Back in 1974, at Oberlin College, Herbert Blau led a group of students in developing a production about the ill-fated Donner Party. The cast was a promising one, including Bill Irwin and Michael O’Connor, with whom I toured for years in The Regard of Flight. I was a composition student at the time, and contributed […]

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I was happy to be part of “The Jim Turner Smorgasbord of Koo Koo,” a benefit for Manhattan’s Dixon Place, which took place at Dixon Place on Dec. 1, 2018. The lineup included Jim Turner, naturally, as well as David Felton, Mark Fite, Dale Goodson, Toby Huss, and 2 Headed Dog. I sang five of […]

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In 1974, as a composition student at Oberlin Conservatory, I wrote three songs for “The Donner Party: Its Crossing,” developed and performed by the company Kraken, and directed by Herbert Blau. The words were by Stuart Friebert and Herbert Blau. I posted the program here, and finally got round to revising and recopying the songs. […]

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Every year, I do a show around my birthday (January 7th). This year, I turned 60, and celebrated the aging at Brooklyn’s Jalopy Theater on January 10. Doug Roesch and Ralph Hamperian joined me, on guitar and tuba respectively. We played a program of my songs and instrumental music, with a couple of covers. I’m […]

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Bill Irwin, Michael O’Connor and I performed The Regard of Flight frequently between 1980 and 2003.  It seemed, at times, that we would spend the rest of our lives doing it.  Its last run at the Signature Theater in NYC, however, laid it peacefully to rest.  I wrote this verse in 1991, as we prepared […]

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Every year, I do a show around the time of my birthday, January 7.  This year it took place at Jalopy Theater on January 3.  Joining me were David Gold (viola), Ralph Hamperian (tuba), and Doug Roesch (guitar).  Despite snow, unusually low temperatures, and speeches from the mayor urging all New Yorkers to stay at […]

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“Molecular Breakfast” was a 1978 collaboration with dancer and choreographer Helen Dannenberg.  Its ingredients included music, dance, pedestrian movement, sign language, speech, and found material.  Here’s the first page of our notes (including a demonstration of the difference between a Brooklyn and mid-western accent), and a review.  My, it seems long ago.

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“The Peculiar Bookshelf” was a segment that I performed on “No Shame,” a weekly variety show at Manhattan’s Public Theater in the early ’90s.  Having long been an avid accumulator of unusual books, I simply read a few selections from my shelves: visionaries, contactees, theorists, cryptographers, paranoiacs, and other worthy souls.  Occasionally I invited another […]

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“What You Cannot Eat You Can” was a solo performance piece I did with the Oberlin Dance Collective back in 1977, out in San Francisco.  It involved found verses, non-magic tricks, painted plastic eggs, and water; in the course of it, I changed a set of riddles into their answers.  Here are a few pages […]

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“Hide Hide the Cow’s Outside” was another piece I did for the Oberlin Dance Collective, back in 1976.  It was assembled from found material, bits of text and music, many having to do with Calvin Coolidge, our most taciturn president.  The performers all wore black, with tuned bells at their waists.  Margot Crosman made a […]

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