5-10-16 Interview

5-9-16 Steve Dorff was hearing music in his head in his crib before he knew that it was music he was hearing. He could play rings around his older sister by the time he was four. His first – and only – piano teacher thought he was “unteachable,” but actually he needed to teach himself; to express what he heard instinctively. And what he heard instinctively would lead him to an extraordinarily successful career as a composer, arranger, orchestrator and conductor – all with no formal training. Listen to Steve tell the story of how he ingeniously taught himself to write complicated musical phrases, hear one of his hit songs and two songs from the score of Josephine, which he co-wrote with longtime collaborator John Bettis. And come to the Asolo Repertory Theater to see the premier performance of the soon to be Broadway Musical Josephine.

5-15-12 – Interview

Playwright Leah Napolin is a multi talented, thoughtful and courageous woman who was singing, dancing, drawing and reciting the poetry and stories she’d written was by the time she was 4 or 5. In college she was bitten by the “acting bug” and discovered her interest in writing plays. Still she was to teach music in Venezuela (until the revolution closed the school), get married, have children and lead a “bourgeois life,” before getting her chance to become the writer she always was. Her friend Robert Kalfin who’d started The Chelsea Theatre Center in Brooklyn suggested that she read Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Yentl the Yeshiva Boy.. And after being “thunderstruck,” Leah found away to dramatize the folk tale. The production was very successful but she didn’t reap much of the financial benefit because of the roadblocks put up by Barbara Streisand (listen to that interesting story). Finally she was able to hold on to the copy write for her work and the play has found many homes most recently having finished a successful run at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota Florida (in which Hilary Clemens -see above- played the role of Yentl). Listen to Leah talk about her journey towards finding her voice as a playwright and a person.