Soapbox Gallery
636 Dean Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11238
Thursday, April 20, 2023 7:30 pm
Ensemble for the Romantic Century
New Works Reading Series
Script and Music Design by Eve Wolf
Directed by Donald T. Sanders
Read by
Eve Wolf
Music Direction: Eve Wolf
Production Design: Vanessa James
Sound Design: Eve Wolf
Lighting Design: Beverly Emmons
Script Consultant: Renée Silverman
Production Sound Management: Natalie Zimmerman
Technical Coordinator: James Greenfield
Special thanks to The Augustine Foundation for making this series possible
CAST
MAIN ROLES
ANDY WARHOL: TENOR
TRUMAN CAPOTE: COUNTERTENOR
SHIRLEY TEMPLE: SOPRANO
JULIA WARHOLA: MEZZO-SOPRANO – Andy Warhol’s mother
ADREJ WARHOLA: BARITONE – Andy Warhol’s father
CHARON: BASS –The ferryman who transports the dead across the river Acheron to the Underworld, in
Dante’s Inferno.
MINOR ROLES
GERARD MALANGA: (1943- ) an American poet, photographer, filmmaker, actor, who worked closely
with Andy at The Factory.
VIVA: (1938 - ) an Andy Warhol superstar who was on the phone when he was shot.
MARIO AMAYA: (1933-1986) a Museum Director who was in Warhol’s office when he was shot
FRED HUGHES: (1943-2001) Andy’s business manager for over 25 years.
VALERIE SOLANAS: (1936-1988) a radical feminist who shot Andy Warhol and served a
three-year sentence in prison, including time in a psychiatric hospital.
PLUTO: Guardian of the 4th circle in Dante’s Inferno.
PAOLO & FRANCESCA: the tragic lovers in Dante’s Inferno, Canto V.
GIANCIOTTO MALATESTA: Francesca’s husband, who kills his wife and her lover in
Dante’s Inferno.
CARL WILLERS: One of Andy’s lovers.
JOHN WARHOLA: (1925-2010) Andy’s brother, who served as vice president of the Warhol
Foundation for 20 years, playing an important role in establishing the Andy Warhol Museum
in Pittsburgh and creating a Warhol museum near the village in Slovakia where their parents
were born. After his younger brother left for New York in 1949, he called him every Sunday
for the next 38 years to keep tabs on him.
PAUL WARHOLA:(1923- 2014) Andy’s brother who had a successful scrap business. Paul
was also known for his "Chicken Feet" paintings along with his Absolut Vodka ad of 1990.
CHARLE LISANBY: A set designer for television and Broadway. One of Andy’s lovers.
PATRICK O’HIGGINS: (1922-1980) a magazine writer and longtime confidante of cosmetic
executive Helena Rubinstein. He wrote a memoir about her.
HELENA RUBINSTEIN: (1870-1965), a Polish and American cosmetics executive.
HARPIES (THE ART CRITICS): Creatures in Dante’s Inferno that dwell in the forest of
Suicides, where they feed upon the leaves of the suicide trees.
THE THREE FURIES: EDIE SEDGEWICK, ULTRA VIOLET, BABY JANE – creatures in
Dante’s Inferno that are half-woman, half serpent. They notice Dante and call for Medusa to
turn him to stone. Edie, Ultra Violet, and Baby Jane were Warhol superstars.
THE FOUR TREES: spirits of suicides that are encased in trees, prey to the Harpies in Dante’s Inferno
FILIPPO ARGENTO: In the Inferno, he is among the wrathful in the river Styx.
