Into the Woods

Stephen Sondheim was born March 22, 1930 in New York City. He has won 8 Grammy awards, 8 Tony awards, 7 Drama Desk Awards, 1 OBIE Award, and 6 Lawrence Olivier Awards. His interest in theatre stemmed from the first Broadway musical he saw when he was nine years old, Very Warm for May. His father abandoned him and his mother when he was ten years old. After that, his relationship with his mother was very rocky. During his childhood, Sondheim befriended James Hammerstein, son of Oscar Hammerstein II. Oscar Hammerstein II had a great influence on Sondheim and helped to grow his love of musical theatre. After an apprenticeship with Hammerstein in which Sondheim wrote four musicals, Sondheim’s career got off to a rocky start. His big break came a few years later when he was twenty-five. Sondheim was hired to write the lyrics for West Side Story in 1957. It was a huge hit, and Sondheim’s career took off. In the next thirty years, Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, and Sunday in the Park with George just to name a few. In 1986, Stephen Sondheim wrote Into The Woods and was awarded a Tony Award, Grammy Award, and a Drama Desk Award for his work on the production. After Into the Woods, Sondheim wrote Assassins, Passion, Bounce, Frogs, and Road Show. In 2008, he was awarded a Special Tony Award for his lifetime achievement in theatre.

James Lapine was born and raised in Mansfield, Ohio on January 10, 1949. He graduated in 1971 from Franklin and Marshall College and went on to do graduate work at the California Institute of the Arts where he studied photography and graphic design. After he finished his education, he went on to teach design at the Yale School of Drama. While teaching, he wrote off-Broadway plays and musicals. In 1981, he collaborated with composer William Finn on March of the Falsettos. He was introduced to Stephen Sondheim in 1981. They worked together on Sunday in the Park with George in which Lapine wrote the book and directed while Sondheim wrote the music. Their next collaboration was Into the Woods, which earned Lapine a Tony and Drama Desk Award for Best Book of a Musical. They worked together again on the musical Passion. Passion was nominated for multiple awards and won Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. In 1992, Lapine began working with William Finn again. They wrote Falsettos, New Brain, and The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Lapine has won 5 Drama Desk Awards, 3 Tony Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2010, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim and book written by James Lapine. It was inspired by The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and importance of Fairy Tales written by Bruno Bettelheim. Into the Woods made its stage debut in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and it opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on November 5, 1987. It closed after 764 performances on September 3, 1989.  The original cast included Bernadette Peters and Joanna Gleason who won a Tony Award for her performance. The musical has been produced many, many times both at professional and amateur levels. There is even a bood for the junior version of the show. Since it originally opened on Broadway, there has been a national tour, an opening on the West End, a revival on the West End, a Broadway revival, a London revival, and a movie. Into the Woods won Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book and Best Revival, a Drama Desk Award for Best Musical, and a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival.

The play follows the lives of a handful of Brothers Grimm fairy tale characters and how their journeys intertwine when they go into the woods. The audience finally gets an answer to the question, “What happens after happily ever after?” The baker and his wife wish to have a child. Cinderella wishes to go to the King’s festival, and Jack wishes his cow would give them milk. They all go into the woods to get what they want, and eventually, everyone’s wish is granted. The characters quickly learn that they should be careful.

The show is a dark comedy about what happens when life doesn’t turn out to be as happily ever after as expected. It comments on morality, growing up, parent-children relationships, and the consequences of getting exactly what you want. Through the course of the play, the characters learn to be less selfish and more compassionate towards others. At the start, all they care about is their wishes being granted, but by the end, they really care about each other and become much more selfless.

1.     In most productions, the same actors play Mysterious Man and the narrator, Cinderella’s prince and the wolf, and Granny and Cinderella’s mother. Do you think this adds to the production or detracts from it? Why?

2.     In Act I, the wolf and Little Red Ridinghood sing “Hello Little Girl.” What do you think the theme is behind their interaction?

3.     There are a lot of characters in this show. Some reviewers have said that the stage is too crowded at most times. Do you agree? Why or why not?

4.     What do you think the witch represents in the musical?  

5.     The witch says, “I’m not good. I’m not nice. I’m just right.” What does she mean? Do you think this statement is contradictory?

6.     The witch loves Rapunzel. She keeps her locked in a tower to keep her safe from the world, which she believes to be dangerous. Do you think she is justified in her actions or is she too strict on Rapunzel?

7.     The baker and his wife are go into the woods to break the curse which will allow them to have children and start a family. What do you think about the baker’s wife’s encounter with the prince in the woods?

8.     In Act II, Jack, Baker, Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood, and the witch sing “Your Fault.” The characters are in the middle of a crisis. Why is it so important for them to lay the blame on someone?

