[Dixielandjazz] Joplin Meets Berlin - The Stage Play

[Robert Ringwald]

Sorry, I mean prefacing


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Ringwald" <rsr at ringwald.com>
To: "Bob Ringwald" <rsr at ringwald.com>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2009 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Joplin Meets Berlin - The Stage Play


> Steve Barbone quotes from the NY Times:
>
> (snip)
> "The Tin Pan Alley Rag" is in previews at the Roundabout's Laura Pels
> Theater (it opens July 14), and for Mr. Saltzman, who's been a fan of
> Joplin's ragtime for more than 30 years, the wordless scene is a risk
> that pays off. "It's kind of rare in the theater for it all to boil
> down to a piece of music," Mr. Saltzman said. (That music is played
> live by offstage pianists while actors sit at pianos, hands obscured.)
> "You wonder if people are going to be fidgety, or if they're going to
> say, 'We didn't pay for a piano concert.' "
> "I'm so happy when I see that the audience is listening to this music
> as intently as if they're listening to dialogue," he said. "I feel
> some kind of personal triumph about that."
> (snip)
>
> Interesting how the Ragtime waltz "Bethena" is presented in this stage 
> play with no other action onstage.
>
> Once in a while I play this beautiful waltz at a Jazz festival.  It has to 
> be just the right setting and piano.
>
> I play it rather slowly so it takes about 5 to 6 minutes to play all 
> movements and repeats.
>
> I have been successful with professing the performance by telling the 
> audience that:
>
> In this day of 10 second commercials and a murder, trial and conviction 
> that is wrapped up in 40 minutes on TV, an audience can't sit still for a 
> 6-minute piece.  So then I charge them to do so.  It works.  I can play 
> the whole thing without anyone fidgeting or whispering to their neighbor. 
> And they love the piece.
>
>
> --Bob Ringwald K6YBV
> rsr at ringwald.com
> 530/642-9551
> 916/806-9551 Cell
> www.ringwald.com
> Fulton Street Jazz Band
>
> Hear our latest CD at:
> www.fultonstreetjazz.com/music.htm
>
> No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in
> session."  --New York State Surrogate Court Judge Gideon Tucker - 1866
>
>
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