Fynsworth Alley 302 062 113 2

Original Release Date: September 18, 2001

Produced by Bruce Kimmel

Engineer: Vinnie Cirilli

Music Composed by Janet Hood

Book and Lyrics by Bill Russell

The poster The Cast

Starring on this recording (in alphabetical order)

Kane AlexanderBryan BattClent BowersSteve Burns

Mario CantoneVeanne CoxMarie DanversBobby Daye

Christopher DurangDoug Eskew Robert GallagherBrian D'arcy James

Norm LewisBrad Little Ayal MiodovnikOrfeh

Stephanie PopeAlice Ripley Justin RossEmily Skinner

Amy SpangerErin TorpeyAlton Fitzgerald WhiteSharon Wilkins

INTERVIEW WITH LYRICIST AND LIBRETTIST BILL RUSSELL BY DAVID LEVY

DL: Let’s talk about the show from the beginning. I know you’ve told the story about how you came upon the idea of a Spoon River Anthology about AIDS – what was it about seeing the AIDS Quilt that connected the idea to Spoon River to give birth to Elegies?

BR: I was at the initial unveiling of the quilt in October of 1987, and I was looking for something to do in that free-verse style. I had written poetry in that style for years and years, and shortly after seeing the quilt, I had the idea that I could possibly do a “Spoon River of AIDS.” I was very familiar with Spoon River – I had studied it in high school; I had appeared in it in college; I had directed it also at a summer theatre. All of that came together, and it started out really as an exercise. I just thought I would go where it takes me. I wrote monologues about friends I knew who had either died or who were sick at the time. It went well, and I quickly decided there were theatrical possibilities. I called Janet and asked her if she’d like to write some songs to accompany the monologues, in the way that when Spoon River was adapted for the stage, Charles Aidman incorporated classic American folk songs along with the poems. Using that as a model, that’s what we did.

DL: Had you already worked with Janet before Elegies?

BR: Yes. I wrote my first musical with her when we were in college. We didn’t go to school together, but we worked at a summer resort together.

DL: At the time you did Elegies, was she your only writing partner? Or was she the one who just seemed right for the project?

BR: Well, she wasn’t my only writing partner, but she was the one who came to mind.

DL: What was it about Janet’s work that said to you she’d be the right one for this show?

BR: We had done a lot of songwriting together, and her feel for contemporary style, blues, jazz and gospel – I just thought it would be perfect. We had also written a lot of ballads together, and obviously, this show was going to have its fair share.

DL: When you guys were writing the show, did the thought ever cross your mind that this is a gargantuan piece, and how would it ever get staged?

BR: No, because my original conception was that it would be performed by a small cast, with four or five actors each playing six or seven roles. About six months into writing it, we put together a reading with four actors and a female singer. I think at that time we had maybe four songs or five songs. That went really well, and one of those actors was Justin Ross. He took it to this downtown theatre group called T.W.E.E.D., which stands for The Wildest Entertainments Ever Devised. At the time, they were doing this yearly festival of new works. They owed a lot of actors favors, so they asked if we’d consider casting one actor in each role. It wasn’t a commercial issue, because they didn’t pay anybody anyway; it was just a two-week festival off-off-Broadway, so there weren’t financial considerations. At first I just said no way – organizing five actors for a reading was enough of a nightmare, so I thought organizing thirty-five was going to kill me. But eventually I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” I felt like I had jumped off a cliff! I only said yes because I spent so much of my time writing trying to make things small and economical to produce, and I thought when am I going to ever get to work with a cast of this size? It turned out to be just absolutely wonderful.

DL: And you directed this first production? Was it always the plan for you to be both writer and director?

BR: It wasn’t so much the plan, but out of necessity I directed the first reading we did with just four actors. I found that working on the poems with the actors, together we found all this stuff that I wasn’t aware was there as a writer. It was a really interesting dynamic. It just felt really right. When it came time to put it all together in a big production, I decided I wanted to do that too.

DL: How did that experience being the director change the text of the show when you went back to revise it?

BR: Well, it worked in tandem. I discovered all this stuff directing, as I said, that I didn’t know was there as a writer. I don’t normally like to direct my own stuff the first time out, but in that case, the show feels so much a part of my rhythm because the show is written in verse, it seemed to work.

DL: And in terms of revising, you’ve gone back to this show several times since you originally wrote it to add, change, and drop pieces. Now obviously, in the twenty years that AIDS has been affecting us, we’ve learned more about the epidemic, and the scope of people it’s affecting has unfortunately grown. But I’m curious as to what specifically changed in Elegies to reflect that.

