B. Allen Schulz

One of my all-time favorite tunes–evocative of the way I’m feeling these days:

 but, are those pink things cows or aliens or what?

We’ve now completed four performances of The Gargoyle Garden, and each performance has been better than the previous. I feel like the production has really hit its stride–the make-up looks great, the stage action is getting sharp, the lighting crew is hitting every cue, and the singing is good.

The audience response has been phenomenal–especially from children 7 years old and above. So many of the kids have been really excited and begging to see the show again. So, I’m really gratified by that. Reactions from adults have been strongly positive, too.

But I can’t honestly say that adult reaction has been uniformly positive. We’ve had some wonderful published reviews, but we’ve also received one review that was so negative, so vicious, and so ad hominem that it bordered on a comical caricature of a critic’s bad review–think Snidely Whiplash critiquing a children’s story while twirling his mustache… Anyway, I’m not going to provide a link to that review, because I don’t want to drive web traffic to it, but if you can’t help yourself, the review may be found on Backstage magazine online.

Positive reviews of the show, on the other hand, have been numerous and very positive, indeed. Two short and simple positive reviews of The Gargoyle Garden can be found at TimeOut New York Magazine’s review of Gargoyle Garden (4 stars),  The American Theater Web’s review of Gargoyle Garden, and HyReviews of Gargoyle Garden (3 stars). There are also positive “mentions” of The Gargoyle Garden in The New York Daily News’ event and review section.

Normally, I try to stay away from reading reviews. They usually mean very little to me–either the reviewer likes my work and I can learn little from their words other than what kinds of art tickles their fancy, or the review is not positive but also useless to me. Typically, a negative review falls into two categories: 1.) a reviewer doesn’t like my work, but offers nothing constructive in his or her critique. This kind of review is maddening, because it boils down to “I hate brussels sprouts! If only they’d served me chocolate!”; or 2.) a review that focuses on everything about the performance but the artwork itself. Typical of this kind of review is “the musicians were superb and played the difficult music very well, but I found the piece boring.” or “the beautiful and mellifluous-voiced mezzo-soprano seemed to enjoy singing the work very much, but I didn’t enjoy listening to her sing the work.”

There are very few good reviewers of the arts left. Major newspapers across the country have either slashed their budgets for arts reviews or they have dropped the reviewer (and his or her reviews) completely from their staff. Most reviewers, now, are bloggers with a passion for sharing their views about something. The problem with these reviewers is that they are often inexperienced amatuers or passionate devotees of some artistic style or genre. This is not to say that these kinds of folks are incapable of offering useful and objective critiques and reviews, but, rather, that they can easily miss the mark of what a reviewer/critic can and should do for the arts–a sustained and engaged critique of the material and the reviewer’s understanding of how the work was crafted. Instead, most reviewers today tend to offer highly personal and individualistic accounts of their experiences when viewing/hearing the arts, which is about as useful to the artist as knowing that the reviewer just LOVES pepperoni pizza, but simply detests mushrooms and can’t understand why anyone would knowingly eat a saprophyte.

Occasionally, however, there is a reviewer who engages with the artwork and offers a real critique. To show you what I mean, I’d like to link to one review of The Gargoyle Garden by Kristin Hoffmann that was not exactly positive, but is a wonderful example of good reviewing. I think that Ms. Hoffmann is a little off-target on a few of her comments, but, on the other hand, I think she makes a strong case for most of the rest of her comments. What impresses me about her essay is that she finds a weakness (as opposed to a moral failing or the absence of any craft or care by an artist who may have spent weeks thinking about the problem instead of 2 minutes writing about it what they remember from last night…) and then she offers possible cures for the weakness or offers reasons why she believes the weakness occurred. So, thank you Ms. Hoffmann for a good critique!

Of course, I began all this by saying that I don’t usually read reviews… but, I’ve clearly read a bunch of them with this project. I’m not sure, exactly, why I’ve been so interested this time around. None of the reviews have really swayed me positively or negatively about my work. I’m fairly secure about my skills. I’ve been composing for years and years, so I know what my weaknesses are and aren’t. But, what I’ve noticed is that I care passionately about seeing good reviews of my collaborator, Jeff LaGreca, and his work, and I’ve also wanted to see the actors/performers get good responses, because I think they deserve them. I’ve been really happy with how hard everyone has worked on this project. So, I guess that I’m a little protective of everyone else.

There is only one show left: wednesday, August 20th, at 8:00pm. If you haven’t yet seen our work, I hope you’ll take some time to do so. Thanks to all of you who’ve been out already. We’ve had very large audiences for a Fringe Festival show, and we’ve done much better at the box office than we ever expected to do! So, thank you!

