5 minute read
To Israel and Back
ARTS&LIFE
MUSICAL THEATER
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PHOTO BY SEAN CARTER PHOTOGRAPHY
Grace Choi, Brittany Jeffery, and Brooke Quintana in The Pin-Up Girls at Meadow Brook Theatre through May 15.
To Israel and Back
As his mother tells the story, Jeffrey Lodin started playing music on a Magnus Chord Organ at age 3. By age 7, he was acting and starring in productions at his school, community theater and synagogue. “I was humming songs before I could talk. Instead of playing chords with the buttons on the organ, I could just play chords with my left hand. It was like speaking English,” says Lodin, a composer, music director, arranger and co-author of the musical The Pin-Up Girls, running at Meadow Brook Theatre now Jeffrey Lodin’s unplanned through May 15. “I would have rather played football with my brothers than practice piano. musical theater career. Jeffrey I always loved theater, but I never thought of it as a career choice in any form.” JULIE SMITH YOLLES CONTRIBUTING WRITER Lodin Following his bar mitzvah at Beth Torah Synagogue in North Miami Beach where he grew up, Lodin continued religious studies and started canDETAILS The Pin-Up Girls runs at Meadow Brook Theatre on the campus of Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. through May 15. Tickets range from $36 to torial school. “What derailed me was the language. I couldn’t retain the Hebrew or speak it fluently to any degree at all. I didn’t understand what I was praying, and it just became rote. $46 and are available by calling the Meadow Brook And the fact that those around me didn’t seem bothered Theatre box office at (248) 377-3300 or going that I didn’t understand it caused me to rebel and stop,” online at www.ticketmaster.com. Student discounts Lodin said. are available at the box office. Groups of eight or During that same time, Lodin met with his chazzan who more should call (248) 370-3316 for group pricing. played Lodin the new soundtrack of Joseph and the Amazing
Masks are encouraged, but not required. Meadow Technicolor Dreamcoat. Brook does not require proof of vaccine or proof of “It blew my mind. ‘I can do that,’” Lodin thought. “It sent a negative COVID-19 test at this time. me flying toward a career in musical theater, and I never
looked back.”
Though he always envisioned going to college to be a psychologist or architect, Lodin, who was “always the pianist,” went to the University of Miami as a music composition major before he left school after a year to go on tour as the musical director of a professional production of Godspell. That gig led to others including touring with Andy Gibb, younger brother of the Bee Gees; playing club dates as a starving artist in New York and playing piano for Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaria.
A CROSSROADS
Then, one day in 1982, Lodin received two calls: one to go on tour with Diana Ross and the other to be a musical director for a new show called Broadway Dance Marathon in Israel.
“That was the fork in the road for me,” said Lodin. “I had never been to Israel, and I really wanted to go. By that time, I knew that I wanted to make a life in the theater. This is what I was meant to do.”
Lodin spent six months in Tel Aviv developing the musical during the 1982 Lebanon War. Lodin’s work in Israel led to getting the plum job of touring as Chita Rivera’s musical director for a yearand-a-half.
“Chita’s a force of nature,” says Lodin, who serves on faculty for the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).
Complementing his musical composition and arranging background, Lodin had a successful career as a commercial-jingle writer for more than 20 years. That experience led him to being hired by playwright James Hindman, who grew up in Michigan, for Hindman’s Popcorn Falls. Hindman hired Lodin to write a jingle for one of the scenes, which led to writing additional music for that show. And from that collaboration, they joined creative forces to write the musical The Pin-Up Girls, which made its Michigan premiere at Meadow Brook Theatre on April 20.
“It’s serendipitous and all a fairytale on how things can turn out — rarely with a plan,” Lodin says.
Hindman and Lodin wrote the musical as an homage to those who have served in the military. When the longtime friends, who entertain veterans at their local VFW hall, discovered a collection of letters from sailors, soldiers and airmen over the past 100 years, they decided to put on a musical review.
“The musical is based on a trove of letters we found that tell beautiful stories. We wanted to write a love letter to honor the men and women who made a sacrifice to our country. It’s not political or from any one specific war or period of time,” says Lodin, who wrote several new songs for the show as well as rearranging songs from the public domain to bring a fresh twist to the score.
Audiences can look forward to old classics like “Ain’t She Sweet” by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by Hughie Prince and Don Raye, and “Someone to Watch Over Me” by George and Ira Gershwin to newer songs like “On a Bus to St. Cloud” by Gretchen Peters, originally sung by Trisha Yearwood; and Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies.”
“The letters told beautiful stories, and it was our job to find songs that augmented those feelings,” Lodin added. These true stories served as inspiration for every single moment of the show.”
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