Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 576
(upbeat music) - Welcome back in everyone to a fantastic new Whisper in the Weens from Staged Whisper. We have a great, great show in store for you today. We are heading back up to the Upper East Side here in New York with another wonderful organization and set of programming that happens at the great 92nd Street Y. And joining us to talk about this is the executive director of Tish Music, Nicholas Rosado. He's here to talk to us about the 2024-25 Tish music season, which as I mentioned is happening at the 92nd Street Y, and tickets and more information are available at 92ny.org. This is a really exciting group of events that covers all kinds of kinds of music and has some amazing artists lined up. And so I think the perfect person who could probably speak more intelligently on this subject is our guest. So let's go ahead and welcome him in. Nicholas, welcome in to Whisper in the Weens from Staged Whisper. - Thank you so much, Andrew. It's a pleasure to be here. - I'm so excited you're here. I can't wait to dive into the amazing works and the amazing programming that you've got lined up. I mean, there are some names on there that I was like, okay, guess I'm gonna be taking two trains and hopping over, this is fantastic. So why don't we start by having you tell us a little bit about this upcoming season? - Sure. So the Tish music season at the 92nd Street Y is a pretty broad-based group of events. We present in classical music and everything from string quartets to chamber orchestras to classical piano to violin. We present in jazz with some of the biggest names in jazz, Brent from Marsalis, Joshua Redmond, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Diane Reeves. And we present American songbook cabaret that sort of Broadway sphere encompassing both their standalone cabaret-style events. Last year we had Audrey McDonald's, Joshua Henry, Stephanie Jay Block, as well as our lyrics and lyricist series, which is sort of our like American songbook edutainment series, if you like. It's a little bit of the songs and the lyrics and the stories behind them, whether that's Broadway, a writer who's normally known for Broadway, Cole Porter or Van Brillen, that kind of thing. Or more recently we've expanded to talk about people who write iconic songs that aren't in the sort of standard Broadway canon like Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone. So this year, that programming kicks off with Kelly O'Hara in her first concert after Days of Wine and Roses, where she got a Tony nomination, a well-deserved Tony nomination, I should say. We've got the incredible Heather Headley for her first New York concert appearance. And I think almost a decade, we have the fantastic Alex Newell just off of their Tony win for Shucked and rounding out the season with the fabulous Darren Chris. And I realized as I put those four together that I basically booked my childhood and adolescence between Bridges and housing County and Aida and Glee. And then our lyrics and lyrics to season focuses on the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein to the aforementioned Nina Simone with the fabulous Amber Ammon, who was just off of a Tony nom for her work in Lantica, Jonathan Larson and Cameron. So a really fun season there for Broadway fans. That is amazing. Literally, there's a real list of pieces you're doing that people are providing. I was like, hey man, like this is insane. This is where it's at, you know, David? - I have a great time. - So I'm curious to know, how is it that you selected the pieces that are gonna be performed or the concerts, if you will, that are gonna be done during this year? - Sure. So I mean, I tend to approach putting together a season like this with two sort of major temples in mind, the first of which is excellence. Like I want everything to be on, I want everything on a stage to be fabulous. I want an audience to always come in feeling like they're gonna have a good time and leaving, going, holy crap. Like we had an amazing time. This was worth the schlep to the Upper East Side. And I also think about diversity. And I mean that in a very general sense. Like I always think about serving as many audiences as humanly possible. Like our songbook series, for instance, you know, Kelly is a different audience from Heather, different audience from Alex, different audience from Darren. Our lyrics and lyricist season serves both kind of our core lyrics and lyricist audience, which is very heavily old school, Broadway focused. So we've got some Oscar Hammerstein, some candor and ebb there for them. And then, you know, I'm always thinking about folks in our generation and what we wanna hear and listen to and explore. And, you know, for me, that's always thinking about Jonathan Larson, the person we've had, we've wanted to showcase for years and we finally got the ability to do it. And Nina Simone, who I think is one of those people that a lot of people know something about. Like Nina Simone has touched sort of everybody's life in one place or another, whether you know it or not. But the story behind her life and her ability, not only as a singer, but also as a songwriter and as a pianist, it's not a story that's so often told. She was a very complicated person, both in positive ways and not so positive ways, but her contribution to art is indelible and totally iconic. It's like, how do we explore all of these different kinds of people