Scene to Song July Newsletter
"Gone, love is never gone. As we travel on, love's what we'll remember."
Thanks for your patience as I got a bit of a late start to this month, but all the July material is coming out this week just in time. It always feels as though there is so much going on in the world of musical theater, and I only see and experience just a smidgeon of it, but I want to use this space to highlight the great musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician Tom Lehrer, who recently passed away at age 97.
I credit Lehrer with helping me get into Barnard College. In high school, I got really into Lehrer, so much so that in our after school coffeehouse club, where we usually read our own work, I decided one day that I would read the lyric to his song “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” because I just loved it so much. My English teacher was the sponsor of that club, and when she wrote my recommendation for Barnard she put in there that I was the kind of girl that recited Tom Lehrer lyrics. Well, I got into Barnard and at Barnard I found other friends who loved Tom Lehrer too, so admissions must have known when reading that recommendation that I would fit right in. And then of course I went on to study lyric writing at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.
How did I discover Tom Lehrer? Probably like many musical theater lovers of my generation, I saw his performance on the broadcast of the 1998 concert “Hey, Mr. Producer!” honoring producer Cameron Macintosh. None other than Stephen Sondheim introduced Lehrer’s performance—they went to summer camp together. Macintosh had produced a Tom Lehrer review called Tomfoolery in 1980-1981, which is why he was included. I think this is my favorite rendition of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.”
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— Shoshana
Recent Episodes
Episode 124: The Muppet Movies as Musical Theater
In this episode, dramaturg, director and producer Shaun Leisher discusses the Muppet movies as musical theater. We also talk about the song "Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You" from Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's 1970 musical Company, specifically The Muppet Show version with Loretta Swit.
Music played in this episode:
"Moving Right Along" from The Muppet Movie
"Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie
"Going to Go Back There One Day" from The Muppet Movie
"Hey It’s a Movie" from The Great Muppet Caper
"Happiness Hotel" from The Great Muppet Caper
"Cabin Fever" from Muppet Treasure Island
"You Can’t Take No for an Answer" from The Muppets Take Manhattan
"Scrooge" from The Muppet Christmas Carol
"Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You" from Company
Meet the Guests!
Shaun Leisher (he/him/his) is a dramaturg, director and producer based in the Lehigh Valley region in Pennsylvania. Dramaturgy credits include: Smart People and Clybourne Park at Lehigh University and Raw Pasta at the 2019 Ice Factory Festival. Shaun is a new play fanatic and has hosted readings of plays by some of his favorite writers including: Nina Ki, Kate McMorran, Alex Lin and Tori Lassman.
Hometown: Fogelsville, PA
What are you Working on Right Now: Trying to find an exciting solo play to work on with my pal, Mak Shealy.
What do you have coming up: Nothing at the moment
Book, TV, film, or Theater Recommendation: JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN
Where can we find you online/social media: @shaunaturgy
Musical of the Month
A Chorus Line by Michael Bennett, Marvin Hamlisch, Edward Kleban, James Kirkwood Jr., and Nicholas Dante.
It’s been a big month for A Chorus Line. There were programs, articles, events, performances for this groundbreaking musical on its 50th anniversary on July 25th. Much has already been said about why A Chorus Line changed musical theater in 1975, and I love those conversations (see some articles in the “Something Wonderful” section below), and much has already been chronicled about this show’s history, so I also want to talk about my own experience with A Chorus Line, because, ultimately, shows are about the personal.
My earliest memory of A Chorus Line is my mom’s shirt that said “The end of the Line,” a shirt commemorating the last performance of the show in 1990. It was the longest running musical, she explained, which it was at that time.
I discovered A Chorus Line for myself sometime in middle school. I know I saw the movie, but what I remember more is the vocal score book that we had. I would bring it in the car with me so that I could sing “One” with my friend and/or sister and delight in singing the fast section in counterpoint with them and having it all line up just so.
The only production I ever saw of A Chorus Line was my first semester of college by my school’s musical theater club, which I thought was fantastic. And then in 2012 I joined the volunteer chorus Essential Voices USA. The composer of A Chorus Line, Marvin Hamlisch, had just passed away, and my first performance with the chorus was for his memorial at Juilliard with Liza Minelli and Barbra Streisand.
But the most special moment came a couple years later in 2014, when the chorus was in a concert at Carnegie Hall, and we sang an arrangement of the song “What I Did For Love.” Before the concert, Marvin Hamlisch’s widow Terre Blair Hamlisch came backstage to talk with us. She told us to sing the song tonight for Marvin, that he would be watching us from the balcony. As we performed the song, I looked up at that balcony, and even though I couldn't see Marvin I knew we were singing for him.
Whatever your experience with A Chorus Line is, I hope that it’s also special.
Also in July…
July 3: Happy Birthday, composer David Shire (1937)! Celebrate his work by listening to a discussion on his song “It's Time” from Big: The Musical in episode 39 on Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
July 4: Happy Birthday, playwright/librettist Neil Simon (1927)! Celebrate his work by listening to episode 75 on Marvin Hamlisch, David Zippel, and Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl
July 6: Happy Birthday, composer Claude Michel-Schonberg (1944)! We talk about the Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg musicals Les Miserables and Miss Saigon in multiple episodes, most recently in episode 73 on Evil Characters in Musical Theater and in episode 58 on Sung-Through Musicals in Musical Theater, and discuss “This is the Hour” from Miss Saigon in episode 123.
