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Go in-depth with the leading artists and professionals working on stage today when you go Downstage Center. Downstage Center is the American Theatre Wing's acclaimed weekly theatrical interview program that spotlights the creative talents on Broadway, Off-Broadway, across the country and around the world, with in-depth conversations that simply can't be found anywhere else. Now in its sixth year, Downstage Center, produced in association with CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, has been featured by the Associated Press and Slate.com as the place to go for theatrical talk. New editions will be available every other Wednesday from this website, where you can listen online, download the programs or subscribe to the podcast. |
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John Kander |
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With:
John Kander
Composer John Kander talks about his decades-long collaboration with Fred Ebb, with particular focus on the four projects that were not fully completed before Ebb's death in 2004: The Scottsboro Boys, The Visit, All About Us (aka Over and Over) and Curtains, speaking directly to the issues of utilizing the minstrel show construct for Scottsboro. He recalls his first meeting Ebb and their earliest, never produced collaboration, Golden Gate; beginning work on Cabaret, at the behest of Hal Prince, the morning after Flora the Red Menace opened; what factors resulted in Chicago being only a moderate success in the 70s but a smash in the 90s; why he thinks musicals are best written at a certain "remove" from their subjects; whether he believes there is a "signature" Kander & Ebb writing style; how he, Ebb and and their collaborators spent a great deal of time talking, asking "what if," long before any writing began; whether any of the more than 60 songs written for Cabaret, most unused, will ever escape his "trunk"; what it was like to write for the particular voices of Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera; whether he thinks writing teams benefit from working in the same room, as he and Ebb did throughout their career together; and what he's working on now. Kander also demonstrates how the same melody can be used to change tone over the course of a show, using examples from Cabaret and The Visit.
Original air date - December 29, 2010
Running Time - 48:06
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