BR: Well, as it progressed from production to production, I became more interested in trying to portray the vast canvas of people AIDS had affected and infected. When I started writing it, as I said, I started writing about friends or stories I heard, so consequently, a lot of the characters were gay men. I felt that it needed to be broader than that. That’s mainly what happened with the reworking of it. For instance, I knew this guy Felipe whose lover was named Howard. Howard had a brother, and they were all friends. Howard’s brother lived in San Francisco. The three of them died within a year. I knew all of them. It was a very messy estate battle. The two brothers came from a well-off family, and the mother didn’t even know they were gay, let alone that they had AIDS. It all became very ugly. In the original version [of Elegies], I had a poem for each of the brothers, and that led in to the song “My Brother Lived in San Francisco.” As the show progressed, I didn’t want to add any more actors – the thing was big enough as it was, and totally uncommercial. I mean, talk about uncommercial – it’s about AIDS, has a cast of thirty-five, and it’s written in verse! That was also part of the excitement of it – it was an event having all those people together. In that case, I needed to lose gay male characters where I could and try to replace them. I replaced those two poems with the poem that now leads into “My Brother Lived In San Francisco,” which is also based on a true story. My boyfriend worked at this law firm where they handled this case of two lovers who were both sick, and they wanted to be buried side by side. The parents of one lover said, “Oh yeah, we’ve got room in our family plot, you’ll be there.” And then they turned around as their son was being lowered into the ground and said, “We hate you! You did this to him! Get out of here!” So they fought that case and won eventually.

Trying to find female characters was difficult. In the first part of the crisis, you didn’t hear about that many women. All of those reasons.

DL: I think one of the most interesting monologues, that surprised me by its inclusion, was Tina, who doesn’t actually have AIDS. I’m curious as to the thought process behind that poem, which happens to be one that we included on the album.

BR: That was based on a true story. It was actually a guy – that’s one I specify in the script that can be played by either a woman or a man. It’s a young character. When I first was writing the show, I felt like I had to explain how every character got it. After a while, I realized that’s not really the point. The show isn’t about how they got it, it’s the fact that they do have it. I heard that story from someone who was a volunteer in an AIDS ward. This teenaged kid had come in and saw the doctor; he was convinced he had AIDS and jumped out the window before the test came back. The test did come back and they found out he didn’t have it. I thought that was very interesting how people are killed by this disease even if they don’t have it.

DL: Where did the names for your characters come from?

BR: All sorts of places. It was just finding the name I felt was right for the character. Hopefully, they say something about the character, or they just sound right to me for one reason or another.

DL: The previous recording of the show was based on a production in England. Was there an element of translation that was necessary for a British audience?

BR: Well, there are certain words that don’t mean the same thing over there. For instance, Lamar, the black junkie who’s helped by the gay white boy – in that poem, he says he got “pissed,” which in England means he got drunk. Things like that we had to do a little translation. Where I could, I made the characters British, but many of these characters are American, like the Vietnam vet or the boy from North Dakota. But the prostitute, it was possible to do her with a British accent, and it made it more accessible for a British audience.

When we first did it in London, in 1992, it was a fringe production at the King’s Head Theatre, which is this tiny little theatre with a postage stamp stage, and I did it with a cast of thirty-three. It was such a big event to have that many bodies that stage; it’s still the largest cast ever to appear on that stage. There was no way to get backstage without going through the audience, and the dressing room, at a maximum, could hold eight, so two-thirds of the cast had to dress in the upstairs offices, so to get backstage, they had to cross the roof, climb down a ladder, and come backstage. This was in October or November, and I remember asking, “What if it rains?” The artistic director just smiled and pantomimed opening an umbrella. And I said, “Will you tell the cast this? Because if this were America, they wouldn’t report me to the union, they’d just kill me!” He said they won’t mind – and they were getting about five pounds a performance, basically cab fare – and they didn’t! And all sorts of stars were in that production, or at least people who became stars.

DL: Has the show been performed elsewhere around the world?

BR: Oh, yeah. A lot in the UK. Australia. You know Kane Alexander, who starts off the song “Heroes All Around” is from Australia, and they did the show at his college. There have been several productions in Germany. Montreal, both in English and French. In Israel, in Hebrew, they did it in Tel Aviv with an all-star cast from television, film, and theatre.

DL: Is the reaction always the same? It’s very interesting to me, because for a disease that’s definitely a global epidemic, in America we tend to see only the local face of AIDS, with maybe the occasional reminder of what’s going on in Africa.

BR: It is interesting. Like in England, the government took steps quite early to educate people about AIDS, so it didn’t become the problem there it was here. There, Elegies was a piece of theatre first and a sociological current event second, whereas here it was just the opposite. The subject matter was what got attention here, and secondarily people considered it theatre, if at all. There was so much happening with AIDS, people didn’t think of it as theatre as much as they considered it sociology or politics or whatever. In Britain, it was more about it being a theatrical piece – some of the critics there, and they can be very cruel, said, “Why don’t you write about cancer or gunshot death?” I would just say, if anybody wants to write about those, they’re welcome to, but this is what’s affecting me, so that’s why I wrote about it.