and then tie it together to say, this is what we think of as great art, genre irrespective. This is what I want great art to look like in the 21st century. And I think about that for our Broadway and American song book stuff, as much as I do for our classical work, like we have some really wonderful iconic names in our classical music season, the fabulous pianist Richard Goode, the amazing violinist Midori. But these are really well-known names in the classical world. But I also think about younger folks who are making their way in the world and beginning to develop really significant careers of their own, the Junction Piano Trio, the fabulous pianist Clayton Stevenson, the amazing Soprano Karen Slack. So we think about every aspect of what we do, we think about diversity and what they perform, how they perform it. And then we throw it all out there and hope that people like it. - Hey, that is fantastic. I love that methodology. That is so wonderful. And like I keep saying, it's you've got all kinds of kinds for all kinds of nights. There literally is something for everyone. If you the listener scroll through and see the different events that they're doing, I guarantee you're gonna find at least two or three things that you're like, "Oh yeah, I gotta add that to my calendar." It's amazing, the variety that you're bringing in. So as you're preparing to go into the season, what has it been like developing it? - A lot of late nights and a significant amount of gin consumption. (laughing) No, in all seriousness, it's, you know, putting together a season is a lot of, it starts with a blank slate, right? Like any creative person, I mean, I'm not a creative. I was trained as a musician, but I'm much more comfortable behind the scenes. But like all of us, we start with a blank page, you know? And that's the most terrifying part of the job. Every year I start from zero. And I sort of make myself a wish list, okay, what would I like to do? What would be interesting? What have I seen that's intrigued me? Like I'm always thinking about who have I seen in recent shows? What cabaret have I recently seen? What artists have I recently seen in the classical and jazz spaces? I travel a lot to make sure that I'm seeing stuff all over the world. So that I'm sure that I'm bringing the best of everything and anything that's happening somewhere in the world to what we're doing here at the Y. And then we start making the phone calls and we start sending the emails to managers and agents being like, would so-and-so be interested in doing a concert this year? If so, you know, what are we thinking? On the classical side of things, there's a lot of repertoire that we have to think about. Like is so-and-so playing a big honkin program of Beethoven this year or so, do we want to do that? Do we want to do something else? A lot of artists have very specific ideas about what they want to present to audiences in New York. That's as true for the classical and jazz folks as it is for the Broadway and American songbook folks. Given how busy and crowded the market is in New York and how many people do some version of what we do, there's a lot of negotiation and jostling for territory and exclusivity and all these very inside baseball things so that somebody that I'm presenting in concert isn't doing like a week's run down at the Carlisle or 54 Below or Carnegie Hall a couple of weeks later so that we're preserving our position in the market as like, no, you want to come here. You want to come to the Y to see this great thing. And it all starts filling in. And there's as much nose as there are yeses. So there's always a decision tree in our heads. Like, all right, if plan A doesn't work out, how do we get to plan B and C and D and ENF without ever compromising our standards or our values? That's a hard thing to do sometimes but it's a really important part of the job. And then, you know, it's just being on the phone, it's being on planes, it's being on email and just trying to make it all work, trying to get the hustle. And most of the time, knock on wood, it comes out to a really fun, compelling group of things. It's also thinking a lot about what we do and how we can keep updating it to make it current and relevant and different. So I think of lyrics and lyricists as a really good example. It's our 53rd, I think it's going into our 54th year presenting this series, starting in 1971. But I mean, it was a crazy first season. The first season was the guy who founded the series's name was Maurice Levine. He interviewed Stephen Sondheim. It was Sondheim's first ever appearance on stage talking about his own work. It was yet Parberg. It was James Taylor, it was Loud and Wayne Wright. I mean, this was like the who's who of the songwriters from all over the sort of genre map, all talking about their work. And the Sondheim interview incidentally is available on our website and you can go and listen to it. It's really cool to hear a young Sondheim talking about what he did. But for a long time, for the entirety of that series, it's been this big multi-show situation. We do a week, 10 days worth of rehearsal. We do a weekend run of shows. And that's great, but it's also limiting because there's only so many properties that we can look at, only so many people we can showcase that have that kind of name recognition, right? A lot of them are dead. So a couple of years ago, we thought, well, why does the lyrics and lyrics of the show have to be a big weekend of