The answer to your question is Jason Robert Brown’s Parade, but after a couple months without show tunes, I’ve recently listened to Assassins, A Chorus Line, Jacques Brel, Company, Light in the Piazza, and Pacific Overtures, which also gets me inexplicably choked up at the end.
Still Good.
November 12th, 2011
2 Comments
I came to this site by way of Barry Deutch, and I’m so glad I did. Your work is terrific, and so much of it resonates with me.
I worked as a musician on a cruise ship (the late, lamented SS Norway), you share my socio-political outlook and my non-practicing European Jewish intellectual artistic heritage, and now I discover we share a taste in musical theater (most of my professional experience has been musical directing Equity productions).
I’m not LGB or T (or +), but I’m a fierce ally. I haven’t faced those struggles myself, but I’ve done my best to help my friends through them. These stories are very familiar to me.
(Actually, in my social circle, I’m that most pathetic of characters: the straight guy who always falls for lesbians. At least it seems to entertain my friends.)
I’m also trying to develop as a Webcomic writer and illustrator, but I’m fighting a severe talent deficit in the illustration department.
(There ought to be a law against people like Joni Mitchell and Miles Davis. No one should get to be a genius at music _and_ painting. Quit hogging the f-ing talent.)
I published a comic for four years, and the art was atrocious – with the exception of the occasional really good panel, which made the whole process even more frustrating.
The site’s tagline was actually “a poorly-drawn Webcomic by Darren Zieger.”
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Which production of Pacific Overtures do you tend to listen to? I love all of them (I think there are 3 cast albums – OBC, the recent revival, and one by an opera company that I lost my cassette of and I can’t seem to find anywhere, even Amazon).
That finale keeps being rewritten – particularly the section before the final chorus, listing Japan’s achievements; but it’s always glorious and breathtaking. I choke up, too.
Anyway, this is all wonderful stuff. I’m enjoying the hell out of it, and I think I’m learning from it as well.
Keep up the great work. Sorry to ramble. I tend to be very discursive, but at least I’ve (mostly) gotten over my lifelong habit (which I always enjoyed, but others objected to) of thinking in parentheses… and ellipses.
…aw, crap.
Nice to virtually meet you, Darren! I didn’t get the notifications when you commented, so this was a nice surprise. 🙂
I listen to the OBC of Pacific Overtures, but I got to see the recent revival in New York with Barry! That was a treat, since Pacific Overtures was high on my list of infrequently-performed shows you kind of accept that you’ll never get to see live.
I’m sorry you’re frustrated with your current level of drawing–I’ve totally been there!!! For what it’s worth, I’m personally impressed by professional musical directing. I like to think that I pursued that path in at least one parallel universe. XD