DL: What year did the show premiere?

BR: The first big production was in 1989 in New York. When we did it, we had people in the cast covered with Karposi’s Sarcoma lesions. We didn’t have dressing rooms – this was at the Ohio Theatre in SoHo – and [one of the actors with KS lesions] would take off his shirt in front of the cast, and it was like, “Oh my God… This is what we’re talking about.” It was so immediate, and so many in that cast were touched by it or were sick themselves. The white hot heat of the war was happening at that moment. It was very satisfying to be able to address the issue with our talents.

DL: What was the reception in the press? Was the show reviewed and covered?

BR: It was a bit, but not a lot, because it was off-off-Broadway. It was only for two weeks, the first time we did it, and then we did it again for two more weeks about six months later. Still, we didn’t have a press agent per se, but we got what critics there we could. Gay press was quite bitchy about it, I have to say. I remember the New York Native’s reviewer said, “It trips along in iambic tetrameter,” and I thought, “What the fuck? He wouldn’t know an iambic if it bit him, if he thinks this is iambic tetrameter!”

There was some other gay paper, or maybe it was the SoHo Weekly News, and they published a review of the show on the basis of only having read it, without having seen it. I was so outraged! Their response was, “You should be happy we gave you the space. We have a deadline.” So I can’t say I was particularly thrilled with the gay press at that time.

DL: How quickly did you get it published and get it ready for productions that weren’t the professional ones?

BR: We have this sort of snowball history. We did these two productions in New York, and every time I see a production, I think, “Well, that’s the last time I’ll ever see that on a stage,” since for all these reasons it’s so uncommercial. But then Justin Ross, who was in it in New York, moved to LA, and he and Ken Page did a reading in LA. That led to a production, and somebody saw that and wanted to do it in London, and it just sort of slowly snowballed. It wasn’t published until 1996, and I don’t know why.

DL: The other way that people know the show, besides the album or having seen it, is from a couple of numbers that have become cabaret standards, particularly “My Brother Lived in San Francisco.” How do you feel about the songs being taken out of context?

BR: Do it! By all means, go for it! You know, it’s not a linear piece, it’s a modular piece, which is one of the things I love about it. It’s been easy to update it and rework it, because you’re not interrupting a plotline. I think it has a certain structure and flow to it, but it’s not linear, so you’re not damaging a plot. I think several of the songs work very well out of context. “I Don’t Know How To Help You” was written as a poem about something else – it wasn’t even about AIDS – and then I thought it could work about AIDS. That song could work in all sorts of different context and have different meanings to it.

DL: Are there specific poems or songs from the show that are particularly meaningful to you?

BR: Well, they all are in different ways. “Learning to Let Go” is very personal to me; my sister is named Jane, my nephew is named Scott. It’s no so much autobiographical, but I took those elements of my life and incorporated them into the song. “My Brother Lived in San Francisco” – I did have a really good friend who lived in San Francisco named Joe that partly inspired that song. “I Don’t Know How To Help You,” as I mentioned, was written about something else, but it means a lot to me. They all do in different ways.

“The Rain Keeps Falling Down” was one of the earlier songs. I was in Dallas with this comedy team I used to direct, and I found out right there that one of my really good friends was diagnosed with AIDS. This was in 1988, and it was just raining unrelentingly in Dallas, so that song came out of that.

DL: Twenty years into the world having AIDS as a crisis to deal with, when you went back to direct this piece, did you have a different perspective? Did that change how you worked on the show?

BR: Two years ago, I was asked to direct the show in Montreal for two back-to-back benefits, one in English and one in French, which was really something! At that point, I hadn’t actually directed the show for five years, and I really wondered if it was still going to be pertinent at all, since there had been all these breakthroughs with treatments. I went into that thinking, “Gosh, I wonder if it’s going to seem totally out of date.” I discovered that I now feel that even if AIDS (God willing) should be cured tomorrow, there will still be a place for Elegies, because it’s mainly about loss. The scars from all the loss we all have experienced due to this are never going to go away. There’s always going to be a place for that. Loss is universal, whether it’s from AIDS or whatever. In that way, I’m happy to say I think it is still pertinent. Now, with all of the latest news about AIDS and the devastating impact it’s having worldwide, I do think there’s a place for it.

People in the past have said, “Well, I think this doesn’t represent what’s going on in Africa,” but I’m sorry, I just can’t do it. I don’t know enough about it. I couldn’t write those characters. Hopefully, there is still a place for this.

