Chance = Change

In the orchestra rehearsal room at the Ayers Studio on 47th Street, there was a lot of brass for such a small space, and the players were good too...good in the way that only Broadway pitmen who have played dozens of shows can be good...so right away, my ears and I were awake! A good solid trumpet-tenor sax-bass sax sound has always hit me right...and the percussionist, that scamp, has played SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE for so many years, he's seen it all....their maestro is Galt McDermott of HAIR fame, who has aged into a wise-eyed silver fox, looking far more delicate than he actually is...he's seen it all too, or at least, considering all the drugs that have coursed through him, he thinks, or imagines he's seen it all....he has probably seen a lot of things that were not actually there. In any case,we were all there yesterday morning at the Ayers Studio, listening to the guys rehearse the score for GODDESS WHEEL , Galt's new musical written with Matty Selman. Based on the ever-true Lysistrata it is yet another rock and roll treatment of the age-old theme: who rules? women or men? peace (piece) or war? etc.etc. The difference with this one is that it has crossed CAP21's path and we are doing a reading of it for our Monday Night Reading Series in April, and Frank V. has asked me to help out. I am intrigued enough to say yes...After all, I did direct HAIR (with 26 NYU Sophomores!!!) and grew very fond of what Galt and his pals had to say and how they said it...so here we are again, facing our age-old task: how to make a show out of what seems a big sprawling (yet passionate) mess right now? At the moment , we are baffled, but engaged, and Frank and I are using this process to sort out things we want to work on concerning CAP 21's process of development, and to look at how he and I work together...GODDESS WHEEL has much in it of interest...some genuinely sexy music, funny lyrics, ironic and sweet...and, ,much like HAIR, (what's the word I'm looking for?)...bumptious in its musical spirit...joyful noises, with an underlining of sadness and world-weariness...certainly not what is being written today by all the young lions of the musical theater world, like Adam Guettel, Jason Robert Brown,et al...this is definitely Galt McDermott's voice...no question about it...not at all modern in that contemporary sense, fractured and a-rhythymic or clever...just good old-fashioned music, much of it with a tinge of what HAIR sounds like...you would know it's by the same writer...but it very deeply and definitely says what it wants to say, and the message again is about the futility of man killing man...this one is older and wiser, though, and also talks of how silly man is in his pursuit for those things he thinks will comfort him...and how hard it is to fine true love in a world obsessesed with the physical....and i do love the title...I do love that title...GODDESS WHEEL...connoting the power of women...the eternal game, the never-ending journey that women and men take together...how never-ending is the toil women undertake to care for the race of mankind...Galt pointed out that despite the title, there are no actual goddesses in Lysistrata...but we discussed how there cannot be a piece of Greek theatre very far from the world of gods and goddesses, since no matter what, the divine was always in charge of what went on in their world ...always...the Greek pantheon was also very human in their specific characteristics...the gods were so like men and women...the dance between them so intricate and involved...a wheel is a good image for that too. And so the conversation goes on...Peter has a call back for the new musical THREE MUSKETEERS by Paul Johnson....we are home!