Top 5 People to get stuck in an elevator with

I've talked about my fascination with people and the cults of personality that pervade the lives of many a young person. Here is the list of personalities that pervade mine.

5. Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox has been an idol of mine since I was very young. Aside from having an incredible, unique singing voice, she's a passionate activist who has spent much of her life travelling and experiencing different cultures and communities, often lending her voice to those who suffer in silence. It would be wonderful to talk to someone who has had a life like that.

4. David Bowie

Yeah, another rock star. But wouldn't he have had the most incredible experiences? David Bowie was part of a crowd of young musicians in the 60's and 70's that included Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger and Lou Reed. He played at Live Aid, collaborated with Queen, and constructed multiple identities that went perfectly with his incredible music. Oh, and he was in Labyrinth.

3.Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Hugh Fearnley-Eatsitall is my current personality obsession. In fact, as I sit writing this post, I am watching River Cottage Road Trip, in which Hugh is currently fishing in the Lakes District. He is a pretty admirable human being, a chef who has spent the last ten years becoming an exemplar of seasonal and ethical cooking and eating. His tv programs and books have inspired me to eat better, more interesting and more sustainable food in my own diet.

2. Stephen Sondheim

I think this is somewhat self-explanatory considering my last post. Sondheim, simply, creates music and poetry that affects me. He has had a long, rich life (he's eighty!), has been instructed by Oscar Hammerstein and Leonard Bernstein, and has written for Ethel Merman, Mandy Patinkin and countless other amazing performers. I would unashamedly pick his brains for hours and hours.

1. Stephen Fry

Well, he's not eighty, he's not a great musician and he's not known for being an activist, but I think having a conversation with the hyper-intelligent Stephen Fry would be just incredible. He's so smart, so funny, and probably full of conversation starters thanks to his role as Quizmaster on Qi.

Well, that's my 7x5 project finally over (very belatedly, please excuse me), thank you for reading, and I hope it's got you thinking about the art, writing, and personalities that intrigue and inspire you.

Top 5 Musicals

If you're familiar with this blog or with me in general, you're probably very aware of my love for musical theatre. This list is not ranked from 5th favourite to 1st favourite as most of my other lists have been, but rather in the order they "happened" to me.

5. Les Misérables - Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg

Ah, my first love. I associate Les Mis with a lot of "firsts". It was the first stage musical I was introduced to, the first ticket I bought with my own money... I sung "On My Own" in my first singing lesson, "I Dreamed a Dream" in my first public performance, and later got to play Fantine in my first lead role. It might be a little populist, but I think every musical theatre fan still loves Les Mis deep down, often because they've enjoyed performing it so much!

4. Sweeney Todd - Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler

Sweeney kind of goes here, and kind of goes in the number 1 position. It was the first Sondheim show I got into, largely thanks to the Tim Burton film (my opinion of which as an adaptation I will keep to myself...) and got me interested in Sondheim's other works (see the rest of this list), but right now Sweeney is also at the top of my list: I'm producing a performance of it for March this year. It's such a wonderful, funny, dark, romantic show that it's perfect for a student production.

3. Into the Woods - Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

One of the next Sondheim shows I discovered, and my all-time favourite book of a musical. In my opinion, Into the Woods is about the most perfect story, or collection of stories, ever set to stage. It all looks as though it's going to be horribly childish and moralistic, and then... act two happens. Into the Woods is right at the top of the list of musicals I need to perform in before I die.

2. West Side Story - Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim

I've never seen West Side performed live, I've only seen the film and heard a couple of cast recordings, but the reason this hits so high on the list is because it is completely badass. The incredible, complex score, the innovative use of movement and dance, and the beautiful, tragic story at it's core has made West Side Story a classic, a pivotal point in the history of musical theatre, and the platform on which the world was delivered a very young Stephen Sondheim.