DL: Is it different for you to write a piece of activist theatre like this, compared to your shows that are written with more of a commercial intent? Is there a different writing process, or is that more just the way they came out?

BR: Well, it is sort of the way they came out. This came from a real need to write this piece. I was just so overwhelmed, as we all were, by what was going on around me, and I just had to express it in some way. There really weren’t any commercial or career considerations around it – it wasn’t about that. It was a bit different in that way. But I still had to think about if I want this message to get out there, how is this going to be produced. Those are considerations, but less so than they are with so-called commercial pieces.

DL: Do you think that in your future you have more of this kind of theatre in you?

BR: I’m always trying to think of something else to do with this kind of form, because I really am so comfortable in it. It hasn’t come to me yet. I don’t know. I could easily imagine that something will inspire me, maybe not in this form, to write a show where it’s again from just the need to express myself about a particular subject rather than be concerned about is it going to get done, is it going to get produced or whatever.

DL: Let’s talk about the specific concert that Fynsworth Alley recorded. I know that Bruce Harris brought the idea to you, and you were a little skeptical...

BR: Only because I had tried to do this before in New York a couple of times. I was quite far along in one instance. Trudie Styler, who is married to Sting, was in Elegies in the West End, and she’s always been incredibly supportive of the piece – they both have. There was a point where she was going to produce a New York all-star benefit. She does the rainforest concert every year at Carnegie Hall, and we were going to do Elegies for God’s Love We Deliver. Then, a bunch of things happened all at once. Princess Diana died, and Gianni Versace was shot, and they were very close. Sting and Trudie’s kids and Versace’s children are the same age, so they vacationed together a lot. That was a very difficult time for her, so she had to say, “I cannot take this on right now.” That fell apart. That’s why I was skeptical. It had come up several times, and I figured if I couldn’t get this together with Trudie... but they did it!

DL: Was it always in the plan for you to direct this and be so intimately involved in the production?

BR: Yes. I prefer to direct it whenever I can. Partly, it’s just expedient. I’ve directed ten productions. I know how to do it, and I know how to do it fast, which is necessary for this, since you don’t have actors on the payroll. Also, I’ve found that I know how to get the most out of these poems – not that some other director couldn’t, I just haven’t seen it yet. I know how it works, and I love doing it. It’s consistently one of the most joyous experiences, and considering the sadness from whence it came – every production that I’ve personally directed has turned out to be so much fun!

DL: What was your involvement in the casting of this?

BR: I wasn’t heavily involved in the casting of this because I was in Chicago directing Pageant. I made some suggestions, but really Stephen DeAngelis did most of it.

DL: Do you think that your more recent successes helped make this concert possible? I mean, no longer being just “Bill Russell” but being “Bill Russell, that Side Show guy” – does that help?

BR: Oh, sure. Absolutely. Certainly in terms of getting performers, I definitely think so.

DL: It’s very funny to me too, because the shows are so different. Specifically, your work on those two shows are so different, without having the connection explicitly stated, I don’t think I ever put two and two together until someone said, “We’re doing Bill Russell’s other show.”

BR: That happens a lot. People have no idea I co-wrote Pageant, because that’s another one that’s so different from either of these.

DL: I suppose that’s a good thing to be so versatile.

BR: It’s wonderful. They’re all parts of my personality, you know?

DL: Now that we’re talking about your other shows, the people who read our website would kill me if I didn’t ask you about Kept. I don’t know what you can say about it yet, but I know you guys had a reading that went really well. Can you start with a little bit of background on the show?

BR: We’ve been working on it almost two years, but it’s been off and on for that period. I’ve been in England a lot, directing Pageant, and Henry [Kreiger] has been very busy as well. We just did the first reading. It’s our adaptation of Camille, and it’s set very early in the 1980s. She’s sort of the queen of Studio 54. That’s been really fun, because we’re exploring that era’s musical styles. It’s hot, sexy and romantic, and it’s been a great joy working with Henry on it.

DL: And when will people get to see it?

BR: We’re bringing it to Theatreworks in Palo Alto next April.

DL: What’s the goal for that production? Is it a workshop, or more of a world premiere?

BR: Something in between. It is a world premiere, and it’s going to be a full production, but I don’t think ultimately it will be the finished show. These things are a process, and I just find that as opposed to doing a workshop in New York, which can be very valuable, but where you play to an invited audience of industry people without sets or costumes, doing it in a full production before a paying audience can be wonderful.

DL: It’s too early for casting news, right?

BR: Yeah. We don’t even have a director yet. We’re working on that.

DL: This is the same place where Everything’s Ducky premiered?

BR: Yes.

DL: What’s the status of that show now?

