Planning our first meeting for early/mid November '09

We plan to kick things off in November '09 with a sing-thru of "Starting Here, Starting Now" by Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire. It's not a traditional book musical, but it does fit very nicely with our mission - to explore underproduced works and lesser-known works by well known artists.

In the case of Maltby and Shire, they met at Yale and starting writing together in the 1950s. They continued to write several musical, but never got any produced. Shire went off to Hollywood to write some major film scores including "All the President's Men" and "The Conversation." Maltby turned to directing, and, while he has been involved in lots of major works for the theatre, his best known work probably remains "Ain't Misbehavin'," which he conceived, co-wrote, and directed.

"Starting Here, Starting Now," ironically, was the first full show of Maltby and Shire's works to be produced. Ironically, because it was a retrospective of work that had gone mostly unproduced. It was produced off-Broadway by the Manhattan Theatre Club in 1977, and, subsequently transferred for a commercial run. It was a great success - both popular and critical, and it remains an important piece of American Musical Theatre history.

SO HOW WILL THIS WORK?

The immediate answer is "we're not exactly sure, but we'll make it work somehow." If you want to participate in our first gathering, we invite you to get a copy of the show's recording and learn the score. We'll sing thru the vocal selections of the show (and maybe the full score if we can manage to get our hands on it). In the future, we'll plan to "cast" shows in advance, but in this instance, we'll simply take turns singing through the score and see how it goes.

WHEN AND WHERE?

That's a really good question. We'd like to aim for a Sunday late afternoon (5pm?) as it's a time we think theatre folks should have the fewest conflicts. But we need a space (with or without a piano - as we can bring a keyboard). Do you have or know of a no-cost space centrally located in Portland we could use either November 8, 15, or 22? Once the date and space are locked in, it will be announced.

WHAT ABOUT AN RSVP? We will work out a mechanism to confirm who will be coming at some point soon.

I think that's enough for now. Questions can be posted in the comments section or emailed to entractepdx@gmail.com.

Introducing Entr'acte PDX

Entr'acte PDX was conceived in a Portland, OR living room by a group of musical theatre professionals and enthusiasts looking for a way to explore the rich history and tradition of American Musicals in an informal setting. Instead of creating a new theatre production company, or even presenting musicals-in-concert, we've chosen a different path we think will be both fun and enriching for everyone who participates.

The idea is both simple and, we hope, powerful: bring together musical theatre performers and artists periodically to read and sing through lost gems of American Musical literature. There is a treasure-trove of great works out there which, for many reasons, don't get revived. We hope to explore a diverse set of works from great composers like Harold Arlen, Vincent Youmans, Jule Styne, Burton Lane, William Finn, Cy Coleman, and Burt Bacharach, just to name a few. We also hope to explore lesser-known works of some of the masters of the genre like Loesser, Adler, Rodgers, Bock, and Sondheim.

Much like a book club, we envision having participants read and learn the work in advance and gather for a single read/sing-thru of each piece. Not only do we think this is a great way to connect with our Musical Theatre heritage, but it's also a great networking opportunity for Portland-area artists, and, we hope, may become an incubator for producing more Musical Theatre in our community.