1. Sunday in the Park With George - Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

This is my favourite musical. This is my favourite work of art. The team from Into the Woods perfect the artform with Sunday. It's so perfectly romantic and sad, it makes me cry and cry and cry every time I listen or watch it. I've never seen it performed, but I am on my toes waiting for a production to hit Sydney or Melbourne so I can go see it. And oh my goodness, I would die to play Dot. Or direct it. Or just listen to the original Broadway recording every day until I die.

So... that's a snippet of my musical theatre journey. A journey which, thanks to Sweeney and all the things that I'm sure will come after it, is far from over.

Top 5 Songs

As someone who has been indoctrinated into a sort of classical mindset about music (thank you, dear) I find the word "song" very difficult to negotiate these days.

"Songs" are not "pieces", and some of Saturday's Top 5 are definitely "pieces". I've had to set myself one rule in making this list (a rule that makes things much easier, I will add) in that sections of musicals or operas, no matter how distinct as "songs", do not count. They are part of a greater work and therefore do not belong in the category of stand-alone musical "pieces". It also means that when I come to do my Top 5 Musicals, I wont have already mentioned them all now.

I think music triggers emotion and certainly emotional memory in a way nothing else really does, and that's why I think every song or piece someone puts in a list like this has to be meaningful, has to have a story. I know mine all do.

5. Danse Macabre - Camille Saint-Saens

Danse Macabre is pure classical pop, I know, but it was one of the first pieces I listened to after deciding to make an effort with the "classical" genre, and it stuck with me. I remember hearing it and being so taken in by the furious rhythms and strange tonality... until I played it in orchestra. Let me tell you right now there is nothing interesting about the double bass part, kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

Still, the fantastic waltz-beat of it and the amazingly eerie and supernatural sound-world it creates pulled me in and reawakened my passion for music, so for that it most definitely deserves a place on this list.

4. Hounds of Love - Kate Bush

From classical pop to actual pop... I love this song. This one's "story" is pretty crap, but the song is an absolute masterpiece of chipmunkery and for that I laud it's name. Kate Bush is, of course, a complete maniac, but I love love love her music, and especially this song. Nothing in the world motivates me to get up and throw myself out into the world like Hounds of Love does, a statement proven by the fact that I listened to it every morning on my way to school in the last month before I graduated. Before exams, before studying, whilst procrastinating studying - Kate Bush's greatest hits kept playing, and Hounds of Love kept on getting put on repeat.

3. Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1 - J.S. Bach

This story has to be picked around, for there is something of a risk of over-share in relation to this piece. Of course, this is the first section of one of Bach's most beautiful works for solo cello, the sound of which is instantly recognisable because of how widely it is used in film and television, but for me it just speaks volumes of earnest, straining, youthful love.

The first time I heard Roman play this piece, we weren't together. I think I was thinking about it, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't... that's kind of how it happened - I suggested it to him and he said "you know, I'd never really thought about it like that" - like all great romances, hey?

So anyway, I downloaded this piece and played it over and over, lying on my bed, worrying about whether my Great Love would ever love me back. And it's just the music for it.

A summer later, the Prelude's story came full circle for me. On some awful hot day, I lay on my back in my Great Love's music room, listening to him play it - just for me.

2. Call Me Al - Paul Simon

This is the Family Song. There are so many stupid, funny memories associated with this song that I can't think of any specifically, it's all melted into some silly pot of full family air-instrument bands whilst Paul Simon blares out unacceptably loudly over long car trips. Paul Simon, especially the Graceland album, makes me think of my dad, and my family, and all the wonderful, wacky love that exists there.

(I bags the air-trumpet).

1. With or Without You - U2

This song is not number one because I love the song. In fact, I've quite gone off it in the last couple of years, something about Bono being a rather large tool or something, but the moment in my memory that explodes into my mind every time I hear it is so pure and so clear that I can't ignore it.