BR: We’re reworking it for off-Broadway. It’s been optioned for off-Broadway, and it’s going to be done in Chicago at the end of the year. They’ll be doing this new version, and we’ll see where that goes.

DL: So you’ve got a lot going on!

BR: Yes, but it’s nice to just be writing and not directing. I love directing, but it is so consuming. I just couldn’t do it all the time.

DL: You no longer have a job other than writing. That must have been a great day for you.

BR: It was. I temped for years in a law firm in New York, which was a great gig for me, because these huge law firms operate 24-hours a day, seven days a week. They always need skilled people, so once you get a foot in the door there, you can pretty much write your own ticket. I would go away for months on end and then come back and have a job. That was very helpful. But it’s been four years now since I’ve had to do that. I certainly won’t have to for at least a year and hopefully longer.

DL: Congratulations. That was when Side Show hit Broadway?

BR: I left temping the day they announced the rehearsal dates for Side Show for Broadway.

DL: Suddenly you had a full-time day job.

BR: Exactly. I hadn’t been working full-time year round up to that point by any means, but that was when I could finally say goodbye.

DL: Are you working on anything else that the world doesn’t know about yet?

BR: No, this is plenty right now! I am going to direct Side Show at the end of the year in St. Paul.

DL: Why in St. Paul?

BR: They asked me! I’m very excited about it. It’s a really great theatre. I grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so I feel right at home there. There are so many theatre people in Minneapolis/St. Paul who have a similar background to me, so I’m very comfortable there. I’ve already cast it. I’m very pleased with the talent pool there.

DL: To wrap up this interview back where we started, do you know where people might next get a chance to see Elegies live?

BR: Janet and I are putting together a production at the Boston Conservatory of Music next year. I’ve been involved with a couple productions in colleges, and it’s wonderful. These kids have grown up around AIDS their whole lives, but they really have no idea about the history of it. So it’s a wonderful experience to do it at that level. That’s in April of next year. Elegies has never been done in Boston, so I’m very excited about that.

INTERVIEW WITH EMILY SKINNER ABOUT APPEARING IN THE CONCERT BY ZACHARY VAN BRUNT

ZVB: Can we start off with Elegies? How did you like performing in that?

ES: Oh, it was such an amazing evening. It was truly amazing. I woke up that morning and I was in such a great mood just because I knew I would get to be a part of it. We had a rehearsal for it the Sunday evening before and just sitting in that room and getting to hear all of the monologues and all of the songs was so incredibly amazing and moving. I don’t think anybody involved – except the people who had done it before – were really prepared for the amount of emotion that was going to be there. So it was really, really incredible. It was one of the neatest things I had ever done in the theatre.

ZVB: Did it move you more than you thought it would?

ES: Yes, yes, it did. I wasn’t prepared, because I had never read the whole script. I had only read excerpts and heard songs from it, but I’d never experienced the whole thing as a piece. And it’s overwhelming; it’s like a big wave coming and hitting you in the face. It’s really amazing.

ZVB: How did you get involved in the show?

ES: Bill Russell called me up in January and asked me if I would be involved, and I said, “Absolutely. I’d love to be involved. Anything you want me to do.” And then he asked me to sing “My Brother Lived in San Francisco” and sing a duet with Al, so that’s what I did.

ZVB: So Bill Russell says, “Jump” and you say, “How high?”

ES: That’s right. Exactly.

ZVB: So how would you say the one-night engagement differs from doing a run?

ES: Well, it’s sort of a little more special because it’s a one-night-only thing and everybody’s energy level is heightened because you usually don’t have much rehearsal for these things to begin with, so everybody’s sort of just running on adrenaline. It really was amazing. I’ve done a lot of benefits and stuff like this, but nothing to the quality of this, or the emotional intensity of this. It’s an absolutely beautiful show. The only thing I wish of the CD – which I think is wonderful – is I wish there were even more monologues with it. To have the monologues interspersed with songs is such an incredible thing. So I only wish there were more monologues on there.

ZVB: Often benefit materials don’t always have a lot to do with the cause, but Elegies is a little different because it benefited the Momentum AIDS Project, and the show is about AIDS. Does having the material tied so closely to the cause make a difference for you as a performer?

ES: Well, I mean, absolutely. I try really hard not to say “yes” to benefits that I think don’t really speak to me in some way, especially if you’re doing a show eight times a week and your one night off is sort of precious to you. But this is just such an amazing thing. The Momentum AIDS Project is a fantastic organization, too, which is where all the proceeds are going. But, yeah, it definitely, definitely does. I don’t know what else to say about that.

ZVB: Well, that’s plenty right there. When you performed the Elegies benefit, how much was Emily Skinner showing, and how much was a character?

