” There are minutes in the history of theatre when stagecraft takes a new turn. I like to think that this happened for the American musical recently, when Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change (at the general public), a cooperation with author Jeanine Tesori and the director George C. Wolfe, bushwhacked a course beyond the narrative end of the deconstructed, overfreighted musicals of the previous thirty years.”– John Lahr, The New Yorker Louisiana, 1963: A nation reeling from the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy assassination. Caroline, a black maid, and Noah, the boy of the Jewish family she works for, struggle to discover an identity for their relationship. Through their intimate story, this lovely new musical represents the altering rhythms of a country. Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori have actually produced a story that addresses modern questions of culture, neighborhood, race and class through the lens and musical pulse of the 1960 s. Tony Kushner is best known for the two-part masterwork, Angels in America, just recently produced by HBO as a six-hour television occasion, directed by Mike Nichols to universal praise. His other plays consist of Homebody/Kabul, A Bright Space Called Day and Slavs!; in addition to adjustments of Corneille’s The Impression, Ansky’s The Dybbuk, Brecht’s The Great Individual of Szechuan and Goethe’s Stella. Current tasks include: Henry Box Brown or The Mirror of Slavery and St. Cecilia or The Power of Music. He just recently collaborated with Maurice Sendak on an American variation of the kids’s opera, Brundibar. He matured in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he lives in New York. Jeanine Tesori wrote the score for Thoroughly Modern Millie, which won the 2002 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Finest Musical and the multiple-award-winning Violet.
No comments:
Post a Comment