When I was in year 12, I arranged a girls' vocal version of With or Without You for a concert, and the absolute most perfect moment in the entire song was decidedly the moment when the bassline comes in. It's low, even, and throbbing, it helps the music build in such an intense, emotional way that it's just perfect.

On the actual night of the concert, the music started, and as that beautiful bassline came in, I looked across the stage and saw Roman with my old electric bass slung over his shoulders, tapping away at it, and I couldn't help but beam.

That was such a moment for me, a completely still crystallised moment in time, in which I realised, so instantly that my inner-voice actually spoke the words, that I was in love.

I don't think it matters whether it's a song or a piece, whether it's interesting and artistic or a three-chord band job, the music that stays with you is always the music that was playing at that moment in time. We all have them, musically-triggered recollections. I think that's what is important to me about this project, that I can take all these moments where art has touched me and record them, leaving a perfect record of what matters to me at this moment.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

I've just spent the last three months of my life rehearsing and performing a great little (big) show called The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

It won the Tony Award for Best Musical (the benchmark for achievement in musical theatre) in 1986, an award which in the next two years was awarded to Les Misérables, and Phantom of the Opera, although it has pretty much slipped from the canon of musical theatre repetoire since then.

This is, I believe, largely owing to how difficult it is to stage. The thing about Drood is that it has a different ending every night - there are over 600 endings!

The musical is based on the novel Charles Dickens never finished. When he died in 1870, he was twenty chapters in to a serialised murder mystery, leaving 20 chapters and the resolution of the mystery unwritten and, well, ... a mystery.

Many academics and writers have attempted to "solve" The Mystery of Edwin Drood, including a psychic who apparently just asked Dickens' ghost what happened, but I think Rupert Holmes was the cleverest about it.

Holmes' musical adaptation of Drood is a camp nod to amateur theatre and the vaudeville tradition of the late nineteenth century, a play-within-a-play in which every actor is playing an actor playing one of Dickens' characters. Half way through Act II, the Dickens plotline falls apart and the audience is called upon to vote for an ending.

Four "ballots" are held over the next half hour or so: Who is the Disguised Detective, Dick Datchery? (don't you love the aliteration?) Who Murdered Edwin Drood? and then, at the conclusion of the first two revelations, Which Two Characters Will Fall in Love?

There are five possible Datcherys, eight possible Murderers, and eleven possible lovers (three female, eight male) which add up to over six hundred combinations of endings. A pretty epic task for a young amateur cast.

I played Miss Janet Conover, an experienced Actress, who plays Helena Landless, a Ceylonese noblewoman who accompanies her twin brother Neville to England in order to escape a shady past.

During the run, I was Dick Datchery twice, and a lover once. In fact, the night I was a lover, my male lover was Alex, who played Neville. Mmm, incest. It was hilarious and disturbing.

Anyway, I just had the greatest experience doing Drood, and I wanted to share some of the AMAZING show shots taken by the very talented Victoria Nelson. Stalk her on Facebook, tell her she should start a blog/website to showcase the photography she and her twin sister, Felicity (also very talented) do.

Mr. Harry Milas (the magician of my previous post) as the Chairman. He was a legend.

Me, with Alex (Neville) and Lizzie (Edwin), explaining the death of Dickens to the audience.
The Voting for the female Lover. Naomi (Rosa Bud), Marina (Princess Puffer) and myself, with Andy as Mr. James Throttle, the mentally handicapped Stage Manager.
My very talented twin - twin in the show, soul twin in real life, Alex.
Alex, confessing that it was HE who murdered young Edwin Drood.
The climactic scene just before Drood vanishes in Act I - with the incredible song "No Good Can Come From Bad" aka the crunchy crunchy close harmony death song. Heh.
Me having a little angst in "No Good Can Come From Bad". Alex on the left, Naomi on the right.
Roman (with RIDICULOUS hair), playing the Reverend Crisparkle, blesses the meal in "No Good Can Come From Bad".
I yell at Harry for a while, then he calls me a bitch and I glare for a bit.
The gorgeous female "Moonfall" quartet. Felicity, Naomi, myself and Minna.
And here's Roman as the murderer. He was truly truly scary.
What musical is complete without an epic kick-line?
... or side-stepping, top-hat miming?
Harry and Roman have a moment.

