Picture this: NYC. May 1992. I am 24 years old and I am practiced and ready to audition for a coveted spot in Jack Lee’s 8 week musical theatre workshop. I walk up to apartment 10 D, take a deep breath, and “Bzzzzzz.”
“COME IN!!” yells a gravelly voice. Sitting behind a grand piano is renowned Broadway conductor, Jack Lee. Next to him is his collaborator and friend, Charlie Kakatsakis, sitting on Jack’s brown leather couch. They are two balding, bearded, 60-something year old men, but they are giggling and cackling like two school boys.
Jack takes my song book to the piano. “What do you want to sing first, Edwardyne?”
“Make Believe” from “Show Boat.”
“Let’s start at the 2nd chorus.”
With surprise, I think to myself…”Okaaaay…no verse…just right into it…,” and then I hear my entrance music and I’m singing….“STOP!!!!!!!” he interrupts, as he slams his hands down on the piano keys. I am startled! I only got 4 words out!
“WHAT ARE THE WORDS YOU JUST SANG?” I reply sheepishly with “We could make believe.” “Exactly! So why did you sing “We Kuh-DUH May-KUH Bee LEAVE-UH?” NOBODY TALKS LIKE THAT so DON”T SING LIKE THAT! Sing the words as you just said them to me…and don’t give me any of that singer s#*t! You got that?”
Charlie is giddy. I can see his round belly bouncing up and down as he chuckles. Jack smiles at me, giggles, and hurries back to the piano. I “got it.” And I got the coveted spot in the workshop I wanted; not once, but three times over the course of 18 months.
Jack taught me how to sing, and more importantly, how to “act the song” by thinking differently. He taught me how to get out of my head and think about the story I’m telling. He was so successful at it because, as he tells his story on his website, he grew up as an actor working in a lot of professional companies. He learned at an early age how important it is to “listen” and “respond.” He wanted, more than anything, to be a music director. He knew that he could help actors “find a way to use their own natural voice to put meaning to words on pitches, instead of making pitches colorless and bland.”
“Don’t sing! Don’t Act! Don’t Dance! Just BE!” That was his mantra.
Singers “are not used to thinking as actors when the words are on pitches. They want to listen to themselves. You can’t really know yourself, but you can respond to someone else who is saying something (on notes) to you. Putting your mind on the subtext stops you from “terror” and “fright” and gets your mind on something that is “out there” that you want. Making music can be as much fun as talking to someone and in the long run is more emotional. You can then say something that words are not enough to communicate with. But music and time with words is, or can be, an ultimate!”
“When one holds a note for a long period of time, one must think on the word that is being held into the next word. The sound will then live. If one stops and listens to oneself, that same note will become dead. One has to be in what one sings in order to make that music one’s own. To believe what you are saying makes us (audience) accept your communication…Everything has to be honest or it doesn’t travel to us. We are past the days of making word pictures and explaining ourselves. To BE is the thing.”
So for 2020, I’m going to re-up my game and JUST BE! I’m going to get out of my head and out of my own way. I’m going to BE mindful, BE present, BE focused outside of myself, so I can just “listen and respond.”
Thank you, Jack! Your work lives on in me and in all who learned from you. And now, it will live in those who’ll learn “to BE” from me too!
Here we are at Jack’s 85th birthday celebration in July 2014.
I can almost hear his boyish giggle leaping out of this photo as I look at him.