Vanity! Vanity! All is vanity! So begins the book of Ecclesiastes about the futility of all human endeavors doomed to rust and dust. My reaction? Get over it, Ecclesiastes. You’re whining and I don’t believe it, at least the part that suggests that all human accomplishments are futile since they are destined to be forgotten. What the prophets leave out is the joy of our work; the time spent doing what we most love to do if we’re lucky, work that is often the greatest reward we will ever know in life, aside from love, for the pleasure of work is worth all our time and effort, despite its inevitably dusty outcome. Our work may not last but what does last? The Mona Lisa and some Gershwin tunes? After that, who can say? Reader alert: What follows is no biblical discussion, but a plug for a concert I am involved in next Tuesday.
On Tuesday, April 29th, at 6PM, some amazing actor/singers will be performing some twenty songs that I wrote for two musicals with the late composer Wally Harper. This is one of the Songbook series at the Donnell Library theatre in New York City under the direction of John Zndisarc. It’s a free concert, open to the public on a first come first seated basis, and the performers are among the finest of our New York theatre including Penny Fuller, Malcolm Gets, Marcus Neville, Christianne Tisdale, Terry Burrell, Lorna Hampson, Natalie Veneita Balcon, and Kendrick Jones.It promises to be the best time I’ve had in awhile, short of my taking orders from my bossy, brilliant, musical, soon to be three year old grand-daughter.
Most of the singers at this concert are performing as a tribute to Wally Harper, a much loved man of the musical theatre and little known outside of it; one who was remarkable for the generosity of his talents and his life. Wally’s surviving life partner, Allan Gruet will be there to represent him although I know that Wally’s ghost will be haunting that theatre Tuesday evening, puffing on a Lucky Strike, sprinkling ash where he shouldn’t, and giggling at some lewd and irreverent thought that just crossed his capacious mind, a thought that he can’t wait to share with me.

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