Music Program
Act I: Heaven and Hell are just one breath away
The Black Angel’s Death Song………………….…….Velvet Underground (1967)
Ecco, Morirò dunque, Madrigal W. 4/59……………..…….Carlo Gesualdo (1613)
Living Room Music…………………………….…………………John Cage (1940)
Once Upon a Time………………………………………………. John Cage (1940)
It Don’t mean a thing if it Aint got that Swing……...…….…Duke Ellington (1932)
Tanga……………………………………………..…Tito Puente after Bauza (1947)
Epistrophy …………………………………………………..Thelonius Monk (1948
West Side Story…………………………………………..Leonard Bernstein (1957)
Cha Cha Meeting Scene
Cool Fugue
One hand, one heart
Damigella Tutta Bella (Scherzi Musicali)……….……..Claudio Monteverdi (1617)
ACT II Journey to Hell
Laudate Dominum in sanctis eius, SV 287…………….Claudio Monteverdi (1641)
Variation III……………………………………………………. John Cage (1962/3)
It’s gonna Rain…………………………….……...…………… Steve Reich (1965)
Heroin……………………………………….…………Velvet Underground (1967)
Disco Inferno……………………………………………………..…….The Tramps(1976)
Morro Lasso al mio duolo…………………….……………..Carlo Gesualdo (1611)
Ballet Méchanique…………………………………………..George Antheil (1924)
Act III Redemption
String Quartet #1 in D major……………...………….……Benjamin Britten (1941)
The Heavenly Banquet………………………..…….……….. Samuel Barber(1953)
Sure on this Shining Night, op. 13………….………….…….Samuel Barber (1940)
The monk and his Cat………………………….…….…..…..Samuel Barber (1953)
Piano Sonata in Eb, op. 26, Allegro vivace e leggero……….Samuel Barber (1949)
The Crucifixion………………………………………...…….Samuel Barber (1953)
Fratres………………………………………………..……………Arvo Pärt (1977)
Agnus Dei (Barber’s arr. of Adagio for Strings……..….........Samuel Barber (1967)
Ciaccona di Paradiso e dell’Inferno…………………...….……Anonymous (1677)
SONG TEXTS
The Black Angel’s Death Song
Velvet Underground 1967
The myriad choices of his fate
Set themselves out upon. Plate
For him to choose
What had he to lose?
Not a ghost bloodied country
All covered with sleep
Where the black angel did weep
Not an old city street in the east
Gone to choose
And wandering’s brother
Walked on through the night
With his hair in his face
On a long- splintered cut from the knife of GT
The rally man’s patter ran on through the dawn
Until we said so long
To his skull-shrill yell
Shining brightly red-rimmed
And red-lined with the time
Infused with the choice of the mind
On ice skates scraping chunks
From the bells
Cut mouth bleeding razors
Forgetting the pain
Antiseptic remains cool goodbye
So you fly
To the cozy brown snow of the east
Gone to choose, choose again
Sacrificial remains make it hard to forget
Where you came from
The stools of your eyes
Serve to realize fame, choose again
Come again, choose to go
And if Epiphany’s terror reduced you to shame
Have your head bobbed and weaved
Choose a side to be on
And if the stone glances off
Split didactics in two
Leave the color of the mouse trails
Don’t scream, try between
If you choose
If you choose, try to lose
For the loss of remain come and start
Start the game
Choose to choose
Choose to choose
Choose to go
Ecco, morirò dunque!
Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613)
Ecco, morirò dunque!
Nè fia che pur rimire
Tu ch’ancidi mirando Il mio morire.
Ahi, già mi discoloro, Oimè vien meno La luce a gli occhi miei,
La voce, al seno!
O che morte gradita
Se almen potessi dir: "Moro, mia vita!"
So, then die I will!
Do not then look,
you whose eyes kill, how I die.
Ah, I lose color, Oh! there is less
light coming to my eyes,
the voice, the breast!
Oh, death would be welcome
If only I could say: 'I die, my life!
Damigella tutta bella (Scherzi Musicali #6
Claudio Monteverdi (1617)
Damigella tutta bella
Versa versa quel bel vino fa che cada
La rugiada distillata di rubino
Ho nel seno rio veneno
Che vi sparse Amor profondo ma gittarlo
E lasciarlo vo' sommerso in questo fondo
Damigella tutta bella
Di quel vin tu non mi satii fa che cada
La rugiada distillata da topatii
Nova fiamma più m'infiamma
Arde il cor foco novello se mia vita
Non s'aita ah ch'io vengo un Mongibello!
Ma più fresca ogn' hor cresca
Dentro me sì fatta arsura consumarmi
E disfarmi per tal modo ho per ventura.
Maiden, All-beautiful,
Pour out, pour out that sweet wine;
Make fall the dew distilled from rubies.
I have in my breast an evil poison
that Love has implanted;
He cast it And left it. I’m immersed in it.