ES: Umm ... hmmm. I don’t really know how to answer that. Well, I think in a sort of basic acting sense, whenever you’re playing a character, you’re sort of playing yourself in different situations. Even if it’s a character who is, maybe, radically different than yourself, you have elements that are similar. Whenever I’m onstage, I’m playing myself, but in different situations.

ZVB: And this is the second Bill Russell project you’ve been part of. Could you describe your relationship with Mr. Russell?

ES: With Bill Russell? Oh, gosh, I don’t know. I mean, I think Side Show was a really big deal for everyone involved – for Henry [Kreiger, composer] and Bill, and Bobby [Robert Longbottom, director], and certainly me and Alice and everybody who was in the cast, so I think that we maybe have a special bond because of that. I just think Bill is wonderful. In fact, I told him over and over – because I hadn’t read the entire script before; I’d only read sections of it – that just how blown away I was by the whole beauty of the piece, maybe even more so than his work in Side Show. He just blew my mind.

ZVB: What was it like to work with him as a director during the concert?

ES: He’s a terrific director. The other amazing thing about this is we had one rehearsal, literally, on Sunday night. So it was sort of ‘Go here, stand here, sit down,’ you know? Nobody really got a lot of direction, per se, because it was done by the skin of his teeth. There wasn’t any money for rehearsals, per se. Everybody was sort of doing work on their own. It’s amazing to me, because a lot of those people had long, long monologues. They had to – I’m thinking in particular, the guy who was the Vietnam vet: that monologue was, like, three pages long, and he had to go off and memorize by himself. Just show up with, doing all the work in advance by himself. And there were a lot of people like that. I was just so in awe to be with the amount of talent on that stage. It was just electric.

ZVB: Is it any different having him direct when he’s also the writer of the piece? Or is that even something you can answer, since it sounds like he didn’t do as much hands-on direction?

ES: He didn’t. I think he probably would have liked to have done much more, but just because it was so fast, it was sort of like a concert version of Elegies. It was really more like he was blocking the show than actually directing it.

ZVB: And the Elegies album marks the second time you’ve recorded “My Brother Lived In San Francisco.”

ES: I know! How funny.

ZVB: I know! Do you like it?

ES: Oh, it’s my favorite Bill Russell song; my very favorite Bill Russell song. I told him, one of the first times I got to work with him, “You know, you’ve wrote one of my favorite songs.” And he goes, “Oh? What is it?” And I said, “ ‘My Brother Lived in San Francisco.’ ” And I said, “I hope, maybe one day, I’ll get to sing it for you.” And he was always, like, “Oh, I’d love to hear that.” But that’s truly one of the most lovely, simple, poignant songs that I know of. So many people connect to that song in such an immediate way. I love the reaction that it gets, because it’s just really simple and goes straight to your heart. God, that sounds really Hallmark-y. Ewww. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.

ZVB: Is it different to perform the song in front of an audience rather in a studio?

ES: Oh, my God, absolutely. Absolutely. I think you can sort of tell that, I guess, maybe listening to it. When you’re in a studio, you’re in a little black hole of your own in your own little imagination. But when you’re in front of an audience, you’re having an experience with the audience. It’s like you’re doing a scene with another person, and the other person is the audience. That sort of is an amazing thing. That was sort of how I felt standing there singing that. I could feel people really listening to it and reacting to it as I was singing it, which is incredible. Incredible experience. The kind of experience you dream of as a performer.

ZVB: And you’ve actually got to do it, then.

ES: I know. I’m telling you, it’s a big thrill. It was really a big thrill in my performance career that night.

ZVB: You said a lot of people connect with the song easily. So how is it you connect with the song?

ES: Oh, my God. I don’t know. I just think that what it says in the song is so true. I have friends who are HIV-positive, and then I have had other friends who had full-blown AIDS who are no longer around. It’s really quite devastating to think that people you thought would always be here aren’t here anymore. People you’ve had wonderful experiences with, and you thought you’d always get to have those experiences with, are not just memories. That’s something everybody can relate to, whether you know somebody who has AIDS or not. It’s about having somebody and losing somebody and what that loss is like. And trying to be positive about that loss, you know? Having beautiful memories of them.

ZVB: So what’s the chronology going on here: did you record the song because you were doing the benefit, did you get the benefit from recording the song, or something different?

ES: I think, probably Bill was going to ask me to do the benefit. He would have asked me to do it anyway to sing with Alice. But I think that maybe when he heard my sort of solo CD, he thought, ‘Well, I’ll let her sing “My Brother Lived In San Francisco” at the benefit as well.’ I think I sort of got to do it because I put it on my album.

ZVB: Why’d you put it on the album then?

ES: Because I love it.

ZVB: Well, besides the obvious.

