PL AYBILL SPOON RIVER
SPOON RIVER Adapted by Mike Ross & Albert Schultz Composed by Mike Ross Based on Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters }{
approximate running time: 1 hour and 45 minutes. there will be no intermission
ARTIST NOTE: MIKE ROSS Spoon River feels like a show I’ve been preparing to compose my whole life without realizing it. Looking back, a very specific chain of events and experiences led me to the moment that Albert Schultz, after a meeting (I forget about what) told me to hang back for a second. He’d had an idea for something that might interest me and before he rushed off to his next thing he tossed an old copy of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Antholog y on the table in front of me. I had never heard of it. He gave me the quick rundown and took off. Nancy Palk was there too and her eyes lit up with glee that I hadn’t read it. So I took it home and started leafing through it. A lot of the composing work I do is taking other people’s words and setting them to music. I’ve done a lot of work with Toronto’s first poet laureate Dennis Lee, guided a collective ensemble setting of E.E. Cummings poetry to music and quite a few other similar projects. When the going’s good I get a sonic image that comes to me when I read the words on the page. It’s not the song that’s coming to me, it’s what the song sounds like. Then I write the song from there, if I can hang on to that image. That’s how I work, anyway. Never in my life have I had a stronger image come to me than I did when I picked up Spoon River Antholog y.
The image (not the songs) of the entire show was suddenly and permanently in my consciousness. Frankly, I don’t know if that will ever happen again. Albert Schultz does a lot of things right. But perhaps the best thing is pointing people towards their strengths. He can identify what you’re good at and draw that out. That’s what led him to making sure that book made its way into my hands. Two workshops later with the best actors and musicians this country has to offer and I’m proud to present my first full-scale musical. I have felt support from every inch of this building; the crew backstage, the designers, administration upstairs, the food and beverage, box office, and building maintenance staff (you think I’m kidding!), and finally the performers - Albert and I leading a graveyard full of 19 of the most gifted, giving, funny, thoughtful, and hardworking people that I have ever known in my life.
MIKE ROSS, Slaight Family Director of Music, 2014 Resident Artist
p roduc t ion s p on sor