Maiden, All-beautiful,
With that wine you do not satisfy me; Instead let dew flow distilled from topaz. Ah, douse me that I should not feel the rage of my ardour. Less burning, less ardent, alas, are the fires of Mount Etna. This new blaze inflames me even more, Setting my heart on fire anew; If my life Is not consumed, I will be very fortunate.
Laudate Dominum
Claudio Monteverdi (1641)
Laudate Dominum in sanctis eius. Laudate eum in firmamento virtutis eius. Laudate eum in virtutibus eius. Laudate eum in sono tubae. Laudate eum in psalterio et citara. Laudate eum in timpano et choro. Laudate eum in cimbalis bene sonantibus. Laudate eum in cimbalis iubilationibus.
Laudat Dominum!
Alleluia.
Yield unto God the mighty Lord Praise in his holiness; And in the firmament of his Great pow'r praise him no less. Advance his name, and praise him in His mighty acts always; According to his excellence And greatness give him praise.
His praises with the princely noise Of sounding trumpets blow; Praise him upon the viol, and Upon the harp also: Praise him with timbrel and with lute, Organs and virginals; Whatever hath the benefit Of breathing, praise the Lord.
Heroin
Velvet Underground (1967)
I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a spike into my vein
And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same
When I'm rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus' son
And I guess that I just don't know
And I guess that I just don't know
I have made the big decision
I'm gonna try to nullify my life
'Cause when the blood begins to flow. When it shoots up the dropper's neck. When I'm closing in on death. And you can't help me now, you guys. And all you sweet girls with all your sweet talk
You can all go take a walk
And I guess that I just don't know
And I guess that I just don't know
I wish that I was born a thousand years ago. I wish that I'd sail the darkened seas. On a great big clipper ship. Going from this land here to that In a sailor's suit and cap. Away from the big city
Where a man can not be free
Of all of the evils of this town
And of himself, and those around
Oh, and I guess that I just don't know. Oh, and I guess that I just don't know. Heroin, be the death of me
Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life. Because a mainer to my vein
Leads to a center in my head
And then I'm better off and dead
Because when the smack begins to flow. I really don't care anymore
About all the Jim-Jim's in this town. And all the politicians makin' crazy sounds
And everybody puttin' everybody else down. And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds
'Cause when the smack begins to flow. Then I really don't care anymore.Ah, when the heroin is in my blood. And that blood is in my head. Then thank God that I'm as good as dead. Then thank your God that I'm not aware
And thank God that I just don't care. And I guess I just don't know
And I guess I just don't know
Disco Inferno
The Trammps (1976)
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
Satisfaction came in a chain reaction
I couldn’t get enough, so I had to self-destruct
The heat was on, rising to the top
Everybody going strong, and that is when my spark got hot
I heard somebody say
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
Satisfaction came in a chain reaction
(Just can’t stop) when my spark gets hot
Moro, lasso, al mio duolo
Carlo Gesualdo (1611)
Moro, lasso, al mio duolo Moro, lasso, al mio duolo E chi mi può dar vita, Ahi, che m'ancide e non vuol darmi aita! O dolorosa sorte, Chi dar vita mi può, ahi, mi dà morte.
I die, alas, in my suffering, And (she) he who could give me life, Alas, kills me and will not help me. O sorrowful fate,
(She) He who could give me life,
Alas, gives me death.
The Heavenly Banquet
Samuel Barber (1953)
I would like to have the men of Heaven in my own house;
with vats of good cheer laid out for them.
I would like to have the three Mary's,
their fame is so great.
I would like people from every corner of Heaven.
I would like them to be cheerful in their drinking.
I would like to have Jesus sitting here among them.
I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven's family
Drinking it through all eternity.
Sure on this shining night
Samuel Barber (1940)
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder
wand'ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
The Monk and his Cat
Samuel Barber (1953)
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
Each has his own work to do daily;
For you it is hunting, for me study.
Your shining eye watches the wall;
my feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.
Pleased with his own art
Neither hinders the other;
Thus we live ever
without tedium and envy.
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
The Crucifixion
Samuel Barber (1953)
At the cry of the first bird
They began to crucify Thee, O Swan!