I am so proud of everyone in the cast, and so happy that I got to perform again... it might be the last time I get to for a very long time.

Consistency etc.

I'm going to blog more regularly. Yes I am. Except that right now the only thing I'm going to do is a "stuff about meeeee" quiz. Sorry about that.

Ahem, anyhow...

What is your current obsession/s?Currently/for several years: Stephen Sondheim and all his works. Oh my goodness. I adore him.

What is the most interesting thing that you will do today?
Write 1500 words on the appropriation of A Midsummer Night's Dream from play to modern opera. You wondered why I was posting, and now you know.

What's for dinner?
Lasagne and greek salad. Om nom nom.

What would you eat for your last meal?I'd start with my dad's pumpkin soup with sour cream, follow it with a main of cheese and spinach tortellini with peas and pesto cream (with nice white wine) and a desert of Roman's lemon pudding with lots of cream and fruit, and a big glass of the lemon, lime, and gin drink that my dear friend Naomi has perfected. The fact that I was about to die would make the massive amounts of cream and cheese in that meal less worrying to me.

What's the last thing you bought?

A yellow iced smiley-face cookie for my darling lovelorn Patrick.

What are you listening to right now?Sweeney Todd, Broadway Revival recording. The Johanna Quartet. Oh my goodness. Love.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
I'd have the Tardis, so I could go between elegant but homely terraces and apartments in Sydney (where I live... I'm very lucky), Melbourne, London, Vienna, Paris, and New York.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
New York, to catch a Broadway matinee of a new musical.

Which language would you like to learn?Welsh, I must learn Welsh before I die.

What's your favourite quote, for now?
Oh me oh my. Too many to think of. I'm a big libretto-quoter, rather than a person-quoter. This is my favourite piece of poetry, from Sondheim's (der) Sunday in the Park With George.

And when the woman that you wanted goes,You can say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give."
But the women who won't wait for you knowsThat, however you l

ive,
There's a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,Finishing a hat...
Starting on a hat..
Finishing a hat...
Look, I made a hat...Where there never was a hat...

What is you favourite colour?
It changes from hour to hour. Right now it's dark, burnished orange. Tomorrow it might be teal, or Sweeney-red, or forest green...

What is your favourite piece of clothing from your own wardrobe?I love my long, mint-green and white vintage dress I found at Rozelle markets right now. I do generally love long dresses. They hide my physical shortcomings and make me feel floaty and faerie-ish.

What is your dream job?

West-End producer.

What is your favourite fabric?
Naomi just gave me a beautiful grey silk scarf. So silk, today.

If you had $100 what would you spend it on?A nice dinner date with my darling boy.

Describe your personal style.
Heh. What a question. Anything that makes me look tall. Subtle vintage, lots of colour, but not a big mash of too many colours. I like to power-dress but rarely actually do it.

What are you going to do after this?
Aforementioned 1,500 words. And possibly go for a run.

What are your favourite films?Y Tu Mama Tambien, Akira, The Queen, Frost/Nixon, Up (so good, go see it), Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Favourite fruit?
Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries. Anything red.

What inspires you?
Very good music, and very good theatre. People. Traffic stopping for ambulances.

Your favourite books?Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Do you collect anything?
Owl things. Clothes that don't fit. Dust, according to my mother.

What are you currently reading?
The libretto of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Go to your book shelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line.
"... what I thought, I am sure it would move you. Forgive me, and believe that I cannot help telling you this, I live". - Love Letters, compiled by Antonia Fraser

What makes you follow a blog?
Shiny pictures or a good sense of humour.

What society would you most like to join?
Musical Theatre Society? I'm the president of one.
What is one thing you did as a child that you miss doing now?
Climbing trees!