9.     In the second act, the characters sing “No One is Alone.” In the first act, all of the characters were only concerned with their own interests and wishes. How do the characters change from the first act to the part of the second act where they sing this song?

10. This play is about fairy tale characters. Even though it is completely fiction, do you find this show to be relatable to real life? 
11. First Rapunzel's prince goes blind, then the two stepsisters followed by the giant. Why do you think that blindness comes up in the play so many times?  Do you think it represents anything? 
12. To all of you people on the production side of things... What challenges do you think about when you think about staging, designing for, set dressing, costuming, etc. this show?



Bonus question: As a singer who has been playing music and singing for over 15 years, I feel that I am relatively good at reading music. However, when I did this show, the songs kicked my butt. I think this is some of the hardest music I've ever encountered to keep up with. The time signatures are out of control. I'm really interested to see if anyone else picked up on that or has any thoughts on the score itself. 

Fool For Love - Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard, born Samuel Shepard Rogers the IV in Fort Sheridan, Illinois 1943, his parents were both teachers, and his father was also a farmer who served as a bomber in WWII. He spent teenage years working on a ranch, which we can see influence being drawn on for his formation of “Cowboy”  characters.  He dropped out of college to join a traveling theater troupe

He first became involved with Off-Off-Broadway theatre (also sometimes referred to as Indie theatre) in 1962 around the age of 19.

In 1976 relocated to San Fransisco where he became resident playwright at the Magic Theatre, where

Was on the Cover of Newsweek Nov. 11, 1985 after Fool for Love had been made into a film version, A Lie of the mind was on an Off-Broadway run and he was getting steady film work.

In 2001, he was cast as General Garrison in the film Black Hawk Down which put him back in public spotlight.

Joseph Chaikin, director, playwright & founder of a group called “Open Theatre”  is a noted major influence on Sheppard's works, the two having closely worked together writing plays Savage/Love & Tongues.

Notable awards include Pulitzer prize for Drama for Buried Child (1979),  Academy award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role of Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1984),   Nominated for Best play Tony for Buried child (1996) & True West (2000). Won Multiple Obie awards (10) for Playwriting, new plays, Direction and more, across multiple works (12) from 1966-1984 (18 years).

Critics consider Fool for Love part of the ending portion of a quintet of plays written across 1978 to 1985, alongside A Lie of The Mind - in addition to what is referred to as The Family Trilogy, which includes True West,Curse of The Starving Class & Buried Child

Fool for Love written 1984, follows a lovers spat in an Arizonan hotel, as their outside dates/affairs get involved, when soon their relationship is revealed to be incestuous all the while living under the shadow of their same father.  

For me to address a play in which “Love” is such a central theme, I must first address my own stance and interpretation of love. Some of those among you may already know that I, as a person, do not believe in “Love” as a concept. That is to say that I believe that we do not come up with our own model of love as individuals. We are given one by circumstances we experience at a young age, primarily from two sources; the media we are exposed to, where we get storybook and Disney versions of love, and from our parents, which is often the biggest example of love we will ever be exposed to. And we do not get a new model of Love until we have to remold, rebuild, or repair a new idea of love after our old one is broken by our own contradictory life experiences. Often we may find - whether or not we realize, that this will again fall into the same model as our parent’s model of love, minus any degree of youthful censorship. We become our parents, & that which we do not become, we attract or are attracted-to.

I find this is also the case in Sam Sheppard’s Fool For Love where we can find a great deal of Eddie & May’s actions mirroring the relationship dynamic of their father’s & respective mother’s actions.

First off, in regards to their shared father: They both effectively take the same course of action, or at the very least they try to. This is in the sense they both attempt to follow the pattern of leaving their lover and eventually returning in a cycle mirroring their father’s actions. I use the word attempt in reference to May’s attempt to leave, which we observe during the course of the play, as potentially being the only time she turns away from, instead of accepting Eddie’s love. All the while we receive reference of Eddie’s history being more directly akin to their father’s and him being more successful in this pattern of leaving and returning his lover. We are even witness to Their Old Man attempting to make direct connection to Eddie when arguing against May.

As for their Mothers I find that the Woman in the Black Mercedes-Benz referred to as The Countess, plays a representative role of their mothers. For example, May’s mother followed their father to an insane degree, sneaking into yards, peering into homes, with a daughter being dragged in-tow. The Countess we might assume has been lead to the hotel by Eddie, who has claimed to have traveled thousands of miles to reach here. As for Eddie’s mother, The Countess is willing to fight for her man. Violently. As in, with a fucking gun. Just like Eddie’s mom.

