LATEST NEWS
Hello friends!
A Sign of the Times opened Off-Broadway on February 22, 2024, at New World Stages 1. Almost a decade in the making, it’s very gratifying to see the show finally make it to New York, with a brilliant A-list cast including Chilina Kennedy, Crystal Lucas-Perry, Ryan Silverman, Justin Singer Sargent, and Akron Watson. It was a pleasure supervising the music and writing arrangements and orchestrations for this clever, energetic, timely musical, featuring hits of the mid-1960s, and doing my best to recreate the 60s era in sound with our singers and fabulous 6-piece all-female band, led by music director Britt Bonney. Marilyn Lester, Nightlife Exchange, writes:
“What is spectacular is the all-female mini-orchestra led by music director/keyboardist Britt Bonney to Joseph Church’s fulsome orchestrations. Hats off to keyboardist and associate music director, Polina Senderova; guitarist Francesca Castro; drummer Paige Durr; bassist Michelle Osbourne; and multi-reedist Emma Reinhart. This is a sextet that sounded like so much more, totally in the groove and securing its place as the star of the show.”
There are clips from the show’s score on the Music page.
And, opening on Broadway March 28 is the revival of Tommy, finally making its way back to New York after 30 years! I’m so excited to experience it again; it was such an honor putting together that score way back when.
Adding in the seemingly immortal The Lion King, I can proudly say that I now have THREE shows running in New York in which my arrangements and/or original music and lyrics are being heard!
But no, I’m not retiring yet…
We’re still hard at work on Who Is Jimmy Pants?, soon to be coming to a theatre near you—the sooner the better!
My other show-in-progress, Music of the City, has been on hold in favor of other projects, but is now restarting, with a new—and I hope exciting—stage concept. There’s a teaser from that show on the Music page.
“I Wanna Make It With Santa Claus,” a song I wrote and co-produced for my partner Susan Aquila, got great airplay on several radio stations this past holiday season, and we’re working to get it into rotations again next year, along with a couple of other new ones. It’s a tough sell—a hard rock Christmas song overflowing with innuendo?—we thought it would be fun breaking the mold… Here’s the link:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/i-wanna-make-it-with-santa-claus-single/1708352577
It was something of a sad 2023, as the world lost three people who were trusted colleagues and mentors so meaningful to me: the great Sheldon Harnick, with whom I collaborated several times (see the Music page and below); Cynthia Weil, who was like a second mom to me and from whom I learned so much about writing lyrics and about collaboration; and my beautiful friend Steven Lutvak, composer of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and many other great pieces, my confidante and musical buddy for 35 years. May they rest in peace and their families and those they influenced carry on their memories forever.
And as always, please check out my two books from Oxford University Press: Music Direction for the Stage: A View From the Podium and Rock in the Musical Theatre: A Guide for Singers.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/music-direction-for-the-stage-9780199993413?lang=en&cc=us
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rock-in-the-musical-theatre-9780190943479?prevNumResPerPage=20&prevSortField=3&sortField=3&resultsPerPage=20&start=40&lang=en&cc=us
Joe