THE LAST STARFIGHTER - Blank Canvas Theatre Dec. 8-17 2022. Directed by Patrick Ciamacco.
Book by Fred Landau
Music and lyrics by Skip Kennon
Based on the screenplay by Jonathan Betuel
With "Take Me Out" coming back again -
Two highlighted numbers at https://youtu.be/hLFfOPBzmag More demos from this show at
https://youtu.be/0ha6R1Z2yQo and https://youtu.be/_vLnGZVtRc4A
http://fred-and-the-economy.blogspot.com/2021/08/family-music-copyright-july-21-2017.html
BIOS
MARIAN WEINER (co-bookwriter, music, lyrics) was primarily an essayist and pop and classical composer-lyricist before turning to theater work after raising her family. Marian started writing songs at age nine, and was composing duets for flute by junior high. While performing in dozens of local events and concerts, she studied music theory at the Performing Arts High School, and also composed many flute duets while studying with famed Harold Bennett, first flautist at the Metropolitan Opera. Orchestra performance experience includes the Japanese rock musical “Golden Bat,” and five years playing flute, alto and tenor saxophone, on lounge jobs around the country. She temporarily put aside performing and composing to raise her two sons, with her husband, Frederic Weiner, musician, and owner of their own family music business.
She started studying with top 5 songwriter Harriet Schock, where she first met her writing collaborator on this project. Her CD credits include the acclaimed album “Power Sharing” by David Wright and the Wright Touch Horns, and her lyrics have been performed by Andrea Ross-Greene and Mark Wade. Drawing on disparate elements of the writers' family and professional experience, this hopeful and original musical about a family in the pop music business torn by war in the 21st century began to develop
FRED LANDAU (co-bookwriter, lyrics) - Fred’s writing got him a Finalist slot (top 6 from over 100 applicants) in the Ebb Award competition for theater writers; and two Midtown Int’l Theatre Festival Award nominations for the production and book/lyrics for the MITF award-winning I Never Miss a Larry Kramer Musical (NYC’s Roy Arias Theater). Other musical theater productions: book for The Last Starfighter (Storm Theatre, NYMF at Theatre at St Clements, workshop at Seattle’s Village Theater); book/score for ALBANY, NY (NYC’s Triangle Theater, workshops BMI, ASCAP, Circle Rep). Fred’s lyric writing was excerpted on CNN (AC360, Situation Room).
Noah Remnick in the New York Times called him “lyrically gifted” (New York Today column, Feb 3, 2016),
and his online humor writing has been called “a local treasure” by Lin-Manuel Miranda (on Twitter, Nov. 24, 2015) https://twitter.com/lin_manuel/status/669222699361771520
Critic/theatre historian Martin Gottfried said Fred's theater work “was defined by the invention of its creators. It sounded like itself and like nothing else…They invented their own language for musical theater and it had nothing to do with anything else that I’ve seen, really, in terms of musical theater.” Graduated from Harvard Law School & received masters degrees from NYU and Brooklyn College.
Because although laughing and singing don't make a problem go away, they can help your outlook
Lookback in honor of the deserved Tony win for "Lehman Trilogy"
The "Company" revival:
"ANOTHER HUNDRED PATTI FANS GOT OFF OF THEIR PHONES"
Parody lyric by Fred Landau
The shorter attention span 1:40 version is still at https://youtu.be/o1s1ScBSV3An