Well, we’ve arrived at the last week of rehearsals. We’re going to put The Gargoyle Garden in front of a live audience this Saturday night. If you’d like to purchase tickets for that show, or for one of the other 4 performances, follow these links:

Sat 8/9 @ 7:45
Sun 8/10 @ 5:30
Wed 8/13 @ 5:15
Sun 8/17 @ 2:30
Wed 8/20 @ 8

This week is busy–although not as busy as some shows’ rehearsal week! One of the most difficult aspects of performing The Gargoyle Garden is that our show’s rehearsal process is not creator-driven. What I mean by this is that many plays–especially those at the NY Fringe Festival–are written and  performed by a single person or small team. This means that the creators of the work can decide for themselves how much time, energy, and treasure to devote to the rehearsal process. They can forgo work, relationships, and a host of other of life’s details so that they can rehearse for 6-8 hours each of the 5 days in the week leading up to the first fringe performance.

Some other Fringe Festival shows are produced by theater companies that have already successfully produced the show on their home stage. When they arrive at Fringe, they have cast, crew, and production teams in place and ready to go.

The third kind of Fringe participant is like the cast and crew of The Gargoyle Garden. The creators, Jeff LaGreca and myself, have had to hire all of our actors, musicians, technical crew, and production/creation team. This means that we pay them very little and ask them to do very much. It also means that we must accommodate their schedules. Rehearsals cannot be onerously long or too often. While many shows will rehearse for 6 hours every day this week, we’ll have 4 rehearsals–with one of those being a 2 hour technical rehearsal (which we completed yesterday morning).

Mind you, I’m not saying this is unfair or that the other shows have it “easier” than we do. They don’t. They’re pouring their hearts and souls into their productions. All I’m saying is that I still have some heart and soul left to pour–only I have nowhere to pour it. So, that’s frustrating.

We did two complete run-throughs of the show last night. They went fairly well, in my estimation. Laura Barger (our amazing pianist) and Chris Graham (our generous and gifted percussionist) gamely kept up with the players. Because we have two 11 year-olds in the production, it is not uncommon for measures to be added or omitted by them during a run-through. Keeping up with those additions/omissions on-the-fly is no easy task. Luckily, Chris and Laura are first-rate performers. They’re flexible and generous in the collaborative process, too. I wish that I could work with Chris and Laura on every composition I write. Jeff and I are really lucky to have them. 

We have one last full rehearsal on Thursday night, when we hope to run the show 2 or 3 times. On Saturday, Jeff will lead the cast on a “line-through”. That is, they’ll talk the piece through from top to bottom, without musicians.

Then, we go up on stage on Saturday night at 7:45. I hope to see you there.

Tickets for Gargoyle Garden are now on sale online! Follow these links to purchase tickets:

Sat 8/9 @ 7:45
Sun 8/10 @ 5:30
Wed 8/13 @ 5:15
Sun 8/17 @ 2:30
Wed 8/20 @ 8

We got back to a music rehearsal last night (monday, 7/28) after taking the previous two sessions to work on blocking/staging. Jeff’s staging of the show is very ambitious and very funny. I can’t wait to see all the players moving, in costume, and singing the music, too!

The singing is coming along. There are still little, annoying patches that need scrubbing or patching or out-right “fixing.” Usually these moments involve the children. This is not to say that the kids are not doing a good job of learning their roles. They are. Patrick and Emily have learned their parts very well indeed. Both of them are off book (which is not true of some of the adults with smaller roles!), and they know the notes and rhythms. But, what they’re having trouble with is singing their parts together in harmony or singing the rhythms in time when they trade lines back and forth. But, these are matters that I’m sure we’ll take care of shortly.

The rest of the cast is still in various stages of being ready, vocally. Some are ready to do the show tomorrow; some are ready to go, but still have a few fumbles here and there. Some are still learning the lyrics and are working the notes. Almost always, this last case is one of singing 3 or 4-part harmony together. The music I’ve written isn’t particularly difficult, but it makes use of suspended chords and inflections that can cause problems if one is not concentrating fully on the notes. In other words, there are dissonances that are giving a few of the singers more trouble than they should. But, again, we “wood-shedded” the notes last night and had good success at alleviating some of the problems (meaning that there are still messes to clean up!)

This thursday, we’ll try our first complete “muddle-through” (walk-through) of the show. We’ll do almost everything: singing, acting, moving, dancing, etc… The only thing we’ll be leaving out is costumes and a good number of the props. We’ll throw those things in next week, which is turning out to be a very busy week, indeed, with rehearsal on monday night, tuesday morning, tuesday night, and thursday night.

I’ll write more about how things are going after that rehearsal.

One last thing: I want to thank Laura Barger for her wonderful talent and her calm and patient manner at the piano as we work our way through this show. She’s an amazing pianist and an open and giving spirit. We’re lucky to have her for this run.

Rehearsals continued this weekend and on Monday night (7/21). The cast has begun to memorize the music and are off-book for brief moments of time. Jeff worked on staging/blocking 3 numbers last saturday, and then we rehearsed those numbers with both staging and music on Monday night. Jeff’s direction is wonderful, and the numbers are full of energy and fun. There is always a moment in every rehearsal process when I start feeling like what’s going to happen is real–and is going to work for both me and the audience. Last night was the first time I’ve had that feeling. It’s such a great feeling to have, too. I was on cloud 9 for the entire subway ride home from rehearsals.

