from The New Music Connoisseur, Murder by Music at Square One

from The New Music Connoisseur
The magazine devoted to the contemporary music scene In Association with Composers Concordance, Inc. Vol. 9, No.2-Summer 2001
Dicks, Bras, Bars and Other 'Disordered' Subjects by BLC (Barry L. Cohen)/Linda Pehrson/Mark Greenfest SUNDAY NIGHTS AT SQUARE ONE: Excerpts from Opera/Art Songs/Cabaret/Pop/Rock/Jazz/Performance Artists & Musical Theatre Works in Progress
	... We concede we picked this program in the latest series because there were some familiar names on it. The opening presentation, Murder by Music, is by Peter Dizozza, who's been at Square One more than once. Here's a fellow with musical ideas in his soul and, if his company isn't the paragon of performance talent we'd all love to be witness to, we can praise them for having cuaght Mr. Dizozza's feverish joy. With a little borrowing from Neil Simon, the composer-lyricist has assembled some of the the great fictional detectives and their assistants into a multi-character sketch without any sort of elaborate plot, as far as we can tell. The cast was introduced but, unfortunately, not listed on the program sheet. The multi-styled songs were sung by, we guess, most of the characters in the piece, including Nick and Nora Charles, Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot, Tess Skeffington and (Charlie Chan's) Number One Son. Murder by Music was listed as a Cinema VII Project and as having already been presented by the Women's Club of Forest Hills at Forest Hills Garden Community House on April 27th and 28th.

LIVE EVENTS

‘SUNDAY NIGHTS AT SQUARE ONE: Excerpts from Opera/ Art Songs/Cabaret/Pop/Rock/Jazz/Performance Artists & Musical Theater Works in Progress." Music of Dizozza, Lehrman, Rosenthal, Rodgers and the team of Parsons-Hill-Cornutt. Presented by Golden Fleece, Ltd. at Theater 22. May 13th program.

The subtitle tells us more about these programs than the series title does, but if you want conciseness, how about a single word: "workshop." Though Lou Rodgers prefers the word "reading," the idea is very much the same, and it’s exactly what makes her Golden Fleece so invaluable to the musical theater community. Its members can try out their ideas and strut their stuff before people who just plain love musical theater, and they can get some verbal feedback, while reserving the sales pitches and documents for foundations, private angels, and accountants.

We concede we picked this program in the latest series because there were some familiar names on it. The opening presentation, Murder by Music, is by Peter Dizozza, who’s been at Square One more than once. Here’s a fellow with musical ideas in his soul and, if his company isn’t the paragon of performance talent we’d all love to be witness to, we can praise them for having caught Mr. Dizozza’s feverish joy. With a little borrowing from Neil Simon, the composer-lyricist has assembled some of the great fictional detectives and their assistants into a multi-character sketch without any sort of elaborate plot, as far as we can tell. The cast was introduced but, unfortunately, not listed on the program sheet. The multi-styled songs were sung by, we guess, most of the characters in the piece, including Nick and Nora Charles, Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot, Tess Skeffington and (Charlie Chan’s) Number One Son. Murder by Music was listed as a Cinema VII Project and as having already been presented by the Women’s Club of Forest Hills at Forest Hills Garden Community House on April 27th and 28th.

Leonard Lehrman wrote the music for The Booby Trap as out-and-out social commentary, one of his favorite categories. Optionally subtitled Off Our Chests, it is billed as "a musical which, for the first time in the history of medicine and theater, deals with bras as the major cause of breast cancer."

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