Songbook (5/21/18)

Preston Max Allen, composer/lyricist

A quick recap—Songbook is a series that features new voices for the theater, composers and lyricists who are just starting out, or have written new works, some of which have attained a modicum of success. As an audience, we are exposed to the works of new artists, ably assisted by performers, many of whom are currently appearing on Broadway, all volunteering their time for this worthy cause. At this particular performance, I heard cast members of Frozen, Wicked, and Hello, Dolly!

On to the music. The first four songs were from We Are the Tigers, described by Mr. Allen as a cheerleader murder mystery. Set to a lite rock feel, we meet the head cheerleader in one song and are introduced, in a second song, to the team mascot who really, really wants to be on the cheerleading squad. The third, Skype Tomorrow was a duet between best friends who are going to be spending some time apart—and are concerned that it won’t actually happen as expected. And the fourth has the girls actually dealing with the murder of one of their own. It was interesting though a bit convoluted.

A stand-alone song followed, Generic Princess Song, that was extremely funny. It was probably my favorite song of the evening.

Next were five songs from Never Better, a show about a woman dealing with living with cancer. There was a good mix of a group number, solos, and a duet. The songs were nice, in general, but it was hard to wrap my mind around the subject matter.

One song from The Legend of Carrie White had a character essentially recounting the story line of Carrie, as a younger and older version of her character, performed by two singers (older and younger) at the same time. It was a little too strange for me.

The evening ended with a pair of songs from Agent 355, the story of an unidentified female spy during the Revolutionary War, performed in a lite rock and then a heavier rock style. All in all, I liked the music from all of the shows well enough without being bowled over. Except for that Princess song!

Kudos, as always, to John Znidarsic, the man with the red hat, who has been at the helm of Arts and Artists of Tomorrow (Songbook’s official title) for the past 27 years. This was the last of this year’s series—the 28th season will kick off at the end of September. I plan to be there.

ConcertMeister