Never shall lament cease because of that
It was like the parting of day from night
Ah, sore was the suffering borne
By the body of Mary's Son
But sorer still to Him was the grief
Which for His sake
Came upon His mother
Ciaccona di Paradiso e dell’Inferno
Anonymous (1677)
O che bel stare è stare in Paradiso dove si vive sempre in fest’e riso vedendosi di Dio svelato il viso. O che bel stare è star in Paradiso.
Ohimè che orribil star qui nell’inferno Ove si vive in pianto e foco eterno senza veder mai Dio in sempiterno. Ahi, ahi, che orribil star giù nell’inferno. Là non vi regna giel, vento, calore, che il tempo è temperato a tutte l’hore, pioggia non v’è, tempesta, nè baleno, che il ciel là sempre si vede sereno.
Il fuoco e ‘l ghiaccio là, o che stupore Le brine, le tempeste, e il sommo ardore Stanno in un loco tute l’intemperie Si radunan laggiù, o che miserie.
Havrai insomma là quanto vorrai E quanto non vorrai non haverai e questo è quanto, o Musa, posso dire però fa pausa il canto e fin l’ardire.
Quel ch’aborrisce qua, là tutto havrai Quel te diletta e piace mai havrai E pieno d’ogni male tu sarai dispera tu d’uscirne mai, mai, mai!
O che bel stare è star in Paradiso dove si vive sempr’in fest’e riso vedendosi di Dio
svelato il viso che bel stare é stare in Paradiso.
Oh how nice it is to be in Paradise where we live in the Elysian fields seeing the face of
God revealed. Oh how nice it is to be in Paradise.
Oh how horrible it is here in hell where we burn in eternal fire without ever seeing God appear. Oh how horrible it is here in hell. This isn’t the realm of ice, wind and heat, the weather is temperate all the time. There’s no rain or storms or lightning, Here in Heaven it’s always peaceful.
There’s fire and ice here, oh it’s amazing The frosts, storms, and the high heat. We’re in a place of such terrible weather. Oh we’re gathered here in such misery.
We have here all we could ever wish for And we have nothing that we dislike, There’s so much more, O Muse, I could say but I’ll pause the song to end my brazenness
Ah we have everything that is abhorrent, nothing we like, never any pleasure. We’re surrounded by evil and badness, desperate to escape but never, never, never!
Oh how nice it is to be in Paradise where we live in the Elysian fields seeing the face of God revealed. Oh how nice it is to be in Paradise.
PROGRAM NOTES
James Melo, ERC’s Musicologist
“Art is anything you can get away with”
Andy Warhol
Perhaps no other American artist of the mid- to late 20th century has had as widespread a presence across so many levels of American contemporary culture as Andy Warhol (1928-1987). As an artist, Andy Warhol cultivated an enormous variety of media and techniques, including painting, photography, film, silk screening, sculpture, and installations. This alone would have brought him into the sphere of many of the avant-garde movements that were flourishing in the United States after World War II, thriving in a climate of continuous experimentation. Beyond this, however, Andy Warhol had an unfailing sense of how celebrity culture worked, and, in time, he knew exactly what made it tick. He also knew precisely how celebrity culture filtered down through all strata of society, and therefore he was able to tap into the collective imagination in ways that, very soon, made himself a celebrity (in addition to a respected and influential artist). Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh into a lower middle-class family that was staunchly Catholic.
His childhood and youth were inauspicious and offered no inkling of what kind of artist he would become. He suffered from a condition known as Sydenham’s chorea, which causes involuntary movement of the extremities, and as a child he was often bedridden on account of it. According to him, it was during these times when he was bedridden that he began to discover and cultivate his interests, as he listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars. His first forays into art came when he moved to New York City in late 1949 and began drawing shoes for fashion magazines such as Glamour and Cano, and, in the process, experimenting with techniques that would later become hallmarks of his style. His individual style attracted immediate attention and, within a few years in the 1950s he had two solo exhibitions in New York City and saw his work included in a group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Things began to happen very fast, leading to the explosion of creativity and widespread fame that marked Andy Warhol’s life in New York City in the 1960s.
