A CONCORD THEATRICALS TITLE

Elegies: A Song Cycle

Musical Revue / Cabaret, Drama

This intimate and moving remembrance of departed friends is by the Tony award-winning composer of Falsettos and A New Brain .

  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult, Teen (Age 14-18)

Details

Summary

Performed at Lincoln Center with a star-studded cast, this intimate and moving remembrance of departed friends is by the Tony award-winning composer of Falsettos and A New Brain. It pays tribute to a disparate group that includes impresario Joe Papp, actors Peggy Hewitt and Jack Eric Williams, a teacher, the Korean family who ran a deli frequented by Finn, relatives in New Jersey, friends, long-lost pets, and, in a moving sequence, Finn's mother. A three-song conclusion offers a tribute to the victims of 9/11. Each number captures poignant, often funny glimpses of life and death that sparkle with the narrative sophistication always apparent in Finn's work.

This musical evening is easy to produce, requiring only five good vocalists and a piano.

History
Elegies was first presented at Lincoln Center's Newhouse Theater in March of 2003. Directed by Graciela Daniele, the cast starred Christian Borle, Betty Buckley, Carolee Carmello, Keith Byron Kirk, and Michael Rupert. The production was recorded nearly complete and released on compact disc by Fynsworth Alley (distributed through Varèse Sarabande).
MARK THALEN - Male, Attorney and gay-rights advocate
BILL SHERWOOD - Male, director/editor/screenwriter of the film Parting Glances
JOSEPH PAPP - Male, producer and impresario
PEGGY HEWITT - Female, character actress
MISTY DEL GIORNO - Female, chiropractor
JACK ERIC WILLIAMS - Male, composer and performer
RICKY IAN GORDON - Male, composer
QUENTIN CRISP - Male, raconteur/actor/writer
MONICA ANDRESS - Female, a friend of the composer
BOLEK GRECZYNSKI - Male, art therapist, creator the Living Museum at Creedmoor
BARBARA FINN - Female, William Finn's mother
  • Time Period Contemporary
  • Cautions
    • Mild Adult Themes

Media

"The loquacious ghosts who hover through the nearly two dozen songs that make up William Finn's moving and exuberant song suite, ''Elegies,'' aren't the mournful twilit phantoms who haunt the typical popular song memorializing a loved one. These friends and colleagues of the composer's who have died over the last two decades are resurrected in playful lyrics bursting with internal rhymes that remember them in all their quirky vitality." - The New York Times

Videos

  • Brandon Uranowitz - "Mark's All Male Thanksgiving" youtube thumbnail

    Brandon Uranowitz - "Mark's All Male Thanksgiving"

  • Brandon Uranowitz, Corey Mach, Nic Rouleau - "Joe Papp" youtube thumbnail

    Brandon Uranowitz, Corey Mach, Nic Rouleau - "Joe Papp"

  • Elegies: A Song Cycle youtube thumbnail

    Elegies: A Song Cycle

Music

Music Samples

Mister Choi and Madame G
Mark's All-Male Thanksgiving
Only One
Passover
Infinite Joy
Anytime (I Am There)
My Dogs
14 Dwight Ave., Natick, Massachusetts
When the Earth Stopped Turning
Saying My Goodbyes
This title is orchestrated for Piano Only.
  • Vocal DemandsModerate
  • Orchestra Size Piano Only

Licensing & Materials

  • Licensing fees and rental materials quoted upon application.

Music Rentals

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6 Piano-Vocal
This title is orchestrated for Piano Only.

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Authors

William Finn

William Finn is the writer and composer of Falsettos, for which he received two Tony Awards, Best Book of a Musical (with James Lapine) and Best Original Score. He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award f ...

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