritans must show the world how a faithful community can govern itself with mutual care. His inspirational sermon is history's first statement of "American exceptionalism" and the opening number for my opera. Then a big chorus number will cover the next few years as everyone pitches in to build Boston -- homes and government -- from scratch.

But I've also considered calling the opera Inner Voice for Anne Hutchinson's inner assurance that God had chosen her for heaven. When you've got that, she preached, you don't need "good works," sin isn't a deal-breaker, and no one but no one can tell you what's right for you to do. In the precarious balance between individual choice and community responsibility that we still see today in battles over mandates and gun regulations, she tipped the scale on the side of radical individualism. I wrote her first song with a scale outside the usual major-minor ones because she brings an alien element into Winthrop's precious project.

I love the fact that she moved across the street from the Winthrops with her doting husband and their 20-odd children. [A pizza place and a bank occupy those spaces today. See a photo from my pilgrimage to the site, along with other pictures of Suzanne and me on our New England trip in 2013]. Winthrop was alarmed to see both men and women, his wife included, filling Hutchinson's house to hear her teach, with an overflow crowd in the street. On Sundays, her followers heckled preachers who implied that salvation depended on doing "good works." Her male disciples gained office, including the governorship.

It took a couple of years, but Winthrop out-maneuvered her. The finale of act one is the chaotic election that he relocated outside of town where his rural supporters would outnumber her urban ones -- a kind of gerrymandering before that term existed. Once he re-takes the reins of government, he puts her on trial.

Although Winthrop wrote a book about their confrontation to justify his behavior to the English public, he's remarkably candid about the unnamed adversary he refers to as "that woman." Since Anne Hutchinson left behind no writings, we can thank Winthrop for reporting how she out-argued him and his minions on points of law and Scripture. In the end, Winthrop abandoned all pretense of reason and just pulled rank to expel her and her supporters.

For my opera, the climactic aria would be Anne's prophecy. When she saw that facts and law weren't going to win her case, she cut loose and predicted doom for all of her enemies. Officers sought to silence her, but Winthrop signaled them to let her go on: he saw an opportunity. When she finished, he asked innocently how she could be so sure about the future. God told me, she said. Even her supporters gasped, for everyone accepted that the time of God's revelation ended with the book of Revelation. She was effectively admitting to some kind of supernatural spirit communication, i.e., witchcraft.

When my friend Suzanne and I visited Boston in 2013, we saw posters for a new opera about, yes, Anne Hutchinson's confrontation with John Winthrop. Sigh. I was deflated.

Still, there are multiple operas about some characters, Orpheus, Figaro, Manon Lescaut. I'm retired now, with some time on my hands, so there may yet be a future for City on a Hill.

←← | ← || → Use the arrows to follow my bike tour from the start.

Dementia Diary: "Miraculous"

These days, Mom's thoughts often get scrambled before she can push them out. But she said very clearly that turning 87 was "miraculous." She'd had no idea she was that old, and she seemed pleased with herself.

The staff at Arbor Terrace had done up her hair. Laura, her longtime companion from Visiting Angels, brought balloons and a card. She made sure Mom was spiffy in nice clothes with pearl earrings and she was helping Mom with lipstick when my sister Kim and I arrived after lunch. Reminded to "kiss" a tissue to remove excess lipstick, Mom instead used her fingers and blew a kiss to us.

We brought an orchid, cupcakes with blue and yellow icing, and a chocolate shake. When we observed that the icing colored her mouth, she stuck out her blue tongue.

During a visit on October 28, Kim helped Mom to don her old tap shoes. Seated, Mom immediately tapped.

Find a list of my other articles covering our experiences over the past decade in my page Dementia Diary

Thelma Craig Maier Remembered on All Soul's Day

On All Souls Day, Episcopalians remember people who helped us in our spiritual growth. My maternal grandmother Thelma Craig Maier (1902-1991), who died thirty years ago, said nothing to me about spirituality except "God is love." She attended church for awhile near the end, but never went back after the preacher announced that she was the church's oldest member.

Still, she was part of my spiritual growth, and she is still with me, as I wrote in a blogpost about significant dreams:

My grandmother lived in a modest but immaculate home in Madeira, north of Cincinnati. It was a home purchased by her son, my Uncle Jack, in the late 1940s. She moved in when Jack and his wife Blanche moved to the swanky Indian Hills neighborhood.

Not long after my grandmother died, I had a vivid dream from which I awoke with tears streaming down my face. That was unprecedented, and I took notice! In the dream, I searched every room of her home for "the secret to me." Something there, I didn't know what, was the key to my personality and my future. I cried because I could not find it.

On reflection, the "key" was nothing in the house, but the house itself: the sense of myself as loved, worthy, special, that I felt whenever I visited my grandmother's home. Her antiques and her notions of interior decoration (pink shag rug in the kitchen, pink marbled wall paper in the tiny bathroom along with and chandeliered sconces) made the place, for me, the epitome of class.
from Geography of the Self (blogpost of 04/2013)

[My poem Wingtips condenses a much of what I say here in six short stanzas.]

She had no use for the past. "Rome," she said after a visit, "would be all right if they'd clean up all those ruins." She kept up with the times, buying a new Pontiac (remember Pontiacs?) every year, installing central air conditioning before anyone else I knew, and buying a great big color TV, the first one I ever saw.

She laughed when I asked for her earliest memory, saying, "I don't know; I've never thought about my memories." But she did recall riding the train to Kansas with her mother Myrtle Craig to the end of the rail to stand on a hard-packed dirt floor at her grandfather's deathbed.

We were reminiscing on the evening after my cousin Michael's funeral. When Michael came out as gay around 1970, his parents thought he would be a bad influence on his siblings, and he left for San Francisco. First, he stopped by our grandmother's house to tell her. "He sat right where you are now," she said, "and told me he was gay. And I said that didn't matter to me, I always love him." When he contracted AIDs, his parents welcomed him back and provided him hospice care in their home.

I never heard her discuss memories of her husband Lee, who died before I was born. My mom's cousin Pat Clark Mathers recently told me that Thelma grew tired of Lee, but Lee always adored Thelma and admired her feisty spirit. I suppose an example of that spirit was during the War, when she took a man's place on an assembly line. Her male supervisor fired her for insubordination. In the next decade, she became a real estate agent who worked her way up to high-end properties by the 1970s. Both parents doted on their children Jack and Frances.

I recently uncovered this photo of her, one I never saw before. It's posed as artfully as an 18th century portrait of a queen: expression dignified, posture erect, hair sculpted, nails done, enthroned in her favorite chair, every object in view a valuable antique.

But this is the way I remember her best, dressed for dinner out, smiling, on a pink sofa:

Here is Thelma Maier, looking professional in the late 1940s (I think). Thanks to Amy Liss for the photo!

Here she is with her two children, very early in World War II:

While I've devoted no single page to my grandmother before today, I can see her everywhere in this blog. She's mentioned specifically in these postings:

• Memory and Ritual: Solace at the Solstice (09/2015) recalls when Dad took me at age six on a business trip to Cincinnati to spend one unforgettable day with my grandmother
• Conversations with the Dead (12/2011) includes a passage about my grandmother's "receding" into a world of ghosts during her final years.