This was the decade in which virtually all the hallmarks of Warhol’s style and artistic persona were definitively established: the ascension to pope of pop art, the collaboration with the rock band Velvet Underground, the designs for album covers, the perfectioning of the silk screen technique, the portraits of celebrities, the focus on multiples and repetitive images, and the establishment of The Factory as a gravitational center for artists, musicians, movie stars, writers, and a coterie of celebrities that began to follow Andy Warhol around. The distinctness of Warhol’s style and the pervasiveness of his artistic persona in American culture make him an instantly recognizable figure. The breadth of his influence cannot be overestimated, and it comes as no surprise that, between 1966 and 2021 (when it was last counted) 102 songs had been written either directly about him, or referring to his works, or emulating his accomplishments. The intensity of his charisma and the overwhelming repercussion of his talents were at the root of a transformative event in his life: on 3 June 1968, the radical feminist and writer Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol and the art critic Mario Amaya at Warhol’s studio The Factory.
The attack was triggered by a misunderstanding regarding a script that Solanas was trying to retrieve from The Factory, but it was very likely the culmination of long-seething resentment for being a marginal figure in Warhol’s circle. According to Solanas, Andy Warhol had “too much control” over her life. Warhol’s view of the attack ties in with the culture of celebrity and entertainment that always gravitated around him: Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television—you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television. The attack affected him for the rest of his life, both physically and psychologically.
After a relatively quiet time in the 1970s, during which he worked mostly on commissioned portraits of celebrities and invested time in expanding his network of wealthy patrons, Andy Warhol made a resurgence in the 1980s, a period that also saw criticism of a perceived commercialism in his work. He became increasingly enamored of Hollywood and everything that it stood for, which in many ways was a culmination of his perpetual dalliance with the lives of the rich and famous. His last exhibition, Last Supper, was shown at the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan in January 1987. On 22 February 1987, Andy Warhol died in his sleep in New York City, following complications from a gallbladder surgery. He was 58 years old.
The classical music landscape in the United States that was contemporaneous with the career of Andy Warhol was marked by experimentation, intellectualism, and unorthodox treatment of sound. Foremost among these trends were the rise of minimalism (in the works of Steve Reich, John Adams, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and others) and the expansion of experimental composition techniques derived from the works of John Cage. These trends coexisted with others that harked back to more traditional idioms, in the music of composers such as Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein (at least in some of his works), Virgil Thomson, and others. The coexistence of these distinct stylistic trends maps out a panorama of classical American music in which, for the most part, there is very little attention paid to folk and traditional music. In many ways, American classical music of the 1960s-70s pushed out the boundaries of music (by rethinking the nature of sound and time) in the same manner as Andy Warhol played with the parameters of painting by blending lines and shapes, effacing contour, and eliminating the feeling of depth and tridimensionality. The mutual influences linking music and visual arts operate at very complex levels at any historical period, and in the case of Andy Warhol’s most productive decades one must take into consideration the rapid pace imposed on all artistic developments by a culture of celebrity and entertainment, the need for something constantly new, revolutionary, forward-looking.
I would like to reflect on the technique of repetition in musical minimalism and the repetition of images in Andy Warhol’s multiples and serial images. Repetition is an important rhetorical element in music, which is a temporal art. When a minimalist composer creates a pattern of repetition of a particular musical element (a melodic motive, a rhythm, a chord, etc.) this elicits a range of expectations in the listener, who becomes affected by the possibility of change. This change can be minimal, and its impact will depend on the time scale of the repeated patterns and on what kinds of expectation that composer set up. The most important element, therefore, is time. In the visual arts, repetition devolves into pattern, since all the elements are present simultaneously. Thus, in Andy Warhol’s repeated images, each image is subsumed into a larger visual conglomerate that is integrated through color and texture. In music, change and repetition are heard retrospectively in relation to what came before; in the visual arts, they are apprehended simultaneously.
The musical program tonight includes examples from different traditions of American music (the milieu in which Andy Warhol lived and worked) and music from the Italian Renaissance (which refers to the dramatic framework based on Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy). Highlights include the selected songs from Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs (1953), a collection of ten songs based on poems by Irish monks and scholars from the 8th to the 13th centuries. They are brief poetical and musical utterances addressing different aspects of the religious and spiritual experience of the Catholic faith, in which Andy Warhol was steeped. Excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957) call to mind a golden age of the Broadway musical (of which West Side Story itself is one of the gems) and the ebullience of New York City when Andy Warhol was establishing a name for himself.
