13 gets a makeover

I really enjoyed the musical 13 when I saw it on Broadway in November. Sure, it was kind of gimmicky, with its all teenage cast and musicians.

But I thought it was a sweet story told with a lot of humor and poignancy about Evan Goldman, a Jewish teenager who moves from New York City to small-town Indiana on the eve of his bar mitzvah and struggles to fit in.

It's too bad the show couldn't have opened in the spring because I think it could have attracted tourists with teenagers visiting New York City this summer. Instead, it opened in the fall to lukewarm reviews and closed in January.

Anyway, now 13 will make its regional deubt at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston in September. According to Playbill, composer Jason Robert Brown and librettists Dan Elish and Robert Horn will test out a revised version at the French Woods Performing Arts Camp in Hancock, New York.

This is what puzzles me. Brown told Playbill that he and his collaborators "loved the show we put on Broadway, but felt that 13's future life would be well served by taking one more shot at certain sections of the piece, particularly those sections that might not make as much sense to an audience outside of New York City."

What is he talking about exactly? The only thing I could think of is, maybe they're toning down some of the Jewish references, the gentle pokes at the Gentiles and small-town America? I don't know.

I hope they're keeping the culture clash. To me, what really resonated was Evan's sense of feeling out of place and desperately wanting to fit in. We've all felt like a gefilte fish out of water at some point in our lives, haven't we?

I'm a fan of Brown's music and I hope that 13 has an afterlife in schools and regional theatres. But it would be interesting to know what wouldn't make sense to an audience outside New York City!

Chanukah Suite

I've become a big fan of composer Jason Robert Brown's musical theatre scores from seeing productions of Parade and 13 and listening to the cast recording of The Last 5 Years.

You can get a great taste of Brown's music on his Web site, and I always find something interesting poking around there. For example, I had no idea he'd written the Chanukah Suite in 2004. Since the eight-day holiday began last night, it's perfect timing!

Here's how Brown describes the piece:

The Chanukah Suite was borne of two separate desires: 1) to make the celebration of Chanukah an exuberant musical experience that both draws on tradition and looks forward to new ideas; and 2) to write a piece for chorus which combined the "Broadway" idiom in which I most often work with more traditional liturgical choral techniques. Therefore, this challenging medley requires both a strict fidelity to the written rhythms and pitches and a real sense of spontaneity. When it's done in the right spirit, this piece should make Chanukah a powerful, soul-stirring, swinging, rock-and-rolling Festival of Lights.

You can listen to the Chanukah Suite here, in a 2005 performance by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. It's really cool. I love how Brown has taken several traditional holiday songs and turned them into a stirring 8-minute choral work. Don't worry that it's all in Hebrew. There's a translation.

And just in case you have any last-minute Chanukah or Christmas shopping left to do, here's Brown's holiday gift guide.

Happy Chanukah, everyone!

13

Gratuitous Violins rating *** out of ****

I've never experienced a situation exactly like Evan Goldman's in the Broadway musical 13, where I've been just about the only Jewish person in town, although I think I came close once. Still, whether they're Jewish or not, most people can probably recall a time in their lives when they've felt out of place, but desperately wanted to fit in.

So while I'm long past the age demographic, I really enjoyed this story of a gefilte fish out of water as Evan, played by a very appealing Graham Phillips, moves with his mother from New York City to small-town Appleton, Ind., after his parents get divorced.

Exiled from the Promised Land of Manhattan, all Evan wants is for the cool kids at Dan Quayle Junior High to come to his bar mitzvah. This won't be an easy task because judging from their reactions, none of them has ever been to one or even heard of the ceremony. (In fact, it makes me wonder whether there are enough Jews in this town so that there would even be a synagogue where Evan could have his bar mitzvah.) He tries to sell it as a really great party.

Initially, I was a bit concerned that in portraying this culture clash, 13 pokes fun at small-town America. David Farley's backdrop certainly makes this Indiana town look pretty desolate, especially in comparison with the colorful opening cityscape of New York.

But this is an endearing, good-natured show. And the characters are such stock types - the bully, his sidekicks, the cheerleader, the schemer, the gossip, the outsider - that I don't think you could take offense. They're pretty recognizable, no matter where you go to school - or when. And under the direction of Jeremy Sams, it all moves along at a brisk pace.