ES: Because it’s one of my favorite songs. It really is. I’m not making that up. I got to put a nice mix of songs on there. Bruce really allowed me to be very wacky and diverse in my selection. So I picked some of the songs and he picked some of the songs, and we came up with a nice balance of songs that expressed different things on that album. It was sort of fun.

ZVB: Would it be fair to ask if you have a favorite cut from the album?

ES: Gosh. I’m not sure. I like different songs for different reasons. I don’t know. I think I like the songs that are the quieter songs rather than the belt-them-out-of-their-brains songs, but maybe I’m in the minority. I don’t know. People keep saying, “Are you going to do another album? You need to do more belt stuff.” So I don’t know what that means. People like to hear you scream. I don’t know why.

ZVB: Now when you signed on to do Elegies, did you know they were going to record it?

ES: I think they told us the night we actually had that rehearsal – the Sunday night, like the day before. We showed up and there were these releases to sign, and I thought, ‘Hey, that’s great. That’s wonderful that they’re signing.’ I was so happy that Bruce had agreed to do that because I think this is an amazing thing. I was really proud of him for saying yes.

ZVB: So this is the first time you’ve been released on a live recording, then?

ES: Yeah, I guess so.

ZVB: Did that make a difference for you, or did you even think of it?

ES: I didn’t really think of it until now. But I think it’s wonderful. I think it really captured the aliveness of that evening. It’s so nice. You can sit and listen to the whole album and really get the experience of being there, which is what a live concert album should be.

ZVB: Yeah. Completely. Now I hear the version of “Celebrate” isn’t the performance from the actual concert. You want to tell me what happened there?

ES: Oh, God, Alice is going to kill me. Alice is going to kill if I tell. Oh, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’m not exactly sure what happened. We got up and I came out and starting singing the song and – this is how out of it I was in my own little mind – I didn’t realize this until halfway through the song: Alice had her mic upside down. She was singing into the wrong end of the microphone. But this should just tell you how emotional of an evening that it was for all of us. We were so sort of bedazzled and unhinged that Alice, who is really a consummate performer, could have done something like that. I think she was so electrified by everything that was going on, she just sort of wasn’t even aware. Neither one of us were really aware. Afterwards everybody was, like, “Oh my God! Why didn’t you turn her microphone back over?” And I was, like, “By the time I realized it, I didn’t know what to do.” The weird thing was I could hear her. I could still hear her. I don’t know if that was being picked up by the mics in the ground or whatever. So I thought, ‘Well, maybe they’re picking her up anyway. Somehow they must be, because I can hear her in the monitor.’ So right after the concert we re-recorded it, like five minutes after the concert end. As soon as the audience cleared the auditorium, we sort of came back on the stage and basically repeated exactly what we’d done.

ZVB: But it all turned out good in the end, though.

ES: It did, it did. It was just very funny.
 

ELEGIES FOR ANGELS, PUNKS & RAGING QUEENS (Fynsworth Alley #302 062 1132) is a modular musical story in which the book's author and lyricist, Bill Russell, relays his personal response to the AIDS epidemic. How does one make stories about AIDS entertaining? The challenge is flawlessly met by Mr. Russell and music composer Janet Hood. Together they have created a meaningful, melodic and at times even hilarious production. The content is serious, frank, and very spirited. This release is a live recording from the one-night-only April 2, 2001 performance in the Morris Haft Theater of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York city, a benefit for the Momentum AIDS Project. Piano, harp and cello, conducted by Ms. Hood, with fine arrangements and orchestrations by James Raitt, accompany the talented cast of 52 voices. Each song tells a separate story, sometimes in the voices of friends and acquaintances of Mr. Russell. Alice Ripley opens the production with the title song. She reminisces about hanging out during the old days in Greenwich Village with "…angels, punks and raging queens," now gone but never forgotten, even though the Village has been transformed from a bohemian's paradise into mainstream boutiques. Emily Skinner sings the lovely ballad My Brother Lived in San Francisco, a tale representative of the thousands of gay men who fled their small hometowns for the big west coast city and found their "place." Levity imbues Spend It While You Can, a bright boogie woogie number performed by Sharon Wilkins with a swinging harmony chorus by Wendy Baila, Brad Little, Ayal Miodovnik and Kelli Rabke. Learning to Let Go is a gospel number that closes the production. Norm Lewis performs the song with great passion and wisely shuns a sentimental approach. As the song concludes, he is joined by the company in a rousing finale. The end of the CD features six short monologues by actors in the company portraying AIDS patients. Some of the monologues are tragically dark but the others are peppered with intelligently funny lines. The final monologue is tastefully uproarious, and we won't give away the punch line. This CD is available only through Fynsworth Alley. One-dollar from each CD sold will benefit the Momentum AIDS Project organization. -- G.C.K.