Jeff has also begun working on costumes. For the gargoyle’s ears, he’s working with ball caps and other kinds of hats. Here’s Emily–who is not a gargoyle, but, rather, Annabel Lee–showing off one of jeff’s creations.

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Tickets for Gargoyle Garden are now on sale online! Follow these links to purchase tickets:

Sat 8/9 @ 7:45
Sun 8/10 @ 5:30
Wed 8/13 @ 5:15
Sun 8/17 @ 2:30
Wed 8/20 @ 8

Tickets are $15 plus a $3.75 service charge per order–so order LOTS of tickets at once to save! We hope to see you at one of the shows! For more informatin about Gargoyle Garden, visit our homepage.

We have finished our first two rehearsals for Gargoyle Garden. On Tuesday (7/15) and Wednesday, the cast met and began the long, hard work of learning the music to the show. Everyone was high-energy and enthusiastic, and we made alot of headway into the score. But, after three grueling hours on Tuesday, I could see that the cast was a bit worried about how slow things were proceeding. And, of course, they were right: it was slow going.

But that’s absolutely nothing unexpected. I’ve never attended a first rehearsal of my music where I didn’t walk away thinking, “oh my god, what was I thinking!? That was a trainwreck! I’m doomed! I’m doomed! …well, at least I won’t be the one on the stage being laughed at! I can sneak out the back…” or some such thoughts. After this first rehearsal, I was actually fairly pleased at how far along we were–especially the children–Patrick Henney (playing Edgar Allen Densmore) and Emily Bordonaro (playing Annabel Lee). The kids are so excited and so energetic. They just melt my heart–even when they make mistakes. They have more work to do than the adults have yet to do, but that’s also expected, since children take longer to “get it right” but take less time to learn it in the first place.

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Well, that was not that painful in the end… choosing the cast was long and arduous, and–as I noted in a previous post–was very sad when it came time to send rejection notices. But, we now have all the roles cast and I have to begin scheduling rehearsals!! The cast for the 2008 NYC international Fringe Festival performance of Gargoyle Garden is:

The Chimney-man: Al Gillespie
Edgar Allen Densmore: Patrick Henney
Annabel Lee: Emily Bordonaro
Brother Keyes: John C. Taylor
Gritchpoo (sop. gargoyle): Elizabeth Mondragon
Grokk (ten. gargoyle): Josh Allor
Grindl (bass gargoyle): Brian DePetris

Tickets go on sale July 18. You may purchase tickets online or at the door. Ticket prices are $15. If you wish to purchase tickets at the door, you may only use cash, and purchases begin 15 minutes before showtime. One final thing to note: if you want to purchase tickets online, you must make the purchase at least 24 hours in advance. Because there are multiple shows in each venue, you may not purchase tickets online less than 24 hours in advance. This is to help the box-office staff at the venues do their jobs efficiently.

Well, we’re almost done casting Gargoyle Garden for the August run. We’ve cast every role except “Annabel”, and we’ve narrowed that down to two wonderful little girls. Either one of them will do quite nicely. We’re simply working through our pros and cons at this point.

But, let me say this: I hate casting. I especially hate casting KIDS. They try so hard at the auditions, and they perform their hearts out. Some are more seasoned and talented than others of course, but they all come to the process without the thick layer of emotional protection that comes from years of auditions as an adult. Yesterday, I sent out about 25 emails “rejecting” kids for the production. That was an awful, thankless task. I didn’t like it at all. We even got some replies back from parents and kids thanking us for the opportunity, and letting us know how much fun they had, etc… That made me feel even worse. Blech.

Since we have only about 1 1/2 weeks until the first rehearsal, we need to make our final decision–fast! Once we do that, I’ll post the entire cast list here. I’ll also continue to blog about getting the show up and running. So check back here occasionally for info regarding the show and for info about purchasing tickets.

Hey! Ho! Kerrack-kerah!! We have our venue and our dates for the 5 performances of Gargoyle Garden!

We’ll be performing the show on the main (upstairs) stage at the Bleeker Street Theater, 45 Bleeker Street in the East Village (@ the corner of Lafayette and Bleeker. The 6, B, D, V, and F subway trains are all, literally, just a few steps from the entrance to the theater.) It’s a great space, seating about 200, and it feels perfect for the work.

Performance dates are:

SAT 8/9 @ 7:45-8:45
SUN 8/10 @ 5:30 – 6:30
WED 8/13 @ 5:15 – 6:15
SUN 8/17 @ 2:30 – 3:30
WED 8/20 @ 8:00 – 9:00

Ticket information will be available soon. I’ll post info as soon as it’s available. We hope you can make it out to one of the performances!