John Cage’s Four2 (1990) belongs to the last phase of his career, when he wrote a series of works whose titles refer simply to the number of performers needed to perform the piece. Thus, Four2 refers to the two four-part choruses that it requires. Like many of Cage’s pieces, it is aleatoric. Cage’s Living Room Music (1940) harks back to the composer’s early experimental period. It is written for a quartet of unspecified instruments, but all of them must be found in the living room of a typical house. Steve Reich’s It’s Gonna Rain (1965) is a minimalist piece that merges with electroacoustic and musique concrete through the use of a magnetic tape, a recording of a preacher railing about the end of the world, which was recoded at Union Square in San Francisco. It includes environmental and background noise and was Steve Reich’s first major composition and a landmark in the development of minimalist music. The pieces by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) and Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) are emblematic of the great age of the Italian madrigal, a genre that thrived on the lyrical poetry that circulated among the Italian elite of the time. In the Ciaccona di Paradiso e dell’Inferno, an anonymous composition from the 17th century, two voices alternate, one describing the rewards of heaven and the other itemizing the horrors of hell. The Velvet Underground’s Heroin (1967), which appeared in the band’s debut album, became one of the most celebrated songs of the group. It openly describes heroin abuse, and despite a very long text it is based on only two chords which are framed through a variety of rhetorical devices (such as variations in tempo and dynamics). The first two lines of the text of Heroin (written by Lou Reed, the bandleader of The Velvet Underground) could be taken as a description of the arc of Andy Warhol’s fabulously successful and consequential career: “I don't know just where I'm going But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can.”
A NOTE FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
Eve Wolf, Founder and Executive Artistic Director of ERC
Warhol: A Divine Comedy is close to my heart. The script is based on two works that I love - Dante’s Inferno and the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. For several years, I have been interested in the Divina Comedia, especially the Inferno, and have even been trying to memorize some of the cantos in Italian, which is my second language. Andy was shot by Valerie Solanas on June 4th, 1968 and was technically dead for approximately two minutes. I imagine those 120 seconds as a Dantean situation, during which Andy visits Hell with his “Virgil”, Truman Capote, who was his idol, as with his “Beatrice”, Shirley Temple. But he could also revisit his past, as in It’s a Wonderful Life. I even had the pleasure of including a bell and writing, “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.” I had fun using the Harpies, the three Furies, Pluto, Minos, the talking trees, Charon crossing the River Styx (in this case Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River), Paolo and Francesca (here Paolo and Francesco), the Wasters and the Hoarders, and many other characters, including the Humanoids, from Andy’s famous movie The Creation of the Humanoids. It was equally entertaining for me to choose people to put in the deepest bowels of Hell – Studio 54 in my script.
I also feel a strong personal identification with Andy. He grew up poor in Pittsburgh with immigrant Carpatho-Rusyn parents who were religious Catholics; I grewup in Jersey City, which, in my day, could have been called the Pittsburgh of New Jersey, and lived with my immigrant, Orthodox Jewish grandparents who were from Kiev and Vienna. At an early age, Andy was much affected by his father’s death, just as I was deeply affected by my father’s death when I was three years old. Although I don’t resemble Andy in many other ways, I feel he, too, worked out his childhood pain through his art – a process that I identify with as a musician and writer. I believe that Andy’s work reflects his childhood psychological struggles more than any of the other aspects of his life and attitudes that commentators have focused on over the decades. (The art critics are the “Harpies” in my script.) Andy’s childhood was not easy. He was what used to be called “effeminate” and was often bullied by the boys in his school and neighborhood, and he suffered from a neurological illness. His family was poor, although with time their economic status became more stable. In other words, they went from making soup by diluting Heinz’s ketchup to being able to afford cans of Campbell’s soup. (Campbell’s soup plays a central role in my script.) Andy was very influenced by his mother, who saw the world as magical and full of miracles, saints, and wonders. He, too, was religious, although he often hid this aspect of himself within the celebrity circles that became his own circles. He often attended Mass at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on the Upper East Side; he gave the church financial support and volunteered to work in their homeless shelter. In recent times, more attention has been given to this side of Andy’s life and to the religious nature of his art. He was deeply intelligent but also shy, which, I believe, explains why he often spoke in monosyllables in public, hiding behind the mask of his “Andy persona.” In short, Andy appeals to me as a character, and I am very fond of him. I also consider him a genius and one of the major artists of the 20th century.