When I saw 13 on a Friday night in the orchestra section at the Jacobs Theatre, filled with teens and their families, everyone - including me - seemed to be loving it. It was announced yesterday that the show is closing on Jan. 4. I wish it had found a bigger audience.

Some of the most highly touted musical comedies I've seen lately have fallen a little flat. On more than one occasion, I've sat in the audience and wondered why everyone around me was laughing so hysterically. This time, I laughed at all the jokes, including at all the Jewish references. Ok, especially those. Sure, some of them were a bit silly, but everyone likes to see themselves represented on stage.

Plus, 13 features a very catchy rock 'n' roll score by Jason Robert Brown, and exuberant choreography by Christopher Gattelli, especially in the opening number, "13/Becoming a Man." At the performance I saw, Ariana Grande was Patrice, the unpopular girl who befriends Evan. Grande has a big voice that just soars in the stirring ballad, "What It Means to Be a Friend."

Of course, the conceit of 13 is that everyone on stage - the actors and musicians - are all teenagers. The kids, with their energy and enthusiasm, do a terrific job of carrying the musical. They're funny and cute and engaging. Since I'm not 13 years old, I probably felt the humor more than the sense of awkwardness and anxiety that comes with being a teenager.

I especially liked Eric Nelsen, who has just the right amount of menace as Brett, the school bully, Delaney Moro as the sought-after Kendra, Aaron Simon Gross as the disabled Archie, who's never an object of pity but schemes with the best of them, and Elizabeth Egan Gillies as the manipulative Lucy.

Like the characters, the book, by Dan Elish and Robert Horn, treads familiar ground with its message about the importance of figuring out who your real friends are, not just hanging with the popular crowd because that's the cool thing to do.

Still, there was one scene that I found surprising - and moving. At the end, we see Evan during his bar mitzvah, a yarmulke on his head and a prayer shawl draped around his shoulders, chanting in Hebrew. The show could have left that part out, soft-pedaled the religious angle, but it didn't - to its credit.

I'll admit that after reading some of the opening-night reviews, I'd lowered my expectations. But I was really pleasantly surprised by this little mensch of a musical.

Reading, watching, listening

I always like to check out the weekly list of upcoming theatre-related book, cd and dvd releases on Talkin Broadway. Here's some of what I'd like to be listening to, watching and reading:

Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz from Godspell to Wicked: Wow, that's a pretty long title. Now granted, I'd probably just skip ahead to the section on Wicked, but according to the publisher, author Carol de Giere spent 80 hours interviewing the composer and talked to more than 100 of his colleagues friends and family. The 544-page biography reveals "never-before-told-stories and explores both Schwartz's phenomenal hits and expensive flops." Available now.

The Grapes of Wrath: I don't anything about composer Ricky Ian Gordon, but I've been a big John Steinbeck fan since high school. My favorite work of his is actually the nonfiction account of his 1960 trip across America, Travels with Charley. Still, I'm curious about Gordon's opera version of Steinbeck's Depression-era novel The Grapes of Wrath. This 3-cd set was recorded last year with the Minnesota Opera. Available now.

Radio City Christmas Spectacular: I took a tour of Radio City Music Hall last year and it was great. Unfortunately, because a show was going on, we didn't actually get to go into the auditorium. So until I can see those high-kicking Rockettes in person, this may be the next best thing. This 90-minute dvd features last year's 75th anniversary production, including the reportedly spectacular Parade of the Wooden Soldiers. Release date: Nov. 4.

In Spite of Myself: A Memoir: I loved Julie Andrews' memoir, Home, and now her Sound of Music costar, Christopher Plummer, is weighing in with a 656-page autobiography. The early reviews sound good. Publisher's Weekly calls the book “An enchanting observer of the showbiz cavalcade, drawing vivid thumbnails of everyone from Laurence Olivier to Lenny Bruce and tossing off witty anecdotes like the most effortless ad libs. The result - a sparkling star turn from a born raconteur for whom all the world is indeed a stage.” Release date: Nov. 4.

