Songbook – Broadway’s Future (1/28/19)

Katya Stanislavskaya, composer, lyricist

The first song, Coffee Date, was from Women on Love. It was a first date song, a nice fun waltz where the woman wants to skip over the difficult parts of the date, but just can’t really. Both coffee and Women on Love were also featured later in the concert.

Five songs from Resident Alien followed, outlining the inherent problems of Jews relocating to America from Russia. The renaming was just that—dealing with the bureaucracy of name changes for easier assimilation, and the newly named not being too happy about it. A father, mother and daughter go through new changes in the new land and, indeed, the parents end up divorcing. It’s sometimes hard to follow the plot and figure out how the songs really fit in when only hearing a few of the songs. The daughter has a coming of age song, My Body Talks, that was sort of interesting but felt a little out of place to me. Maybe I’m just too far removed from the inner workings of the teenage mind. I liked the songs, though I wasn’t really bowled over.

Six songs from Going South followed, which highlighted the not so great things about North Carolina and some of its laws. Jess’s Proposal deals with the issue of same-sex marriage (two women, in this case) and the somewhat reluctant, or maybe tepid is the right word, acceptance. A pair of songs, Real and Once You’re In, You’re In, dealt with rape and its aftermath, including some very stereotypical male ideas. They were troubling but done very well.

Seven songs from Women on Love followed, including Coffee for Two and Me and My Cup—I told you they’d be making a return. Women on Love is not a musical, per se, it’s more of a catch-all for songs that don’t readily fit into other musicals and then get pulled together for concertizing. Coffee for Two was about having been alone for so long that the singer wasn’t even sure if she remembered how to make that quantity, even if the right situation presented itself. Me and My Cup celebrates the joy and serenity of having coffee alone, after having rushed off in all directions, constantly helping others (kids, husband, etc.). The time for herself, alone, actually helps preserve her love for her husband.

I especially liked Claire/Bear which was an assignment for a writing class run by composer William Finn—write a song about a dog. In this case, a woman gets a pug, Bear, to help prepare for the coming of her child, Claire. As both Bear and Claire grow up through the years, the mom sometimes likes/loves Bear better than Claire. It was pretty darn funny. And I liked the fact that it was performed here by a more mature woman, making it seem more real, for me. To Each Her Own had a pair of sisters showing off their individual skills in a bit of a battle (all in fun, of course). I also liked Morty Morgenstern, the story of a grandma in a Boca Raton nursing home who gets a new boyfriend who’s only a few years older, but they let him drive! In retrospect, maybe they shouldn’t have, but grandma still has some fun with Morty.

All in all, I liked the writing, and the lyrics were okay, even though none really caught my attention or had me jotting them down. There are going to be two workshop performances of Going South in early March that I might make an attempt to see one. We’ll see. If I do, I just might report back.

ConcertMeister