If you could travel back in time and live in a certain period when would it be?
New York, 1957, to witness the birth of modern musical theatre with West Side Story.

Alexander and I in rehearsal.

It's fitting on a Sunday...

.. to talk about George and Dot.

George is my other love...

George is very special.

Dot is very special too... Have you ever seen a character and just thought...





"She is me."...?





I have.

Nothing seems to fit me right.

The less I wear, the more comfortable I feel.

More rouge...

George is very special.

Maybe I'm just not special enough for him.

If my legs were longer.

It my bust was smaller.

It my hands were graceful.

If my waist was thinner.

If my hips were flatter.

If my voice was warmer...

She sings with my voice... or do I sing with hers?





And George sings with a voice that's unlike anything else I've ever heard.

Mapping out a sky.

What you feel like,

planning a sky.

What you feel when voices that come

Through the window

Go...

Until they distance and die,

Until there's nothing but sky

And how you're always turning back too late

From the grass or the stick

Or the dog or the light,

How the kind of woman willing to wait's

Not the kind that you want to find waiting

To return you to the night,

Dizzy from the height,

Coming from the hat,

Studying the hat,

Entering the world of the hat,

Reaching through the world of the hat

Like a window...

George is an artist, Dot a work of art. They are my greatest inspiration.





I don't think you, reader, could possibly understand the power of this poetry until you hear it sung through George's lips.





If there is one new thing you listen to this week let it be Sondheim's aesthetic masterpiece Sunday in the Park With George.





This is what perfection sounds like.

Songs I'm Singing

Lover, You Should've Come Over - Jeff Buckley
Look Back In Anger - David Bowie
Come Together - The Beatles
Oh! Darling - The Beatles
Night and Day - Cole Porter
Kingdom Come - Coldplay
First Episode at Hienton - Elton John
The Man With the Child in His Eyes - Kate Bush
Miles Away - Marc Cohn
They Weren't There - Missy Higgins
Under African Skies - Paul Simon
On the Radio - Regina Spektor
Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones
Being Alive - Sondheim, from Company
Unchained Melody - Righteous Bros.

Boom

My introduction to classical music can be credited almost entirely to my darling Roman. Of course I'd been learning about classical music in class since year 7 but it was rammed down our throats in a very unappealing way, especially when it came to attending Meet the Music concerts at the Opera House.
These concerts were treated as a good opportunity for mucking up as much as possible (one recalls vividly a fellow student crying out 'You're not meant to clap between movements! FUCK!' just as the applause subsided...) and not for listening to the mixed quality selection of classical and modern Australian art music.
And then... (please insert your own swelling string section here) I fell in love. I had just turned 17 and suddenly there was this incredibly sophisticated smart boy who knew everything about everything. I was instantly dedicated to bettering myself and my musical knowledge enough to impress him. Not only did I seem to impress the boy, I found that the music I was introduced to quickly became intoxicating.
So here, more than a year and a half later, is my personal classical music canon (boom!) by composer:

Allegri - Miserere Mei, Deus
Bach - Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major & Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Bach/Gounod - Ave Maria
Dvorak - Symphony No. 9: "From the New World"
Elgar - Nimrod from the Enigma Variations
Faure - Requiem, especially Pie Jesu and Libera Me
Handel - Selections from the Messiah - 'The Trumpet Shall Sound', 'All We Like Sheep', 'Death, Where is thy Sting?', 'Glory to God'.
Holst - St. Paul's Suite & Mars from The Planets
Mozart - Requiem, especially Confutatis & Lacrimosa
Rachmaninoff - Vespers, especially Bogoroditse Devo (please excuse my incredibly poor Russian spelling)
Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the Bumblebee
Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre & Symphony No. 3 (Organ)

I've had to control my desire to add about 50 arias from various operas because they will make their own canon at some point in the future.

I hope you enjoy my selections...