The Music
Andy’s Catholicism and my love of Dante led me naturally to make certain musical choices. Gesualdo and Monteverdi were perfect matches (and music that I adore!), as was Ciaccona of Heaven and Hell, an upbeat, even comic, piece. After all, Andy: A Divine Comedy is indeed a comedy, not a tragedy. Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei and Arvo Pärt’s Fratres are also religious pieces. Velvet Underground was a group formed by Andy. John Cage was a contemporary who experimented in music as Andy did in art. In my opinion, the compositions of Barber, Benjamin Britten, and Leonard Bernstein contain feelings of “otherness,” sadness, and inner torment, since in their day the gay community was largely closeted and – given the laws that were in place at the time – also in danger. Other pieces, such as “Tanga” by Tito Puente, “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing” by Duke Ellington, and “Disco Inferno” (one of the first pieces performed at Studio 54) reflect the time period.
Andy Warhol: A Divine Comedy as an opera
The form of this script is unusual. It is an opera libretto with planned recitatives, arias, and through-composed music (once I find the right composer for it), but it contains pre-existing music as well. Currently, some of the pre-existing music functions as a placeholder for new music. Of course, there will be adjustments to the libretto once a composer is identified. I conceive of the future recitatives as Monteverdian, but with a twist. I would like the arias to be gorgeous, memorable “songs” that will even be able to stand on their own, like the arias in favorite operas. There is also room for soundscapes and experimentation. I am excited about all of the possibilities.
BIOS
(in alphabetical order)
Max Barros (Co-Artistic Director ERC, pianist) has been hailed by the critics in Brazil and the US as one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. He won the soloist of the year the São Paulo Arts Critics Association (1985), the “Discovery Award” from the French Diapason magazine for his recordings of Camargo Guarnieri’s piano concertos with the Warsaw Philharmonic for Naxos. He has been praised for his “elegance of rhythm” and “refinement of tone” (New York Times) and his “unfaltering brio” (Gramophone). He is in the process of recording the complete piano works of Camargo Guarnieri for Naxos. Mr. Barros has performed in all the major concert halls of New York City and Brazil, and in major productions by ERC in New York City and abroad. Mr. Barros is the Vice-President of the Brazilian Music Foundation in New York, and a Steinway Artist.
Beverly Emmons (Lighting Designer) Broadway: Stick Fly, Annie Get Your Gun, Jekyll & Hyde, The Heiress, Passion, Amadeus and The Elephant Man. Off B’way: Joseph Chaikin, Robert Wilson. Regionals: the Guthrie, Arena Stage, The Alley in Houston, Children's Theatre of Minneapolis. Dance: Martha Graham, Trisha Brown, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham. Awards: one Tony award, seven Tony nominations, a 1976 Lumen, a 1980 Obie, Theatre Wing awards. Created TheLightingArchive.org. Career is documented at the performingartslegacy.org
Jimmy Greenfield (technical coordinator) is a sculptor and the owner and director of Soapbox Gallery.
Vanessa James (Production Designer) is an international designer of sets and costumes for theatre and opera and an art director for film and TV. Her New York stage credits include William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, Arthur Penn’s production of Chambers, Kenneth Koch’s Red Robbins, and Donald Sanders’ 33 Scenes on the Possibility of Human Happiness andThomas Cole; A Waking Dream for the Joseph Papp Public Theatre. She is the resident designer for the Ensemble for the Romantic Century for whom she has designed the recent productions of Akhmatova and Jules Verne at BAM/Fisher and Van Gough’s Ear, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart, Because I Could Not Stop: An encounter with Emily Dickinson at The Signature Theatre and Maestro and Hans Christian Andersen at The Duke Theater. She has been nominated for three Emmy awards for art direction. Examples of her work are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute library and the New York Museum of the Moving Image. She is a professor at Mount Holyoke College and is the author of two books of popular reference The Genealogy of Greek Mythology, and Shakespeare’s Genealogies.
