Posts from New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center

A guest post by Ben West.

Strange as it may seem given its frank narrative and its traditional sound, The Fig Leaves Are Falling is not a conventional musical. This colorful, vivacious and disarmingly sweet 1969 confection is—at its core and in its construction—a unique and exciting entertainment that marvelously straddles the worlds of 1960s musical comedy and 1940s revue. It was, in fact, Fig Leaves' central story and stylized conceit that initially grabbed me and ultimately defined the reimagined UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) production.

Life on the road was a hard-knock life for Dorothy Loudon, who spent much of the sixties traveling to far flung locations all over North America to perform in her cabaret act and, later, in the touring companies of Luv and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. A guarded person whenever she wasn't "on," Loudon hated leaving her beloved Manhattan, but—in the days before Annie made her a Broadway star—it was the most lucrative way to ply her trade.

I'll be posting a April's Musical of the Month later this week, but before I do, I wanted to share the results of a little experiment.

I recently discovered a new music streaming subscription called Rdio which, for a monthly subscription fee (currently about $5), allows one unlimited access to all of the songs in their catalog. It's more or less the same idea as Spotify, but with one really cool feature for programmers: an open and easy to use API (application programming interface) for playing music within your own site.

Consider this a late contribution to this year's Womens' History Month.

When most people think of the involvement of women in music they probably think of performers or composers. To be sure, women performers have been at the forefront of music for centuries, and in recent years awareness of women composers has grown enormously, particularly with those from the twentieth century. But there is at least one other music-related field in which women have made a significant mark: publishing.

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. See below for some interesting staff picks from the past couple months, on topics both timely and timeless:

Last August, musical theater historian Laura Frankos detailed the history of the Princess Musicals in her introduction to Oh, Boy! This month's musical, Very Good Eddie, was the second of this set of smaller-and-smarter musicals produced at the Princess Theater on 39th street (following Nobody's Home and immediately preceding Oh, Boy!).

How do we love Christopher Walken? On his 70th birthday, let us count the ways. Star of film, TV, and NYPL's own iBook Point, somehow everyone has a favorite film that stars him, be it The Deer Hunter, True Romance, or Pulp Fiction. The consummate villain, he faced off Batman and James Bond with his signature dead stare that transforms at the drop of a hat into a Rockwellesque boyish grin. By the time his fancy footwork stupefied us in Spike Jonze's Fatboy Slim video, few knew Walken was already a 30-year Broadway veteran, sharing the stage with Liza Minnelli and Raul Julia. What? Read on, share movie quotes, or just look at the pictures!

For some twenty years, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division curators have been speaking with Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the most celebrated dancers of the Twentieth Century, about the possibility of acquiring his collection.

Hear the audio version of this blog post. Narration: Kevin Gillins. Music performed by La Capella Reial de Catalunya; Le Concert des Nations; conductor: Jordi Savall.

I am looking at Monet's Weeping Willow series and want to describe these works to people who cannot see. I think music, with its sensual and dramatic language will most elegantly convey the power of these works.

OOOOOOOOOO! KLAHOMA!

As a native Oklahoman and former "Sylvie" in my high school's production of Oklahoma!, there is no sweeter sound than the joyous shouts and celestial harmonies of the massive hit 8-part chorus number during the second act of Rodgers and Hammerstein's first smash musical. As a confirmed choir nerd, arranger Robert Russell Bennett is the star of my heart. Here's why...

Recently, when friends ask me what collection I am working on and I give my answer — "The Mikhail Baryshnikov Archive" — I've been receiving unexpected reactions. Everyone seems to have a Baryshnikov story. People who I know have never been to the ballet, who couldn't name another dancer if pressed, have something to say. My younger friends were not even born when he took America by storm, and yet they still know. The Nutcracker. Turning Point. A surprising number of them have seen him dance, due to his continued and prolific touring. I would be lying if I said I was not extremely excited when I found out we were receiving his papers here 

Many of us were saddened to hear of the passing of Van Cliburn on Wednesday, February 27. A pianist who excelled in music of the romantic repertoire, Cliburn rocketed to fame when he won the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, held in Moscow in 1958 at the height of the cold war. Upon his return, he was not just a musical figure but one who took on an additional social and political meaning.

A guest post by UnsungMusicalsCo director, Ben West

Currently in its fifth year, UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) is a not-for-profit production company that I founded with the aim of researching, restoring and presenting obscure but artistically sound works from the Golden Age of musical theatre. It should be noted upfront that I am perhaps more liberal than most in my definition of the Golden Age, by which I mean those 40 glorious years between the Follies: Mr. Florenz Ziegfeld's in 1931 and Mr. Stephen Sondheim's in 1971.

Jean Léon Destiné, master Haitian dancer, choreographer and drummer, died on January 22, 2013. The staff members of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division mourn his passing. And as the Dance Division Curator, I will truly miss him. He was also a great friend of the Dance Division. During his long career as advocate and artist for Haitian dance he donated materials to the Dance Division, gave lecture/demonstrations at the Performing Arts Library, and was recorded by the Jerome Robbins Archive of the Recorded Moving Image. We are delighted to have these materials in our collection, so that dancers, researchers and scholars can come here and view these photographs, clippings, 

The Dance Division is ON FIRE this spring with programs and exhibitions featuring dance from around the world, all at the Library for the Performing Arts! An exhibit on flamenco, 100 Years of Flamenco in New York, will open on March 12 in the Vincent Astor Gallery, and another on Cambodian ballet, Memory Preserved: Glass Plate Photographs of the Royal Cambodian Dancers, will open on March 28 in the Plaza Corridor Gallery. Be sure to visit to check those exhibits out, and save the dates below for our FREE public programs (all at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, unless otherwise specified):

A guest post by Levi Branson

By 1920 Jerome Kern had achieved success as a noteworthy American composer with a uniquely American career. His melodies graced many entertainment platforms, but he was most prominently represented on the musical stage. His early composing career included scores for the successful Princess Theatre musicals as well as song interpolations into others' musicals. In 1919 a Charles Dillingham production paired him with a songwriter and librettist who would become a frequent collaborator in the approaching new decade, Anne Caldwell.

It is still possible to discover amazing things in the New York Public Library in 2013, its 108th year of existence. What's even more amazing about this story is that the discovered items have been with the Library since its founding and have gone unnoticed until now. I am happy to write this story in anticipation of February 3, 2013, the 203rd birthday of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

An oral history interview is a lot more than just any old conversation or sound recording. Although the definition of oral history is dynamic, it usually refers to the collecting of individual histories, according to specific ethical and methodological guidelines, and the responsible preservation and archiving of those recordings. While human history has been collected and shared orally for thousands of years, oral history as a modern organized activity is said to date only to 1948 when Allan Nevins began the now highly respected program at Columbia University. If you would like to learn more about the lively field of oral history, the Oral History Association is a wonderful 

The Collection and Exhibit

The Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the New York Library for the Performing Arts currently houses a collection of more than 3,000 wax and celluloid cylinders. These cylinders range from very early, non-commercial, white and brown wax cylinders, to commercial moulded black wax cylinders, to Indestructible moulded celluloid cylinders and, finally, to the later Edison Blue Amberol celluloid cylinders.