January 30, 2005
Happy New Year! ... a little on the late side.
The big news is: I'm finally biting the bullet and preparing my songs
for publication. I have no idea how long this will actually take, but
I'm determined to have that songbook in my hot little hands before I
turn 40. (June 3rd, this year.)
The
Jeff Blumenkrantz Songbook will include my settings of several
Edna St. Vincent Millay poems, two songs from
Urban Cowboy, "My Book" - the Sloth
song from Audra's
Seven Deadly Sins
concert, "I Won't Mind" (of course), and a host of other goodies that I
hope will entertain you and your friends and make you popular at
auditions, cabaret shows, piano bars, and singalongs. :-) If you're
interested in buying a copy, please check back here for updates about
its progress.
On the acting front, it's been a very on-camera time. I worked on a
couple of films this past summer/fall. First up was
Social Grace, which I like to
call "My Big Fat Chinese Wedding." It's not really that similar
plot-wise, but it is a charming, idiosyncratic independent film
centering around a young Chinese woman in love with someone from
another culture. The film is directed by
B.D. Wong, who also stars,
alongside
Gale Harold
(
Queer as Folk), Margaret Cho, and
Fay Ann Lee, who also
wrote the screenplay. I play Richard, "The Weasel," and you might be
interested to know that this film features my first pool scene. (Don't
worry, I'm not wearing a Speedo. Actually, I
am wearing Speedo®
brand, but it's a full-body swimsuit, thank God!)
Next up was
Building Girl,
which I actually know very little about. I have a blink-and-you-miss-me
part, so I was in and out in one night.
If you live in the New York area, you may have seen me in a commercial
for the
West Side Stadium.
I play an art dealer handing a Fabergé egg to a customer who
drops it, as I watch in horror. Then, three football players magically
appear and tackle said egg. The idea is that the West Side Stadium
would feature not just sports, but also art.
And lastly, the Great Performances telecast of
Leonard
Bernstein's Candide in Concert
aired this month. Lonny (Price, the director of both the live concert
and the telecast) did an amazing job translating this production to TV,
and I'm really proud to have been a part of it. (Although I have to
admit, it is slightly horrifying to be immortalized in drag. I don't
make a pretty girl.)
On the writing front, things are moving along nicely. I'm still at work
on the musical,
Hush, with
Tina Howe. We have roughly half a show right now and are plowing
through part two with hopes of having a first draft done soon.
Lyric Stage, a
theater in Irving, Texas (just outside of Dallas), will be premiering a
new show called
The Living End, which includes
two one act musicals I co-wrote several years ago, namely "Woman with
Pocketbook" (book and lyrics by Annie Kessler and Libby Saines) and
"Precious Little Jewel" (book and lyrics by Libby Saines).
My songs have been popping up in various concerts lately, starting with
my own at
the Duplex this past September, as part of the
Newer Sundays series and the first
New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF).
Also, several of the singers in the
American
Songbook Series at Lincoln Center this season are performing my
songs. In January, Audra McDonald performed "Departure," a Millay
setting, as well as my arrangement of Randy Newman's "I Think It's
Gonna Rain Today." And coming up on February 11th,
Megan Mullally will be
performing another one of my Millay settings, "Lament," as well as some
odd little arrangements I've done for her over the years. On February
12th,
Rebecca Luker will
sing yet another Millay piece, "Love Is Not All," as well as my song,
"Moving Right Along," which is a comedy duet written for two men in a
gay bar. Rebecca asked me to retool it for herself and Sally Wilfert,
so how could I resist?
In March, at Symphony Space Thalia Theater, Peter Sachon, brilliant
cellist, will premiere
The Cello Project, an evening
of new cello solos, including one by me.
I'm still planning to do the recording with Vicki (Clark), but it's not
quite in motion yet. Soon....
As for travel, I spent a wonderful 10 days in London in December,
visiting friends and seeing as many shows as I could fit in. Personal
recommendations:
His Dark Materials and
The History Boys at
the National, and
Festen on the West End. Very
inspiring.
One last thing: it seems I have a knack for photography... I've been
taking my best friend Tracy's family holiday pictures for years, and
sometimes I take her friends' family photos as well. One of those
friends,
Helen Slater,
recently asked me to do the photos for her wonderful new CD,
Crossword. Check
it out - it's a terrific recording, and the pictures are pretty good
too, if I do say so myself. :-) If you go to
this page and
scroll down, my pictures are the three color ones on top, and the
rightmost headshot on the bottom.
I think that's all there is to tell. Thanks for checking in! Stay warm!
XOXO
Jeff