CUT (6/2/14)

What a fun program. This was a discussion/performance of Songs Cut from this Season’s New Broadway Musicals (that’s the official subtitle). On hand were
Lynn Ahrens (lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music), with “Sometimes A Loser Can Win,” cut from Rocky; Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics), with “You’ve Moved On,” cut from The Bridges of Madison County (sung here by
Elena Shaddow); and Tom Kitt (music), with “Cold Cold City,” cut from If/Then (lyrics by Brian Yorkey). While the music was good, hearing about how the songs are created and why they were cut was even more so, for me.

 

First we heard about an opening night tradition—Mr. Flaherty always presents
Ms. Ahrens a collection (in book or folio form) of all of the songs, underscoring, and transition materials that have been cut from the project opening that night. With Rocky, the song that was cut (performed here by Mr. Flaherty (Ms. Ahrens actually said, “I’m glad it’s not one of Adrian’s songs!”)) was an introspective, set-up song. Originally, it was supposed to go where “Fight from the Heart” is now, not that that means a lot to me. It’s a nice song, and it’s certainly dear to the songwriting team—they tried just about everything, including leaving it where it was, moving it around to the second act—but they couldn’t find a way to keep it in the score. And it turns out that it was one of the first songs written for the show, back in 2006.

 

Next up was Mr. Brown, who was quite the raconteur. He spoke about the main problem with Bridges, that being, how do you get to “dead, but happy”? To me, the song sounded like a film score from the get go, and it was performed beautifully here by Ms. Shaddow, who was a standby for Kelli O’Hara. While the show was written with Ms. O’Hara in mind, Ms. Shaddow was involved in earlier iterations, and it was quite evident in her powerful performance. This was real composing and real singing. The gist of what I got from Mr. Brown is that composers often end up writing the same moment over and over, and then sometimes the moment gets cut.

 

Mr. Kitt’s performance of his cut song had rippling accompaniment that was evocative of Paul Simon’s music. Indeed, Mr. Kitt said that Mr. Simon was a role model and that folk music in the park was also a source of inspiration. As an answer to a question from the audience (‘So, why was it cut?”), Mr. Kitt said that in this case, the character left the show (cut) so the song did, too. An overall theme from all of the panelists is that not all of the songs written fit the puzzle. In the case of If/Then, a full twenty-seven songs/cues were cut.

 

It sort of makes one realize that of all the shows that make it, there are lots that don’t. Of all of the songs that make it, there are lots and lots and lots that don’t. And there are lots of trunks out there with lots of tunes. The excellent moderator for the evening was Doug Reside, Digital Curator, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

 

ConcertMeister