• Do you believe Eddie's claims of traveling thousands of miles were truthful?
•   How do you define/ find the difference between a “Man” and a “Guy”?
• What is a "Fantasist" in context of the play? Out of it? And compared to realism in/out of context?
• Who is Barbara Mandrell? (The woman the Old Man claims to be in the non existent portrait.) How might she relate to the two Character's mother's?
• Who do you believe the Countess to be? What were her motives on being at the Hotel? Where was she/what did she do during the period of time between her two assaults?
•  At the end of the play where do you believe Eddie went Did he leave with the woman in the car? Did he walk off like his father once did? Was he about to come back?
•     Is this May’s first time not taking Eddie back?
•    Does Eddie have multiple lovers? Just the one? Does he leave for affairs, or does he seek more legitimate reasons for leaving?    
• What parallels can we draw between Eddie & Lee?

Martin Sherman's Bent

            Martin Sherman is a well known playwright and screenwriter best known for his works Bent and The Boy from Oz; an exciting novel made into a play and movie nominated for the Olivier Award, Britain’s version of the Tony Award.  The play Bent was Sherman’s way of exploring the times of the Holocaust working openly with Nazis, Jews, and more importantly the persecution of homosexuals. Bent was a nominee in 1979 for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony for Best Play in 1980. Sherman along with nominations and high reviews won the Dramatist Guild’s Hull-Warriner Award. Later Bent became and major motion picture in 1997 and produced in 35 countries.

            Martin Sherman was born in American (December 22, 1938) raised in Jewish household. His first awareness in the theatre came at an early age of six when he saw the play Guys and Dolls staring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne around the 1950s. His interest continued throughout his life and continued though college. He received a BFA in Dramatic Arts from Boston University College of Fine Arts in 1960. From graduation he went to New York and joined Actors Studio to continue studying the world of acting. There he begin creating his own works which dramatize “stereotypical white male heterosexuals” dealing with the discrimination of minorities whether gay, female, foreign, disabled, or of different religion. Sherman being an openly gay Jew found widespread fame with his outstanding dramatizations.

            Bent was first produced in London 1979 starring Ian McKellen as Max, a young gay man in Berlin. Max struggles through his life living off of scum with his boyfriend, Rudy, a silent dancer. Both are forced out of Berlin in order to survive in hiding during the Weimar Republic. After 2 years of living out in tents the boys are discovered and sent off to concentration camps.

            The Weimar Republican happened after World War I where the republics emerged from the German Revolution where they gathered in the city of Weimar, a city outside of Berlin, where the constitutional assembly took place. Weimar Republic then created a new Nazi government coming to power run by Adolf Hitler in 1933. The creation of concentration camps and discrimination happened during this period, where Bent is being placed in time.

            In London the play was considered very controversial and violent. It also gathered reviews that degraded that the homosexuals received worse treatment than the Jews during the Holocaust. The play Bent was then transferred to Broadway where it received excellent reviews and became a hit, then taking it up to a Tony nomination and higher to a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

1)      In scene 1 why is Wolf being arrested? And why is his death important as an opening scene?

 

2)      What’s the significance of Greta’s song and does it give foreshadowing to a greater event?

 

3)      When Max meets with Freddie discreetly why does Max deny love yet begs for 2 tickets?

 

4)      What impact did you feel when the officers made Max beat Rudy?

 

5)      Play off question #4 - Does this affect your position if you were in a situation where it was a choice between death or saving a life to die for?

 

6)      How does the theme of discrimination and sexuality intermingle within the script?

 

7)      Was Max’s quick thinking to make a deal the best decision if it meant his life?

 

8)      What theme is portrayed through Max and Horst’s relationship? And how does it relate throughout the entire play?

 

9)      Horst speaks out against Max (page 66) calling him a Gestapo (meaning secret police of Nazis). What inference can you take from his truth?

 

10)  Max takes on the pink triangle, explain how his acceptance of nature and defiance against the Nazis ends the play?

Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart

            Theatre is one medium in which artists can express their passions and viewpoints.  Larry Kramer uses his play, The Normal Heart to bring awareness to issues that are important to him personally.  Larry Kramer was the founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP ("Huffington Post"). This play is what gained Kramer his notoriety.  After his novel, Faggots, was published, he was widely disregarded as an extremist and offensive by some. As someone who is infected with the HIV virus, it is clear that his connection to the subject materials was a personal one (Green).   The Normal Heart is set in the 1980s and was originally produced by Joseph Papp in 1985.  It ran for 294 performances at The Public Theater with Michal Lindsay-Hogg directing and Joel Grey as Ned Weeks.  In 2004, there was an Off-Broadway revival. There was also a Broadway revival in 2011 that was quite well received, winning several awards, including the Tony for Best Revival of a Play, Best Featured Actress for Ellen Barking and Best Featured Actor for John Benjamin Hickey. Outside of the Tony Awards, The Normal Heart was also won three Drama Desk Awards, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, and two Theatre World Awards, among others. This production was directed by Joel Grey who had played the original Ned Weeks in its original staging. To continue with its activist agenda, the 2011 revival committed a percentage of each week’s profits to non-profit organizations, such as Freedom to Marry, Human Rights Campaign, and Friends In Deed (Normal Heart). 