For most people seeing the April 2nd benefit of Bill Russell and Janet Hood's Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens at the Haft Theater at the Fashion Institute of Technology, it will probably be a first time experience. The show, usually performed with over 30 speaking roles and 4 singers, is rarely done because of the massive financial and casting considerations. It has, however, been a boon for colleges, community theaters and benefit organizations who would like to use as many actors as are available to them!

I have a long history with Elegies. I know the creators and have been alongside them from the very inception of the show. So Talkin' Broadway thought it might be nice for me to share a little bit of history about this very special theater piece with the denizens of our favorite web site.

The thought of writing a piece about the effect AIDS was having in the world came to Bill Russell when in 1987 he went to the first showing of the gigantic Names Project Quilt which was displayed in Washington, D.C. Bill was overwhelmed by the vastness of the quilt and the deep losses so many people, and Bill himself, had endured of many friends and theater co-workers. While thinking about a way to put this vast subject matter into a theatrical setting, Bill thought back to one of his personal favorite literary and theater pieces, Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, a series of poems about the townspeople of the fictional town of Spoon River who were all buried in the local cemetery. In 1963 Spoon River Anthology was adapted into a Broadway play using American folk music.

Elegies was initially titled The Quilt and Bill started writing a series of free verse poems, each one for a character who had died of AIDS. He based them on people he knew, stories he had heard and original character ideas. Then, with his longtime friend Janet Hood composing the music (a mix of pop, jazz, gospel and ballads) Bill wrote lyrics for the songs that would be sung throughout the show by "the living" - characters that were going on in life and remembering the friends they had lost from AIDS through song. At that time Bill, thinking economically, wanted four or five actors to each play several roles and one woman singer to sing all the songs throughout. And that is how it was first done in readings. One of the first actors to be in those readings was Justin Ross, who, as a fitting tribute to his longtime dedication to the show, will be doing the first poem of the evening in Monday's benefit.

During that time another show which was staged in Washington D.C. was also called The Quilt. Bill decided to change the name of the show and as he was bandying titles about, asked me "What do you think about the title Elegies For Angels, Dudes And Raging Queens?" I said that I really liked the concept of that title. It was odd and quirky, yet strangely catchy. But I did not like the word "Dudes" and suggested "Punks." He used it! That is my contribution to the project.

In 1989 Justin Ross took the show to off-off Broadway's TWEED, an organization that was planning a festival of theater works in Soho at the Ohio Theater. They were very interested in Elegies with Bill directing, but Kevin Maloney, the organization's artistic director, asked Bill that, since TWEED owed favors to a lot of actors, would it be possible for this production to use one actor per character - or over 30 actors. Bill thought that would be an impossible task, but after thinking more about it he thought that he might never have a chance to do something on that scale ever again. As it turned out so well, Bill now prefers that the show always be done this way.

The show was very successful in its two-week run at the Ohio Theater in May 1989, and was moved to the RAPP Arts Center in the East Village for an additional two weeks in February 1990.

Sadly, five actors from those original casts have died from AIDS.

The next major incarnation of Elegies came in 1992 when Bill was asked to direct it at the King's Head Theatre, a fringe theatre in London. It was a great success there and moved to the larger Drill Hall, another fringe theatre. From there, in a slightly altered production, it was transferred to the Criterion Theatre in London's West End in June 1993. It was this version that was recorded on CD by First Night Records.

Since then Elegies has been produced in many countries around the world, including Canada, Israel, Australia, Germany and Scotland; and here in the U.S. in cities as diverse as Dallas, Los Angeles and Tacoma. In 1993 AIDS PROJECT LOS ANGELES did an all-star benefit starring Charles Durning, Lainie Kazan, Tyne Daly, Judith Ivey and many others.

Monday's performance at the Haft Theatre at The Fashion Institute of Technology, 7th Avenue and 27th St., will benefit MOMENTUM, an AIDS organization. The cast, numbering over 50 for this special version, will include Side Show veterans Alice Ripley, Emily Skinner and Norm Lewis, as well as Lillias White, Anne Pitoniak, Bryan Batt, Stephen Spinella, Fisher Stevens, Edward Hibbert, Steve Burns ("Blues Clues"), Orfeh, Brian D'Arcy James, Mario Cantone, Deborah Yates, Stephanie Pope, Veanne Cox, Jan Maxwell, David Drake, Joe Piscopo, Bobby Daye, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Christopher Durang, Jay Rogers, Renoly Santiago (Paul Simon's The Capeman Drama Desk nominee), Danny Gurwin, Matt Bogart, Josh Prince, Erin Torpey (TV's "One Life to Live") Leslie Kay (TV's "As the World Turns"), Saundra Santiago, comedienne Kim Cia and Justin Ross.

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