stephen_kitsakos – Stephen Kitsakos

Sweeney made me do it! – Opera librettist Mark Campbell on his own creative epiphany

Posted on April 1, 2015 (February 26, 2021)

Download PDF Almost everything I know about writing for opera, I learned from studying Sondheim’s work. Any success I have had is due to him,” Mark Campbell, the highly regarded and prolific librettist of new American opera, said in October 2014, sitting in his Greenwich Village kitchen. He chatted about the singing theatre, American popular […]

Hug the moment, make it last – 50-years later, actor James Dybas reflects on Do I Hear A Waltz?

Posted on December 23, 2014 (February 26, 2021)

Download PDF “It just transports me back to that time,” James Dybas tells me as we flip through photographs from his Broadway debut in Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’s Do I Hear a Waltz? (marking its 50th anniversary in March 2015). “There I am, barely 21 years old,” he says, “my first Broadway […]

Golden girl – First to play Squeaky Fromme, actress discusses Sondheim, punk rock and TV

Posted on July 11, 2014 (February 26, 2021)

Download PDF Her idols are two Judys: Garland and Holiday. The former she describes as the “ultimate, original singer, pathos-ridden and anguished,” and the latter as “the quirky doll-like woman.” In a way Broadway, TV and film actress Annie Golden embodies the essence of these two iconic entertainers. Still looking girlish at age 63, the […]

Avoiding Sondheim – To sing or not to sing Sondheim at an audition

Posted on April 20, 2014 (February 26, 2021)

Download PDF Apparently everyone is an expert at which audition songs will land a performer a job and which should be avoided. For a variety of reasons, many stage, music and casting directors advise being wary of songs by Stephen Sondheim for auditions. “It’s just too dangerous,” says veteran actor Ed Dixon, who’s also a […]

Sondheim on the syllabus – Shows offer abundant choices to train young performers

Posted on October 1, 2013 (February 26, 2021)

Download PDF Incorporating Stephen Sondheim’s catalog into the university performing arts training studio can be both exciting and discouraging. This is because even the most basic material would require a fairly sophisticated understanding of vocal music, interpretive skill and acting chops. Those who are rhythmically challenged, requiring melodies doubled in accompaniments or unable to make […]

Those beautiful clothes – Follies’ past and present ghosts are wearing Gregg Barnes’ designs

Posted on October 1, 2011 (February 26, 2021)

Download PDF When Eric Schaeffer, the tireless director of the new Kennedy Center production of Follies, first approached Gregg Barnes and asked him about “doing the costumes,” the Tony-Award-winning designer said, “Let’s talk first. Let me do a few sketches, and if this ain’t it, I’ll politely bow out.” Barnes, who cautions he would “sell […]

Big band, big voices – The New York Pops pays tribute to Sondheim

Posted on April 13, 2011 (February 26, 2021)

Download PDF Sitting in his sleek, stylish apartment high above New York City’s Midtown West, Steven Reineke is on top of the world. The handsome and enterprising music director of the New York Pops Orchestra is just a heartbeat away from the proscenium stages that have defined the American musical theater. But he’s also a […]

Sondheim choralis – A college’s music theatre singing ensemble

Posted on January 11, 2009 (February 26, 2021)

It’s 5:06 on a Tuesday evening, and the recital hall is filled with noisy college students, faculty, professional staff and some members of the State University of New York at New Paltz community. Almost 100 people and voices are gathered to celebrate their common love: the singing of musical theatre songs. They’re restless from their […]

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