            The production was rife with relevant issues affecting people of the eighties at the time.  Notes at the beginning of the play, which Kramer included, spoke to the media coverage of the Tylenol scare during that same time period, which included seven deaths. He compared this with the “gay cancer” which was spreading about New York with little to no media coverage.  This point was also brought up in the dialogue of the play.  Kramer also drew an analogy between the willful ignorance of American Jews during the German Holocaust and the lack of action by the gay community in response to the plague spreading through their community.  As the Jews, along with the general American population, chose to ignore the obvious signs that something was terribly wrong in Hitler’s Germany, the gay community and United States citizens at large refused to acknowledge the dark truth lurking behind the deaths amongst the gay population at the time  (Kramer).

            The Normal Heart serves as a way to ask many questions of the audience that are universally relatable.  Beyond the obvious issue of gay rights and dealing with issues in the gay community, deeper and more confounding inquiries are raised.  How is it possible to be true to one’s self with no support and great amounts of opposition?  Is it worth fighting for the good of a people who seem, not only uninterested in helping themselves, but who also give no support for those who are fighting for them?  Throughout the course of the play many characters act in a manner that is completely counterintuitive to the continuance of their lifestyle.  They not only do not act to help themselves, but attack Ned Weeks as he attempts to act as their advocate at great personal cost. 

Another running theme in the course of this play is that of family and its importance to an individual.  Is it possible for family members with vastly different ideas and backgrounds to love each other in spite of their differences or must there always be a compromise in order to achieve harmony?  This same line of thought applies to the role of government as it relates to its citizens.  Should social stigma surrounding a social group prevent that group from receiving government advocacy when lives are at stake? Does the power of information hold the key to saving lives, and if it does, then should government be given the power to play God in the matters that decide who lives and who dies?  Do doctors have a moral obligation to go to the media when there is a disease that could affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and is not being handled by government agencies? Should the doctors be exempt from negative retaliation in response to their advocacy? 

There is also the ever-pressing question of whether or not homosexuality is a disease in the way that AIDS is a disease.  Should members of the gay community be treated as second class citizens based upon who it is they find attractive and feel affection for?  Some of these answers appear obvious, but as Bruce faces the fear of being fired and ostracized from society due to the facts of his lifestyle, these questions arise.  Not only does he stand to lose his job, his benefits, and his means for making a life for himself, like so many others in the group, he stands to lose his credibility in society along with those who have already been stripped of their dignity and pressured into fitting a stereotype for what a man should be in the gay community.

In the end, the issues being tackled in The Normal Heart are just as relevant today as they were when the play was first written. In today’s society, should people treat each other with fear and derision due to their differences or embrace them as part of what makes us all human? 

1.      Why did Ned’s actions alienate him from his fellow members of the gay community?

2.      How does a difference in opinion on the manner in which one choose to live their life affect the way that they are treated by those closest to them?

3.      Given Bruce’s fears and worries as they pertained to his losing his career due to his sexuality, and his unwillingness to defend the lives of his fellow men, is his fear more telling of his personality than his sexuality?

4.      Why is it that the 2011 revival of this play was so successful on Broadway?

5.      What relevance does this story continue to have in our society?  Why do these same issues continue to affect people of today’s audiences?

6.      Did the medical field have an obligation to inform everyone of the severity of the situation, despite the threat of causing a public panic?

7.      Why is it that Larry Kramer felt that this volatile character was the best outlet for telling this particular story?

8.      Does the persona of the gay community prevent some people from taking gay issues seriously?

9.      Should government agencies be able to downplay the issues affecting a group of individuals due to the fact that it does not seem to be directly affecting the population at large?

10.  Is there significance to the similarities in Doctor Brookner and Ned Weeks? Do their personalities indicate something what it takes to stand by a cause, not because it is popular, but due to a moral obligation?

Source Cited:

 "FAQ." The Normal Heart. N.p.. Web. 5 Feb 2013. <http://www.thenormalheartbroadway.com/faq.php>.

Green, Jesse. "4,000 Pages and Counting." New York News and Features. N.p., 04 Jan 2010. Web. 5 Feb 2013. 

Kramer, Larry. The Normal Heart. Print.

 "Larry Kramer." The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post. Web. 5 Feb 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-kramer>.

Sam Shepard's "True West"

OK, since someone next week has to come up with the prompt/bio of Sam Shepard for when we do "Fool For Love" I thought it would be unfair to basically steal their thunder.

The prompt today is fairly simple: Come up with three questions you'd like discussed (or that you think could be discussed) in True West.