July 10: Happy Birthday, lyricist/librettist Noble Sissle (1889) and composer/lyricist Jerry Herman (1932)! Celebrate Noble Sissle by listening to episode 87 on Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Flournoy Miller, and Aubrey Lyles’s Shuffle Along and listen to a discussion of his song “Memories of You” in episode 74 on Black History of British Musical Theater. Celebrate Jerry Herman in episode 34 on The Musicals of Jerry Herman.
July 12: Happy Birthday, lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895)! Celebrate by listening to a discussion on his song “Many a New Day” from Oklahoma in episode 45 on The Illusion of the Everyman in Musical Theater and to episode 18 on The Women of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
July 14: Happy Birthday, librettist Arthur Laurents (1918)!
July 15: Happy Birthday, lyricist Dorothy Fields (1905)! Celebrate her work in episode 61 on The Musicals of Cy Coleman.
July 27: Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s Little Shop of Horrors opens off-Broadway (1982). Celebrate by listening to episode 62 on Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s Little Shop of Horrors and episode 105 on Class, Race, and Gender Anxiety in Little Shop of Horrors.
July 31: Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, and Jeff Whitty’s Avenue Q opens on Broadway (2003).
Find more musical theater history for July at musicals101.com.
New Musicals!
While Scene to Song mainly looks at musicals already part of the canon, I definitely want to highlight new musicals and musicals in development.
The Dark Lady
I have not seen this musical, but it just won this year’s Richard Rodgers Award.
Creative Team: Music and Story by Veronica Mansour; Book, Lyrics, and Story by Sophie Boyce
Synopsis: The year is 1588.Emilia Bassano is crafting some of the most remarkable stories the world will see. But women are not permitted to write plays, and so theatre’s greatest characters stand to be lost in the abyss… Until a deal is struck, with the stableboy William Shakespeare…
Development History: 2025 Richard Rodgers Award Winner, 2025 Dramatist Guild Fellowship 1 Year Development Program, 2025 Eric H. Weinberger Librettist Award, 2025 Manhattan School of Music Workshop, 2025 LAMDA New Works Program Workshop, 2025 NAMT Finalist, 2025 Circle in the Square New Works Finalist, 2024 Goodspeed Musicals, Johnny Mercer Writers Grove, Writing Residency, 2024 South Carolina New Works Festival 29 hour reading, 2024 MT West New Works Program 29 hour reading, 2024 Playbill Songwriter Series Feature, 2024 Syracuse New Works New Voices Finalist, 2023 Eugene O'Neill National MT Conference Winner + 60 Hour Workshop.
Learn more about The Dark Lady and hear some of the songs.
Something Wonderful
Some additional recommendations for July:
Stephen Sondheim’s Papers at the Library of Congress
Article: ‘A privilege and a great pleasure’: inside the 5,000-item Stephen Sondheim collection” in The Guardian. “A treasure trove of manuscripts, notebooks and recordings from the theatre legend has been acquired by the Library of Congress in Washington DC.”
Article: “Take a peek at Stephen Sondheim's papers, now at the Library of Congress” for NPR. “[Sondheim’s] papers — more than 5,000 items including lyric and music sketches, scores, unpublished scripts, and all sorts of miscellany — are safe in the Library's collection, [senior music specialist at the Library of Congress Mark Eden Horowitz] says he's forever being surprised by them, even though he knows Sondheim's work well.”
A Chorus Line’s 50th Anniversary
Article: “‘A Chorus Line’ and ‘Chicago’ at 50: Who Won?” in The New York Times. Jesse Green explores the legacy of these important shows. “Both shows are about performers: ‘Chicago’ featuring 1920s vaudevillians with a sideline in murder; ‘A Chorus Line,’ contemporary Broadway dancers. Both are masterminded by director-choreographers of acknowledged (and self-acknowledged) brilliance: ‘Chicago’ by Bob Fosse; ‘A Chorus Line’ by Michael Bennett. Both are seen, regardless of reviews, as exemplars of style-meets-content storytelling in a period of confusing change in musical theater. And both shows remain touchstones today, albeit of very different things.”
Radio Program: “‘A Chorus Line’ turns 50: A look at how it changed Broadway forever” for WNYC. “Friday [marked] the 50th anniversary of the iconic Broadway musical ‘A Chorus Line,’ which opened at the Shubert Theatre on July 25, 1975.”
Hosted by writer Shoshana Greenberg, Scene to Song brings on a guest to talk about a musical, musical theater writer, or a topic or trend in musical theater. The theme music is by Julia Meinwald.
You can write to scenetosong@gmail.com with a comment or question about an episode or about musical theater, or if you’d like to be a podcast guest. Follow on Instagram at @ScenetoSong and on Facebook at “Scene to Song with Shoshana Greenberg Podcast.”
Shoshana Greenberg is a lyricist, librettist, singer, and theater journalist. Her musicals include Days of Rage and A Story No One Knows with Hyeyoung Kim and Lightning Man with Jeffrey Dennis Smith. She has also written the opera “The Community” with Kevin Cummines. Her songs have been heard at venues from Lincoln Center to the Duplex, where she performed her one-woman show Not Coming Back. She’s written for American Theatre Magazine, is a contributing editor for the publication Musical Theater Today, and created and hosts the musical theater podcast Scene to Song. She holds an M.F.A. from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU and a B.A. from Barnard College.