stuff? What if we did one night only shows to allow us to showcase people who have a busier schedule or not such a, not able to make such a big commitment of time? So last year, we did that with Jason Robert Brown, sold out show, Jason brought a 13 piece band, Michael Kilgore, Heidi Blick and stuff. We had a blast and Jason had a great time. And so we thought, oh, this is a really good model that we can showcase some people who are still around, still creating work. So this year, we're doing that with a fantastic singer-songwriter, Rosanne Cash. Johnny Cash's daughter, but a fantastic singer-songwriter in her own right, who I think I'm allowed to say though, I'm not entirely sure who's writing a musical. I'm not sure what's supposed to be happening with it yet, but she'll be showcasing sort of work from her own career, as well as maybe a couple of sneak peeks of the musical she's writing. So we're always thinking about, how do we keep what we do fresh and interesting and not just kind of take the same boxes with the same formats that we've always done because they've worked for us? It's a very long-winded answer to your question, but it's a really good and very broad-based question. And yeah, we throw it all at the wall, put it out there in the world and hope people buy tickets to see it. - That is incredible, incredible. And it sounds like everybody who hears this OZUA bottle of gin. So we've been thinking, I don't know. With such a diverse season. And I mean, I say diverse because looking at just all the amazing things that you are putting on, the great pieces you're featuring, is there a message or a thought you are hoping that audiences take away from this season? - I mean, I think there is in a very sort of general sense, which is that, let me back up for a second. I was trained as a classical musician, but I did not come from a classical music background. Like my grandmother played the piano a little bit. But in a very like Catholic school girl, pop hits of the '20s and '30s kind of style. My parents listened to country music and sort of like classic rock. That was all I had in my house growing up. And then I came to musical theater in high school 'cause drama club and then getting into it in college. And since I've been here, spent about 13 years now. So I feel like I have a really, really great job because every aspect of what I program is something that I love. I'm really passionate about all of these art forms and I'm flattered myself to think I know what's something about all of them. But what really bothers me sometimes is that because of the breadth of stuff that we do, the wise music programming, I get a lot of questions about specific genres or aspects of what we do. But what I really want people to think when they look at our season, when they come to our events is, you know, genre is not as relevant anymore as it used to be in the past. The lines between things are disappearing or growing thinner every day. Like, I mean, I think I'm 50 years ago, sometime was not writing for popular music. You know, I mean, I think he wrote one or two pop songs. They were all dismal failures. And, you know, you weren't really getting like a jukebox musical setup. You know, these things didn't really exist. Nor were you getting people from the sort of pop arena working for a stage. These days, of course, that's all completely irrelevant. You know, you've got Ingrid Michelson, some fantastic singer, songwriter on her own right, doing a show for Broadway. I know he's Mitchell. You know, you've got people who exist in the Broadway sphere or started there like basically Paul doing pop work or sort of ghost writing pop songs. And as I put together, we've got, and by the way, we've got classical musicians who are also working a lot in the pop spaces, I think of Caroline Shaw as a fantastic composer, also a great singer, songwriter, Gabe Pahan, same deal. The lines are all disappearing. And so what I want people to think of when they look at the season is, this is just great art. You know, this is great material. This is interesting. You don't have to know a lot about a classical music piano recital to come enjoy a great classical music piano recital. You don't have to know much about Kelly O'Hara to know that anything she sings on stage is gonna be absolutely fantastic. You know, you don't have to know a lot about Laquisha Benjamin as a fabulous sax player in the sort of John Coltrane mold to know that you're gonna get a high octane, incredibly elegant, beautifully powerful show with like incredibly strong social message behind it. And she's a Bronx girl and she comes out on stage in a gold lemme pantsuit and it just rocks from beginning to end. You know, these things are all equally powerful and interesting to me. And I sit in the hall every night and I, whether it's classical jazz, musical theater or somewhere in between, I go, yeah, this is fun. And I hope an audience can take away that joy and enthusiasm for music without worrying too much about what it is or where it sits and the conservative to adventure some pantheon or the classical music old folk stuff to the most cutting edge thing. It's just all really great art and experienced with a level of joy and enthusiasm and excitement. - It doesn't really matter what it is, it just matters that it's good, right? It just matters that it's fun and it matters that you have fun when you do it. - Yes, yes, yes. Amen, say that for the people in the back, absolutely. Well, my