James Melo (ERC musicologist, playwright) is a Senior-Supervising Editor at the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) at the Graduate Center (CUNY), and the New York correspondent for the music magazine Sinfónica in Uruguay. He has written program notes for major concert halls in the United States and Brazil, as well as for CDs on several labels. He was the program notes writer for the National Philharmonic in Strathmore, Maryland, and for the Montreal Chamber Music Festival. He is the author of the liner notes for the complete recordings of the works of Heitor Villa-Lobos and of Camargo Guarnieri on Naxos. He is on the faculty of the Diller-Quaile School of Music in New York City and is active as a translator in Brazil and the US. His most recent publication, an essay on Friedrich Nietzsche and the aesthetics of the Romantic song, was published this year by Cambridge Scholars.
Caity Quinn (ERC Development and Business Manager; playwright) has been a member of the staff at ERC since 2008. She has been instrumental in winning numerous ERC grants, including over ten years of funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA); The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for ‘July 5th’, and Maestro, about the life of celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini. Ms. Quinn works closely with Eve Wolf and Don Sanders to implement and fulfill ERC’s mission. Ms. Quinn is also a playwright and drama teacher. She has collaborated with film director Robert Eggers (The Northman) on numerous theatre projects, including a Commedia dell’Arte version of Faust. Recent projects include teaching theatre K-8 at a tiny island school in Maine, directing Rabbit Hole and Six Characters in Search of an Author at Purdue, appearing at Theatre Passe Muraille in the bilingual French-English production of The Sound of Cracking Boneswith Pleiades Theatre in Toronto. Her play “Within and Without: The Flood” won the award Le Prix Initiative Jeunesse ALPHA Assurances in 2017. She has been nominated twice for the Brickenden Award for Best Youth Play/Musical in Ontario.
Donald T. Sanders, Director, (Director of Theatrical Production Ensemble for the Romantic Century/ERC) Notable ERC productions: Van Gogh's Ear with Carter Hudson; Seduction, Smoke and Music with Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons; Because I Could Not Stop, An Encounter with Emily Dickinson with Angelica Page; for ERC Audio Drama Division: Tchaikovsky, None But The Lonely Heartwith Vanessa Redgrave and Stephen Fry; Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon with Thibault de Montalembert. B.A. University of Pennsylvania (President, Penn Players,Thouron Scholar); C.I.D University of Bristol England; MFA Yale School of Drama. Career debut, the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, 1968, The American Pig, An Anti-Imperialist Vaudeville; Founder and Executive Artistic Director MIFA, the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts/MIFA. Awards: NEA, NYSCA, NYCDCA, MCC, National Philanthropic Trust, NYTimes Critic's Picks, Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres France.
Eve Wolf (Playwright; Founder and Executive Director of ERC; pianist) During the past twenty-two seasons, Wolf has written scripts and been music designer for more than twenty-five of ERC’s theatrical concerts, including ERC’s new Radio Drama Division, and has performed as pianist in most of the ensemble’s forty-plus original productions. Highlights: Audio: Anna Akhmatova, - starring Vanessa Redgrave (2021); Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon – starring Thibeault de Montalembert (2022); Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart - starring Stephen Fry and Vanessa Redgrave. (2022); Notable Plays: Maestro (The Duke at 42nd Street), Van Gogh’s Ear (Signature Theater), 2017 - a New York Times Critic’s Pick; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Signature Theater), 2018; The Dreyfus Affair (BAM), 2017; Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone (BAM) 2016 - a New York Times Critic’s Pick; Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon (BAM), 2015, a New York Times Critic’s Pick. This year, three new works of Ms. Wolf are being read at Soapbox Gallery - Beethoven vs Beethon; Gouldberg; and Andy Warhol: A Divine Comedy. Ms. Wolf has served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and been a professional mentor at The Juilliard School, and is currently on the faculty of Columbia University-Teachers College.
Natalie Zimmerman (sound production manager) is a New York City born and raised actor, writer, and singer dedicated to writing and performing stories about complex women. A true nerd at heart, she has a passion for bringing roles to life through detailed textual analysis theorizing everything from her character’s favorite music to her bedroom décor. Some of her favorite credits include Martirio in Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba and Babe in Henly’s Crimes of the Heart. Natalie is a classically trained soprano who delights in singing opera and musical theater as well as jazz and pop. She loves the challenge of writing and performing in her own work. She is currently working on “Abortion Play,”, a biting satire on the Supreme Court’s verdict to overturn Roe V Wade. She made her ERC debut in The Judgement of Josephine in the role of Alice B. Toklas.
