Tony Award-winning Lyricist Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) has teamed up with
Academy and Grammy Award-winning music legend Burt Bacharach to create a new musical inspired by the classic O. Henry tale The Gift of the Magi. Some Lovers begins on present-day Christmas Eve with estranged lovers Molly and Ben. Over the course of one unforgettable night, past and present collide, as the ghosts of their former selves help them find forgiveness and fall in love again.
by lisa lipsey
How did you come to collaborate with the amazing Burt Bacha- rach? I met and began writing songs with Burt Bacharach in
the beginning of 2008. That for me has been a thrill. Like a dream come true. I love Burt, I love his music. When we began writing songs together they were so beautiful. Together we would write words first and then he writes the music. It’s quite a combination because he’s classic in his music, but I write fresh words. One day he says to me, you know Steven, I had a dream we played all our songs. And I said, that’s what we should do. How different was writing the music for this story versus Spring Awakening, which is also a love story? Well, I write love songs. I write poetry. But this time I
knew we were writing songs that felt unusual, they are about a more mature love. The characters are a little older. There is a certain heartache that has set in, of a dif- ferent kind. The lyrics came from such a place of intuition when I was feeling Burt’s music and finding a story for Burt’s music. What inspired you to write a story based off The Gift of the Magi—To give is better than to receive. The Old Globe will say it is based on The Gift of the
Magi— That’s okay, but it doesn’t follow the story. It follows a couple over 20 years and it presents 20 new Bacharach/Sater songs. The couple meets at a restaurant and piano bar. He plays piano there. From then on, every Christmas Eve they go to the Plaza Hotel and give each other a gift they have spent all year preparing. The show asks the question, how do you give the gift you hold most dear— what you hold most precious? Sometimes that means that you stay and find another part of your- self to give someone else. The set has two grand pianos facing each other and the songs take you deeper into the heart of the story. Does this show have the rock musical feel that we experienced withSpring Awakening? Oh, it is definitely pop music, not a rock musical—the
Burt whom you love from Promises, Promises is back in full form. The music is incredible. You’ll hear something different in his music, a maturity, but there is classic pop sound—closer to Motown versus the Beatles. How did you get your start in lyric writing? I never in a million years thought I would be writing
lyrics, writing for musical theatre or working as a play- wright. Then I met Duncan Sheik and that was a great life-altering meeting of the minds. After five hours of talking and encouraging each other I showed him a little thing I wrote and he set it to music. It was an up-tempo lyric and Duncan set it perfectly. After that, it was relent- less, writing and setting. We had five, six, seven songs, and then we made an album. Next we began to create a piece of musical theatre together,Spring Awakening. Wow, that’s pure magic. What’s next for you after Some Lovers? Any plans to collaborate with Duncan Sheik again? Well, last week I left for London to work on our latest
collaboration, a play [rock musical] called Alice By Heart—Our take on Alice in Wonderland. It’s been com- missioned by the Royal National Theatre of London. The play is being done by youth theatres all across the U.K. It will be perform in 25 different theatres from February through the summer. One cast will be chosen to perform at the National Theatre in the summer. We’re also work- ing on a play called The Nightingale—it is a new musical in collaboration with Duncan with Moisés Kaufman as the director. It is based on the Hans Christen Anderson Fairytale. That is truly very exciting, I love the music of Duncan Sheik. Whisper House at the Old Globe was such a unique experience and Moisés Kaufman’s direction of33 Variations at La Jolla Play- house, That show was impeccable—it gives me goose bumps to imagine such collaboration. Lyrically speaking, who are your muses? Burt’s music has been a part of my whole life, but I am
a literary guy. For this show, in writing the lyrics, I was in- spired by Marcel Proust’s, In Search of Lost Time–Episode of the Madeleines. As the narrator dips madelelines into a cup of tea he slips involuntarily into a memory to reclaim his past—that’s the heart of this show. The characters are transported back to who they were. When I hear Burt’s music I feel transported into who I was in seventh grade or 11th grade. This show is influenced by R&B, pop music, great classic vocalists—Herbie Handcock and Billie Holiday and classical music—Beethoven, Mozart.
SOME LOVERS runs now through Saturday, December 31 at The Old Globe Theatre. For tickets and more information call 619.234.5623 or go
totheoldglobe.org
DECEMBER 2011 | RAGE monthly 19
N SATER
Photo by Henry DiRocco
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