Jason Robert Brown

Posted on May 11, 2007 at 5:37 am

Chris Slattery’s article here.

Broadway on the Pike
Strathmore presents – and produces – “Songs for a New World”
by Chris Slattery, staff writer

It’s the arts world equivalent of the house on the block where all the kids like to play: the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda. Which is why the prolific Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown is planning to visit next week, along with a hand-picked Broadway ‘‘dream cast” and a group from the Arlington-based Signature Theatre, to perform his song cycle ‘‘Songs for a New World.”

‘‘This all happened in a roundabout way,” Brown explains. ‘‘Strathmore invited Signature to do a production, so I wrote to [Signature co-founder and artistic director] Eric Schaeffer and said, ‘I’ve seen pictures of Strathmore; it’s gorgeous. I’d like to be a part of it.’”

So not only will an eclectic cast of multiple Tony nominees make the trek from Broadway and Los Angeles, not only will Signature send its associate director Michael Baron to direct the show, but Brown — who made his debut with ‘‘Songs For a New World” Off Broadway in 1995 and has been hailed ever since as the next big thing — is coming to perform as well.

Montgomery County built it, and here they come.

Beauty

‘‘It’s a big deal,” says Shelley Brown, Strathmore’s director of programming. The Colorado native — no relation to the composer — has been filling the Music Center with every imaginable sort of act since its early 2005 opening. There has been classical music, of course, but also the sounds of every culture and ethnicity imaginable: dance troupes, children’s entertainers, even rock and roll. But this is Strathmore’s first foray into actually producing an event, not just presenting it.
‘‘I started with the idea: just to get Signature Theatre here,” explains Brown, who had worked with Schaeffer at the Kennedy Center before she came to Strathmore in January 1998. ‘‘I wanted it to be something that focused on music: the voices, the composition … and this is really a song cycle.”

‘‘Michael Baron and Jason Robert Brown came for a tour of the venue and got really excited about the size and beauty of Strathmore,” she says.

For Jason Robert Brown, it was the perfect setting for his description-defying musical. Growing up in Rockland County, N.Y., he accompanied his family on annual visits to Broadway: ‘‘The Wiz,” ‘‘West Side Story” with Debbie Allen, ‘‘Barnum.” It was, he says, the start of his ambition ‘‘to be Billy Joel and Stephen Sondheim.”

Which is really not a bad way to describe ‘‘Songs For a New World,” the 16-song revue he created with Daisy Prince (daughter of director and producer Harold Prince) as the original director.

‘‘What ‘Songs For a New World’ turned into was a piece about community, about joining the theater community, introducing myself,” Brown says. ‘‘And now this little Off-Broadway show is going to fill up this big, beautiful hall!”

On a mission

Shelley Brown wants to see the hall fill up, too.

The Music Center, she explains, ‘‘was designed for flexibility,” and she believes that flexibility extends to the people in the seats.

‘‘We have a sophisticated audience,” she observes. ‘‘I felt it was time to say: ‘Here’s something new, come along with us.’”

Not that buying a ticket means taking a chance on quality.

‘‘The piece,” Brown says, ‘‘was new to me.

‘‘I had read about Jason Robert Brown — how couldn’t you, he’s one of the most promising young composers — and because this is part of our Songwriter Series, it was nice to focus on a contemporary composer who’s doing such exciting work.”

‘‘Songs For a New World,” though, has become something of a cult classic. It came out the year before ‘‘Rent,” to which it’s frequently compared, and over the last dozen years, the musical ensemble piece has been performed more than 200 times around the world.

‘‘If you look at our mission: ‘Strathmore nurtures art, artists and community,’” says Brown. ‘‘This is all that happening in one event.”

Cabaret

Happening because of collaboration. The Music Center works closely with the ‘‘partners” that share its space, like the Levine School of Music and the National Philharmonic, but it also reaches out to arts organizations like Signature, which has an impressive space of its own in Shirlington.

Signature associate director Michael Baron, though, says Strathmore is ‘‘stunning,” and that makes it the ideal setting for ‘‘Songs For a New World.”

‘‘It’s really just a concert,” says Baron. ‘‘There’s no plot; the songs stand alone — funny broad comedy songs and really emotional songs — and they’re great ‘acting songs.’”

It’s sort of a cabaret he says. In fact, Baron reckons that ‘‘every cabaret that’s done, you’ll hear a song from this show.”

The composer calls the show ‘‘an actor’s gourmet meal.

‘‘If you’re a singing actor, it’s very gratifying. There’s a lot to chew on!”

But making it all seem simple and natural is a challenge for the director. Baron expects the lighting design to be key, and he knows he can count on the music director, who will be the composer himself.

‘‘He’s a character,” says Baron of Brown. ‘‘As a musician he’s very particular; to have his band with him is a very big deal.

‘‘He has high expectations, which I admire.”

Brown’s high expectations — and his reputation as a composer/lyricist — allowed him to handpick what Baron calls ‘‘a dream cast.

‘‘It’s been a dream of mine to work with these performers,” he says. ‘‘I can’t imagine it being sung better.”

It’s a cast with a common thread of recent Broadway experience, like Laura Benanti, who made her Broadway debut as Maria in ‘‘The Sound of Music” opposite Richard Chamberlain, received an Outer Critic Circle nomination for her role in the revival of ‘‘Nine” opposite Antonio Banderas and will co-star with Johnny Lee Miller in ‘‘Eli Stone” on ABC.

There’s Tituss Burgess, from the Broadway musicals ‘‘Jersey Boys” and ‘‘Good Vibrations,” whose next big role will be Sebastian when Disney’s ‘‘The Little Mermaid” debuts on Broadway next season.

And Brian d’Arcy James, who made his Broadway debut in ‘‘Blood Brothers” and had leading roles in ‘‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” ‘‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” ‘‘Carousel,” ‘‘Titanic” and ‘‘Sweet Smell of Success.”

Alice Ripley, who starred in ‘‘Shakespeare in Hollywood” at Arena Stage, has a Broadway background, too: she created the role of Violet Hilton in ”Side Show,” and performed in ‘‘Sunset Boulevard,” ‘‘The Who’s Tommy” and ‘‘King David.” (She also recently released her debut solo album ‘‘Everything’s Fine.”)

‘‘Jason says every time he does the show, he hears something new,” says Baron. ‘‘For him to have these performers, to be doing it in this venue — he’s just genuinely thrilled.”

And he’s crystal clear on the secret to his — and the play’s — success. Brown explains that he recently spent nine hours at Lincoln Center watching and loving every minute of Tom Stoppard’s ‘‘Coast of Utopia.”

‘‘If you write what’s true to you,” he says, ‘‘People will respond to that truthfully.”

‘‘Songs for a New World,” he adds, ‘‘is a show that has survived against the odds.

‘‘It survives because it is truthful. It speaks to our desire to be joined together.”

Strathmore Presents a Signature Theatre Concert Musical ‘‘Songs for a New World,” at 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, and Thursday May 17, in the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. Tickets range from $21 to $50. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.

UPDATE FROM JRB: This article went to press the day after we learned that Laura Benanti wouldn’t be able to join us in Bethesda (she got a screen test for a big movie and we weren’t going to deny her that opportunity); in her place will be the magnificent Laura Griffith (who just finished a glorious run in as Franca in the tour of Light in the Piazza).