Review Fix chats with Dan Furman about his production, “A Little More Light: Selected Songs & Stories from Dan Furman’s “The Joe Hill Revival.”
Brooklyn Tavern Theater presents“A Little More Light: Selected Songs & Stories from Dan Furman’s “The Joe Hill Revival.”
Wednesday, September 6, 7:00 pm:
FUNDRAISER CONCERT at The Green Room 42
570 10th Ave, (4th Floor in YOTEL, Times Square), New York CityA portion of the proceeds go to Brooklyn Tavern Theater, a fiscally sponsored non-profit arts organization.
Green Room tickets start at $19 for Main Dining Room (and go up to $29 for “premium” and $39 for “ringside”).
There is a $2.50 per ticket venue facility fee. Streaming tickets are also $19.
About The Joe Hill Revival:
Acclaimed composer Dan Furman revives his controversial musical of the life of labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Joe Hill.
Book and original music and lyrics by Furman, (with additional lyrics by Joe Hill and others) this full-length rousing musical is directed and choreographed by Jerome Harmann-Hardeman with Lauren Linsey as Assistant Director with a cast including
Caitlin Caruso Dobbs, Nicola Barrett, Molly Bremer, Laura Bright, Joe Castinado, Drew Hill and Ace McCarthy.
Joe Hill — a trade union activist and songwriter — was executed by the state of Utah in 1915.
Review Fix: What was your inspiration behind this project?
Dan Furman: The fight against the frame-up of songwriter and union activist Joe Hill has inspired many over the last hundred years. In recent history, only the police murder of George Floyd initiated such a visceral world-wide reaction. What the two have in common is not about the individuals–it’s about the people all around the country and the world who felt they had to stand up and say, “No!” to the injustice they were witnessing. Another thing that inspired me was Joe Hill’s way of writing union songs. He took popular tunes of his day and wrote new lyrics that reflected the battles that workers were facing around the country. There was no popular radio, certainly no TV or internet–so songs were brought to the picket lines by singers. In the Joe Hill Revival, we’ve taken that idea in the other direction–we’ve used Joe’s original lyrics and replaced the old tunes with new ones. The result is a revival of a hundred-year-old story that resonates with the injustices of our time, with the many cases of innocent people put behind bars. And the show is a celebration of those who decide to stand up to these injustices–and who find joy in living, fighting (and sometimes even dying) for what they believe in.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Furman: I like to stay up late. Unfortunately, I’ve found that I write better in the morning. When I’m writing music and songs, sometimes I work at the piano, but some of my favorite things I’ve written were done on the subway. Because of lot of my thoughts are political–I spent 10 years of my life as a unionist in industry and a socialist activist–I’ve tended to write about historical situations. It’s kind of an adventure learning about people of another time and finding ourselves in them.
Review Fix: What did you learn/are learning about yourself through this process/production?
Furman: One thing I’ve learned and keep learning is that theater is a collaborative art form–and writing a piece is just part of the whole process. What makes it so powerful is the cumulative creative contributions of the writers, the actors, musicians, directors and others that make something bigger than any of us could as an individual. It’s a wonderful, (although sometimes harrowing) process to go through. It’s a little sad when a show finishes. So while we are in the middle of it, we want to share it with as many people as we can!
Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this for the future?
I’ve read news articles recently about theater being in trouble. Theater is almost always a big project, and it needs outside support. Brooklyn Tavern Theater was formed in part to put on new shows in available venues. One thing we’ve achieved is producing a good musical theater experience for a fraction of the cost of more mainstream venues. But it’s hard to maintain this on a shoestring budget. We’d like to find a home–a venue we can be based out of, rehearse at, use as one of the venues for our shows. We’d like to find more funding. We’d like to do more collaborations. A “Brooklyn theater network” would be something that could help publicize the innovative theater that’s happening around the borough and support each other’s shows. And of course, we don’t want the original shows we’ve developed to be limited to playing taverns in Brooklyn, as cool as that is. We’d like to bring them out to bigger audiences.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Furman: We would like to take The Joe Hill Revival to bigger audiences–because class issues are something that are not adequately discussed–but are behind much of what is happening in today’s world. My own belief is that the working classes need to organize ourselves independently of the two capitalist parties of the Democrats and Republicans. (Joe Hill would agree!) I am potentially collaborating on a new show about the work of Edward and Jo Hopper. It goes by the working title of “Tea With The Hoppers,” and will be an image-immersive vaudeville-influenced musical that explores the challenge of making art and sharing life together. Edward Hopper’s paintings often communicate a loneliness in which humans are dwarfed or muted by the world we’ve created around us. (His most famous work is “Nighthawks,” which depicts a late-night diner in NYC.) I’m thinking of this one as a show that happens in a cafe environment, rather than a tavern. I also recently went through a workshop at 59E59th of “Ybor City”–a show I have been writing with bookwriter Anita Gonzalez. We hope to have more news on that soon
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