final question for this first part is who do you hope have access to this year's Tish music season? - I mean, I think it's, I mean, as we've been talking about, I really think it's for everybody, you know, I think, you know, it's for the youngest Broadway obsessed folks to the oldest hard-boiled classical music lovers, to the jazz heads and everybody in between, folks who don't really know a lot about any of these things. You know, it's all approachable. I'm very easily, perhaps too easily accessible. You know, I love to talk about this stuff, as you can tell. It's fun for me to see folks from all ages and neighborhoods and boroughs and demographics coming to experience work collectively. And that's perhaps, you know, like the best thing for me, like watching an audience experience a really good concert, you know, a night when true magic is made, that's the thing that keeps us all going. So in terms of access, I think it should be for everybody. And I hope that everybody finds something they like and maybe something they don't know that they'd like to try out for themselves. (gentle music) (gentle music) - Over the second part of our interview, we love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better. Pick your brains, if you will. I would love to start by asking you, what are who inspires you? What playwrights, composers, your shows have inspired you in the past, or are just some of your favorites? - Sure, I mean, I think sometime comes most immediately to mine, like that was my introduction to the musical theater that I loved, knew, understood my very first musical theater experience when I was 11 or 12. My mom took us to my sister and I to New York. And because my mom's not like super theatrically literate, she just bought tickets to like the biggest blockbuster, the longest running thing, which of course was fan of the opera. And I had just like started organ lessons a couple of years prior. And so I was very steeped in this, in this like classical music here. And I remember feeling like assaulted by Phantom, like just the scale of it and the loudness of it. And the like, forgive me, Phantom fans, but like the garishness of it. And so I thought, I remember thinking, you know, my like 12 year old, I was like, I'm not sure this is for me really. Like, I'm just gonna sit in my dark little organ loft and play my books to Huda and stuff and be very happy. And then it was a few years later, you know, when I started having to like accompany things for like the school choir or whatever, that I ran into sometime, I first very predictably ran into it with sending the clowns. And then I got to company and I fell in love, you know, that I came to it first from the role as far as the version, the John Doyle directed one of all the players or all the actors playing the instruments. And I remember Mary Mitchell Campbell's iconic music direction when, you know, she and Ravel would like swap out on the piano. And I remember thinking, oh, wow, that's something I can understand. That's chamber music after a fashion, you know, and the lyrics so witty, so clever, so flowing. I think that was my like hook for musical theater. You know, and since then I've really been drawn to Dave Malloy and folks who do more conceptual work in kind of the Broadway musical theater space. I love the big properties too, but my natural aesthetic is always a little off-piste and nerdy. Like that's where my heart naturally goes. In terms of playwright scene, I think of like Edward Elby, you know, one of my favorites, you know, this incredibly dark, mean, sarcastic, but these worlds that he creates. And I was, you know, really intrigued recently. I saw appropriate just before I closed. I was thinking, you know, what a great world that inhabits. I'm naturally drawn to the creators of all sorts who are able to construct worlds in what they do, just little microcosms that we can all live in for a while. That's where I'm most tappy. And that could be a playwright, that could be a composer, that could be a performer. You know, you can just as easily do that with a play as you can with a piano recital. And once you start thinking about things in that way, you know, you see the genre lines start to disappear a little bit. But I'm very lucky that I get inspired by a lot. It helps make the days go by and the hours go by when I have to do the budget stuff. I love that list. That is such a wonderful list. Yes. Well, we've now arrived at my favorite question to ask guests. And that, of course, is what is your favorite theater memory? So I think my favorite theater memory is the playing out of what happened the second time I saw the second version of Sam Mende's iconic cabaret revival with Alan Cumming. We, Fred and I were sitting for those who didn't see the show. They had taken out a lot of the standard theater seats in the orchestra level of Studio 54 and put in cabaret tables. It was a great way to kind of try and create the KitKat Club long before anyone thought about shredding an entire Broadway theater top to bottom to make this happen. And, you know, you were sat, cabaret style. So we were two and then there were two other seats which were sat with two other random people. I was sitting there chatting with my friend. The seats were empty. They finally got filled by, I think it was a mother and daughter. They seemed like they were kind of in from, you know, like central New Jersey or something like that. They bought the tickets on