The Notables

Comedy and Tragedy

Friday and Saturday, November 9 & 10, 2018

(Friday at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.)

Program

• The Do’s and Don’ts of the Audience [2013: wm. John Jacobson & Mac Huff; arr. Mac Huff] <JWP> <Northridge HS--youtube>
• Coffee (in a Cardboard Cup) [1971: w. Fred Ebb; m. John Kander; from 70, Girls, 70; arr. Kevin Robison] <JWP> <youtube>
• Beethoven’s Wig [2002: m. Ludwig van Beethoven; w. Richard Perlmutter; arr. Michael Geiger] <JWP> <LAVC--youtube>
• Bosom Buddies [1966: wm. Jerry Herman, from Mame] (Vera: Donna & Mame: Melissa) <cast recording--youtube> <Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur--youtube>
• Send in the Clowns [1973: wm. Stephen Sondheim; from A Little Night Music; arr. Mac Huff] <JWP> <GCC Chamber Singers--youtube>
• The Hanging Tree [2014: w. Suzanne Collins; m. Jeremiah Fraites & Wesley Schultz (both of The Lumineers); from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I; arr. Mark Brymer] <JWP> <youtube>
• I’m Not That Girl [2003: wm. Stephen Schwartz; from Wicked; arr. Audrey Snyder; SSA] (Solo: Christina Railey) <JWP> <Mount Glee--youtube>
• How Could I Ever Know? [1991: w. Marsha Norman; m. Lucy Stone; from The Secret Garden] (SSA w Pamela Wrona, solo) <cast recording--youtube>
• How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place [1865-8; from Ein Deutsches Requiem; m. Johannes Brahms; w. Psalm 84:1,2,4] <JWP> <Mormon Tabernacle Choir--youtube>
• Lacrymosa, from Requiem [m. Mozart] <JWP: no audio> <Herreweghe--youtube>
• Men in Tights [1993: wm. Mel Brooks; from Robin Hood: Men in Tights; arr. Jacob Narverud; TBB] <JWP> <American Fork HS--youtube>
• If You’ve Only Got a Moustache [w. George Cooper, alt.; m. Stephen Foster, 1864; arr. Larry Shackley] <JWP> <Lexington CCS--youtube>
• Jabberwocky [w. Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There, 1871; m. Sam Pottle, 1972] <JWP> <University of Utah--youtube>

Deleted

• I Hate Men [1948: wm. Cole Porter; from Kiss Me Kate] <cast recording--youtube>
• Where Have the Actors Gone [2008: wm. Morten Lauridsen; arr. Ian Freebairn-Smith] <JWP>

Note: The notation <JWP> is a link to the J. W. Pepper web page for the given piece. The notation <***--youtube> is a link to a youtube page for the given piece.

Notes

• Beethoven’s Wig sets words to the opening of the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. This zany novelty presents Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” set to fanciful lyrics that glorify the composer’s famous hair style! What a fun way to introduce your students to serious music! “Beethoven’s wig...is very big! Beethoven’s wig is long and curly and it’s white...” Get the idea? The audience will, too, and they’ll be laughing all the way through!
• Bosom Buddies is from the 1966 Jerry Herman show Mame.
  • Orphan Annie and Sandy: Sandy was Little Orphan Annie’s dog.
  • Amos 'n' Andy was a radio sitcom and serial about two black Southerners who move to Chicago and struggle to make a living there. The show was so popular that movie theaters would stop the film for 15 minutes and play the broadcast so that viewers would not have to miss the program in order to see the movie.
  • Peg o’ My Heart is a popular song written by Alfred Bryan and Fred Fisher for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1913.
  • Alice Babette Toklas (1877-1967) and Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) were life partners and hosted a salon in Paris that attracted many American writers, including Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder, and such avant-garde painters as Picasso and Matisse.
  • Romulus and Remus are the twin mythical founders of Rome. They were said to be orphaned, and were suckled by a she-wolf. When Rome was built, they quarreled, and Romulus killed Remus. Romulus then became the first of the seven kings of Rome. In the Aeneid, Virgil adds that the twins were descended from Aeneas after he had fled from the fall of Troy.
• Coffee (in a Cardboard Cup) is from the 1971 Kander and Ebb Broadway show 70, Girls, 70. The story concerns the residents of an old folks hotel who learn their building is to be sold and torn down, making them homeless. They plot to shoplift furs and jewelry to raise enough money to buy the hotel themselves. The initial production ran for 35 performances. The musical was based on a 1958 play, Breath of Spring, by Peter Coke. In the published lyric it has “seaboard”, which might be “c-board”; that is, “cardboard.” But another source says “seaboard” is food service slang for “to go”; that is, take out. The Belnord cafeteria, according to one source, was located in the garment district. But The Belnord is an apartment building located at 225 W. 86th St. on the upper west side of Manhattan. It is 13 stories tall, and was designed in 1908. It was recently purchased with the intent of turning the apartments into condos, with an average selling price of $6 million. The Belnord Hotel is located at 209 West 87th Street.
• The Do’s and Don’ts of the Audience [2013: wm. John Jacobson & Mac Huff; arr. Mac Huff]
• The Hanging Tree is from the 2014 film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I. The lyric is by Suzanne Collins, who is also the author of The Hunger Games trilogy. The music is by Jeremiah Fraites and Wesley Schultz. Fraites is the drummer and Schultz the guitar player and lead singer for the rock band The Lumineers. In the film the song is sung by James Newton Howard, and features vocals of Jennifer Lawrence, the star of the film.
• How Could I Ever Know? is from the 1991 Broadway show The Secret Garden (words by Marsha Norman and music by Lucy Stone), based on the book of the same title by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published in 1911
• How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place (Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen) is the fourth movement from Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) by Johannes Brahms. Brahms said that he would have titled the piece “A Human Requiem” because he intended it to be a comfort to the living.
• Jabberwocky is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Luitwidge Dodgson) included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Some of the words in the poem have become standardized in English, such as “chortle” and “galumphing.”
• Lacrymosa is the 7th movement in Mozart’ Requiem in D minor, K. 626. Only the first eight bars were completed at Mozart’s death, although he may have written the vocal parts. The rest was completed by his pupil Franz Xaver Süßmayr.
• If You’ve Only Got a Moustache is a song by Stephen Foster, published in 1864, setting a lyric by George Cooper; the arrangement is by Larry Shackley.
• I’m Not That Girl is from the 2003 Broadway show Wicked, for which Stephen Schwartz wrote both music and lyrics.
• Men in Tights is from Mel Brooks’s 1993 film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which was a parody of the Robin Hood legend, including the 1938 Errol Flynn version, the Disney version, and Clint Eastwood’s character in the Sergio Leone “spaghetti” westerns, The Man with No Name.
• Send in the Clowns is from the 1973 Broadway musical A Little Night Music, with words and music by Stephen Sondheim. In the show, the song is a duet between Fredrik, a successful lawyer, and Desiree, a once successful actress. Years ago the two of them had an affair, and now they are thinking of rekindling it. The title “Send in the clowns” refers to what is done in a circus when something goes wrong.

Deleted:

• I Hate Men is from Cole Porter’s 1948 Broadway show Kiss Me Kate.
• Where Have the Actors Gone [2008: wm. Morten Lauridsen; arr. Ian Freebairn-Smith] Lauridsen’s ode to Broadway songwriters originally appeared as a vocal solo, but cried out for a choral setting. This tender and moving song is not overly demanding, and provides an opportunity to spotlight a competent pianist in Lauridsen’s original piano score.