The Gospel at Colonus: Since seeing The Dreams of Antigone last week, I'm on kind of a Greek tragedy kick. The Gospel at Colonus is a retelling of Sophocles' play Oedipus at Colonus through the medium of modern gospel music. This is the 9o-minute filmed version of a 1985 Philadelphia performance and features Morgan Freeman as a Pentecostal preacher and The Blind Boys of Alabama, collectively, as Oedipus. Release date: Nov. 18.

13: Even if I don't get to see Jason Robert Brown's new musical, I'll still pick up the original Broadway cast recording. I don't feel compelled to buy the cd of every new musical, especially if I've never seen it. But I enjoy Brown's music - whether I've seen the show, like Parade, or whether I haven't, like The Last 5 Years - and this is the kind of catchy pop score that's usually right up my alley. Release date: Nov. 25.

Hair: Let the Sun Shine In: If I could travel back in time to see the original Broadway production of a musical, Hair would definitely be high on my list. Maybe it's not so shocking today, but I can only imagine what it was like to see it 40 years ago. This 55-minute documentary, which also includes an hour of bonus footage, "conveys a portrait of an era, a generation and its politics." Release date Dec. 9.

Passing Strange: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical: Stew won the Tony award for Best Book of a Musical for writing Passing Strange and I can understand why. The dialog was smart, witty and memorable. I'm curious to see how his words hold up when I read them rather than listen to them. Release date: January 15.

Introducing Jason Robert Brown

Composer Jason Robert Brown doesn't need an introduction to most musical theatre fans, but he did for me. He was one of those people whose name I kept reading about a year ago, but I didn't know anything about him.

Then in February 2007, I spotted an interview with Brown on the Jewish literature and culture site Nextbook. I thought, "Hey, this is the guy whose name I've been hearing." I read it and suddenly, I knew a lot about Jason Robert Brown!

Since then, I've listened to The Last Five Years and liked it a lot for its mixture of tenderness and self-deprecating humor - and its unusual structure - as it chronicles a failed marriage. Last year in Boston I saw Parade, about the murder of Mary Phagan in 1913 in Atlanta, and the subsequent trial and lynching of Leo Frank. I thought Brown's music, especially "The Old Red Hills of Home," was hauntingly beautiful. He received the Tony award for Best Score in 1999 for Parade.

Tickets go on sale today for the Brown's newest musical, 13, which begins previews Sept. 16 at Broadway's Jacobs Theatre. The show, which has an all-teenage cast, is about all of the anxieties that come with reaching that age. The main character is a Jewish kid from New York who's forced to move to a small town in Indiana where, apparently, there are no Jews. So I've decided to call it the "gefilte fish out of water musical."

With the new show coming up, I figure it's a good time to share that interview from last year. The article was written by Mollie Wilson, who also blogs about the theatre at Restricted View. It provides a pretty thorough look at Brown's life and career, from his 1995 off-Broadway revue Songs for a New World, through Parade and The Last Five Years, to the disappointment of Urban Cowboy and Brown's relocation to Southern California.

Along the way, Wilson includes kind of a running commentary from Brown. She begins and ends with 13, which had its premiere in Los Angeles last year. "There is a huge demographic of kids that age who love musicals," Brown says. "I wanted to create something that they could feel like they owned."

I also like to check out Brown's own Web site every once in awhile. It's a great resource, full of detailed information about all of his work and it has MP3s available for download. Brown also writes a blog, and his latest entry - The Perils of an Online LIfe - is a very funny story about reaching his limit of "friends" on Facebook.

The limit is 5,000, which would be more than enough for me, but apparently JRB gets requests all the time from people who want to be his friends. As he says, "Five thousand is a lot of people. And I don't even like people." (I'm sure he's just joking, right?) So he's been forced to throw some of his old "friends" overboard (people whose last names start with the letter "A") to make room for new ones.

I guess I'm not much of a joiner. I'm not on Facebook or Myspace or Friendster or digg or del.icio.us or Linked.in or MyBlogLog or StumbleUpon or any other social-netorking site. Am I leaving anything out? Am I missing anything? Do you think Jason Robert Brown would have me as his friend?