by Scott Baldinger If you were in Los Angeles, busy working with Burt Bacharach on a new musical (Some Lovers), having just returned from a project in London (a new version of Alice in Wonderland for the National Theatre), how would you feel about having to be in Poughkeepsie the very next day? If you’re Steven Sater, far left, the peripatetic playwright, librettist and lyricist of the Tony Award winning Spring Awakening, you’d be “very excited.” The reason: a workshop production at Vassar College’s Powerhouse Theater, of The Nightingale, a new full-length collaboration with Spring Awakening composer Duncan Sheik, near left, based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the same name. Speaking to Rural Intelligence by cell phone from a Whole Foods in Los Angeles, Sater says, “We had so many workshops for Spring Awakening off-and-on for eight or nine years, we’re totally familiar with that process.”
And wholly committed both to it and to the Powerhouse. This isn’t their first piece at the theater. Earlier, they worked on a play, Umbrage, and another musical, Nero, there. “It’s a fantastic place," say Sater. "I feel like I owe them a great debt; they’re a real part of my artist development.” For the three workshop performances of The Nightingale (July 8 - 10), Sheik and Sater will be bringing up from New York City a seven-piece ensemble of instrumentalists and a "powerhouse" of a cast that includes Michael Cerveris (Sweeney Todd, The Who's Tommy) and Harriet Harris (Thoroughly Modern Milly, Desperate Housewives) ; the director is Moisés Kaufman (33 Variations, I am My Own Wife).
However early in its gestation, the The Nightingale at Vassar should be a wonderful glimpse into the artistry, hard craft, and deep feeling that goes into creating a serious new work of musical theater As for what it will all sound like? Sheik’s music and Sater’s artsong-quality lyrics combine "the sweetness of morning" (as the late New Yorker theatre critic Edith Oliver once characterized Leonard Bernstein's music and Richard Wilbur's lyrics for Candide) with a duskily poetic pop sensibility. Spring Awakening was one goose-pimple-stimulating rock musical moment after another; The Nightingale will perhaps return to the tone-poem pensiveness of the team's earlier acclaimed recording, Phantom Moon, although Sater says they’ll be juicing it up for theatrical effectiveness. “With Spring Awakening, we wanted to touch the hearts of troubled youth; in this one, we’re trying to bring down the walls that often surround it.” The NightingaleWorkshop performances July 8 - 10 Powerhouse Theater Vassar College, Poughkeepsie