TKTS. And I guess they got the sense that we were theater geeky because the mom kind of said to us, "So do you, do you guys know what this show is about?" And I went, "Uh oh." And I tried, my friend and I tried to explain as delicately as we could. And I remember leaning over to him at some point when they were not paying attention. And they're not going to last cast in their mission. I'm sure enough they did not, they were gone at the interval. And then again, for those who didn't see the show, a lot of the cast was entering and exiting through the aisles. And we were sat sort of right on the aisle. And perhaps then my favorite theater memory. Alan, if you're listening, I'm sorry. But I totally, it was a great moment for me. Alan Cumming was walking down the aisle and he put both of his hands on my shoulders and he licked my left ear. In total MC character, it was the best, most immersive. I haven't watched it since. Obviously, I put Saran Wrap over the ear whenever I take a shower. It was just a reminder of how spontaneous and fun live theater can be. Obviously a little before more modern notions of consent have come into play. But I was totally thrilled by this. Because, wow, like, you're not going to get that from a movie. And I still think that is like one of the glories of live theater for me. Like Alan Cumming, licking my ear. He later slapped me in the face, but that's another story entirely. That means a fabulous, fabulous memory. Thank you for sharing that. Well, as we wrap things up, I would love to know, do you or Tish Music have any other projects or productions coming on the pipeline that we can plug for you? Well, I really appreciate that. The entire 24/25 season is on sale, as you kindly mentioned, at 92ny.org/concerts. You can see the whole season coming right up. We have our Jazz in July series that is a very imaginatively titled series because it's jazz and it's in July. We love saying what things are. We've got some really cool people, including Marilyn May and Katherine Russell and the fabulous jazz pianist Kenny Barron, Pulitzer Prize winning Tishon Sorie, all under the wonderful artistic direction of Erin Diehl and fabulous jazz pianist himself. That's going to be a lot of fun. It starts July 17th and runs through the 28th. And then, you know, keep an eye on our websites. You know, we announce seasons pretty much year by year. So about this time next year, we'll have our 25/26 season rolling out. I've got to get to work on that. And hopefully we'll get to talk at some point again about that one. Well, that leads to my final question, which is, if I understood more information about the Tish music season or about you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you. How can they do so? Sure. So for Tish music season, 92ny.org/concerts, that'll get you everything that's happening for Tish music. For me, I'm at N-R-U-S-S-O-T-T-O at 92ny.org. I'm also on Instagram, I'm sure, and Wes often Facebook. But, you know, feel free to follow me, shoot me an email. If you've got any questions, if you just want to chat, you know, theater or any of this stuff, I'm always around. It's slightly slow to reply to things sometimes, but I'm there. And yeah, happy to always happy to chat about any of this stuff. It's a lot of fun for me to put together. I love hearing what people have to say about it, even if they're complaints. And it's a, you know, it's a really great job that I have. I'm really lucky to get to do what I do. Amazing, amazing. Well, Nicholas, thank you so, so much for your time today. Thanks for sharing this amazing upcoming season. And your amazing insight. This has been so wonderful. I wish we didn't have to end. I could go on for hours and hours with you. This is fabulous. So thank you so much. Thank you, Andrew. It's a real pleasure to come to see you again soon. Yes. My guest today has been the executive director of Tish Music, Nicholas Rosado, who joined us to talk about the 2024, 2025 Tish music season. At 92nd Street. Why? You can get tickets and more information for this year's season by visiting 92ny.org. And we also have some contact information for Nicholas, as well as Tish music that we'll be posting on our episode description, as well as on our social media. But head on over to 92ny.org. Get your tickets now for this incredible season. We're going to be there ourselves. You can guarantee it. This is such a fantastic set of concerts and performances. Again, it's the 2024, 25 Tish music season at 92nd Street. Why? So until next time, I'm Andrew Cortez, reminding you to turn off your cell phones, unwrapped your candies, and keep talking about the theater in a stage whisperer. Thank you. If you like what you hear, please leave a five star review, like and subscribe. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Stage Whisperer Pod. And feel free to reach out to us with your comments and personal stories at stagewhispererpod@gmail.com. And be sure to check out our website for all things Stage Whisperer and Theater. You'll be able to find merchandise, tours, tickets, and more. Simply visit stagewhispererpod.com. Our theme song is Maniac by Jazar. Other music on this episode provided by Jazar and Billy Murray. You can also become a patron of our show by logging on to patreon.com/stagewhispererpod. There you will find all the information about our backstage pass as well as our tip jar. Thank you so much for your generosity. We could not do this show without you. [BLANK_AUDIO]