Link to TNC Street Theater Summer Tour - 2024 Central Park Performance - The Socialization Of A Social Worker or ... - with notes on 2025 Show

I'm preparing for an interview with Andrew Cortez of Stage Whisper tomorrow. Here are my notes so far: General Topic: Music and Protest Current Social and Political Commentary Musicals General Topic: Music and Protest Current Social and Political Commentary Musicals Personal References: Phil Ochs (What are we Fighting For, Outside of a Small Circle of Friends, The War is Over) The United Front Song (Einheitsfrontlied) of Brecht & Hanns Eisler Solidarity Song Solidaritaslied - The Workers United Front for August 15, 2025 interview with Andrew Cortes Co-host Stage Whisper stagewhisperpod@gmail.com 1. Tell us a bit about your show.   I am the music composer, arranger and keyboard player for Home Sweet Home or A Life in New York, Theater for the New City's 2025 Street Theater offering to the five boroughs of The City of New York. The production is written and directed by Crystal Field and utilizes the talents and skills of over 50 people.   It is part of a series of socially and politically conscious street theater productions that tour the five boroughs of New York City throughout the summer, dramatizing neighborhood people living in the wake of current events. It is highly handmade, utilizing painted flats, a cranky which holds a roller of canvas backdrops passing across a stage constructed of foldable wooden boxes. It featuring a large a cast of all ages, some at the beginning of their careers, some seasoned, all tremendously and uniquely talented.     There is often a costumed dream sequence where an allegory comes to life, this year it is the game of chess.  This year's dream culminates with an appearance of chanteuse Cheryl Gadsden as Lady Liberty, with its dreamer, powerhouse performer Michael David Gordon, again taking the lead role as our Everyman. Michael, playing our local deli owner, is part of a community of people from all over the world who appreciate and look out for each other. His neighborhood is each performance location. During his limited free time he plays chess with his friend who works as a firefighter. This show is led by its writer/director, Crystal Field. She is one of the Founders, and artistic director, of Theater for the New City and she has been producing these shows since ... the 1970's?   Although mostly a handmade production with live musical accompaniment by a New Orleans style Jazz ensemble, it utilizes a professional sound system and mixing board, the intent being that, whether spoken or sung, every word is heard.  There is creative input from our Street Theater Band, which consists this year of bass, keyboard, drums, percussion, trumpet and flugelhorn.   However the music in the production is precisely notated and I am the latest of many composers who have written scores for these productions.  I have had the privilege of working with two unique horn players, one Ralph Denzer calling to my mind Myles Davis, and the other, Lauren Reilly; Roy Hargrove.    We have had a variety of drummers and bassists, all of whom have been unique and amazing.   Constant among us has been Nelson Luceno, a mutli-talented percussionist who also plays sax and adds accents and sound effects throughout the show. 2. How did you come upon this show? I became involved six years ago by playing keyboard for the street theater productions composed and arranged by Joseph Vernon Banks, a great composer and teacher.   One year when he was unwell, Crystal asked me to write the show (Teacher, Teachere! P.S. I Love You); the next year, he was back to write it, producing a great score (Life on the Third Rail), and the following year he had passed away, leaving behind a great legacy for us as I prepared to write the score again (The Socialization of a Social Worker or Justice in a Time of Need).   This year, 2025, is my third time doing so (Home Sweet Home or A Life in New York).  Crystal Field asked me to write the score.  She provides me with the lyrics.  I set them, exactly as she wrote them, to music.  What was it like developing this show? It was a whirlwind of musical composition and notation.   I wrote the music as Crystal sent me the lyrics.   We would conference over the phone and she would send me recordings of her reading the words.  Her granddaughter Briana was helpful throughout and would sometimes also read the words.   Crystal makes strong dramatic statements in her lyrics and I shape the music around them often drawing from international musical styles.   The songs develop as a unified score into an odyssey worth performing at least for the 13 scheduled performances. Each song merits a unique analysis as it travels through different keys and styles with experimental harmonies and tonalities.   For this score I began with staves for all the parts (trumpet, flugelhorn, keyboard, bass, percussion and two vocal lines) The parts are printed and there is an opportunity to teach the songs from the music itself, often taught and grilled by assistant music director, Christopher Busch.    Note that once the cast takes to the stage, whatever musical notes they don't use become modifiable. I shape the score accordingly.    In addition the underlying rhythms become stretched and shortened to heighten interest and momentum.    Crystal's input here is always inspired. What message/thought are you hoping audiences will walk away with from  this show? Specific to the United States being a land of immigrants, that instead of trying to identify us and them that we admit a stalemate. No one has won or lost. We can embark upon a new beginning, a new game, with people listening to each other welcoming the sharing of our ideas and beliefs. This musical reminds us of our history and of our similarities over time with a population of immigrants.   (Hundreds of years of migration has contributed to the social, economic, and political foundations of the United States. (There is no divide between “us” and “them.”   The United States benefits from its diverse immigrant population and holds itself out as a land of opportunity for all!)  (Immigrants strengthen our economy and diversify social and cultural life.) How long have you been working on this project? Not very long. I participated in a workshop that helped develop the project in June and wrote its music between July 3rd and July 15.   The writing of words and music, preceded by workshop meetings with the cast in June, occurs over those first two weeks of July, followed by the commencement of rehearsals. Has your show been performed in the past, and if so what was the reception? Every year there is a new unique Street Theater show, premiering now. Last year's show went very well and a live recording of its soundtrack is available on streaming platforms under the name, TNC Street Theater Cast and Band. This year we have had an enthusiastic reception thus far.    We have had four performances with a show on the Coney Island boardwalk this evening at 5. Who do you hope have access to this show? Everyone What shows in the past have inspired you, or do you love? What about writers/composers? Our recent big hit in my family, from seeing Harry Smith's Mahagonny at his Whitney Exhibit is the 1956 studio recording of Kurt Weil/Bertolt Brecht's Mahagonny, which runs throughout the movie. Two people, comparing the score the work of Hanns Eisler such as The United Front Song and The Solidarity Song, also with lyrics by Brecht. I don't know about the musical, Mean Girls, but I think a good recent song from it is called Apex Predator. We are fans of Rick Wackman's soundtrack for Lisztomania. We recently revisited Tommy. Ken Russell, because of his own interests is a strong musical influence. My highlight from the now familiar 10 year old Hamilton musical is its Shuyler Sisters segment (I think that's where one sister offers Hamilton to the other). I like in Book of Mormon the Spooky Mormon Hell Dream.  In general I like the way that show imparts information, such as the teaching of the formation of a local religion. Its composer, Robert Lopez, with Kristen Anderson-Lopez, accomplished a pop break-through with the introduction in a Disney movie of the song Let It Go. I understand that many singers are drawn to work of the songwriters for Dear Evan Hanson and The Greatest Showman (Pasek and Paul).   They've taken a listeners' tolerance level to new extremes, which can be inspiring.   Like the above songwriters I also was in the BMI Lehman Engel Music Theater Workshop which has helped my writing. I like the live local music I hear in the East Village, and I'm even a veteran of the anti-lounge (piano based) subset of the NYC antifolk movement and have been inspired by those artists, Lach, Sommer, Ben Krieger, Joe Bendik and Jeffrey Lewis in particular.   There is a lot of inspiring production that goes into pop music. It strikes me as having a far more complex undercurrent of activity beneath what sounds like something anyone could do. For various odd reasons I recently got to hear songs by Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Ray and I covered Because I Loved a Boy ( Sabrina Carpenter, Julia Michaels, John Ryan and JP Saxe) and The Archer (Taylor Swift & Jack Antonoff). I believe Howard Ashman saved musical theater.  He and Yip Harburg are a behind-the-scenes guiding light. Many songs stand repetition when successfully transferred from musical theater to cinema.   Repeated viewings increase the appeal of the songs.    Recently I have been inspired by the minimalist rigor of playing and singing in the Black Sabbath Album, Paranoid which I'm thinking is largely influenced by its bass player, Geezer Butler. I'm recently interested in the early work of Schoenberg based in tonality stretching into atonality (Gurre Lieder and Transfigured Night) and I used it in this scoreAt home we've been listening to Italian Opera and works by Mozart (when we're not listening to music by a band called Gorillaz.) I very much write in the wake of the creative outburst of The Beatles whose shocking range seems unparalleled.     And I'm learning about humorous songs from being music director of The Yip Harburg Lyrics Foundation class, The Art of Comedy (directed by Mark Marcante). Have you seen any great theatre lately that you’d recommend to our listeners? I loved Operation Mincemeat. What’s your favorite part about working in the theatre? Playing the show throughout its run.   Each performance is a new formation of the show that continues to develop  What’s your favorite theatre memory? Not sure why but seeing Three Penny Opera at The Delecorte Theater with Philip Bosco was a revelation.  The appeal of the show became apparent there, although I had also seen it with Raul Julia. Are there any other productions that you or your company have coming down the pipeline? I continue to work on my latest nature musical, Mushroom Head.   Theater for the New City has a great 2025/26 season including an opera by Leonard Lehrman called Sima. My own project has been in development and may have a first run in 2026.  It is a nature musical that will focus on the intentional-ity of mushrooms. If our listeners want to get more information about you or your show, how can they find it? Dizozza is easily searchable on music streaming platforms.   The TNC Street Theater Cast and Band is also searchable.   Currently available is a live recording of the 2024 score.  Many of the songs that have influenced me I have covered, for example for a WBAI Phil Ochs tribute I covered Phil's "The War Is Over." For social and political commentary of a time (2002) I wrote The Golf Wars which has a soundtrack album in general release. The anthem from that musical which I've recently included in my own sets is called "Living in Freedom (Again)." et cetera...