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1981 William Finn March Of The Falsettos Vinyl LP Record Gatefold Libretto & Showbill DRG SBL12581 VG+
Record Grade per Goldmine Standard: VG+ Includes Showbill and Libretto booklet as shown
DRG SBL12581 
'Love Is Blind” Side A________________________________________________ Four Jews In A Room Bitching____________________The Men A Tight-Knit FamilyMarvin Love is BlindTrina, Mendel & Everybody The Thrill of First Love______________Marvin & Whizzer Marvin At the Psychiatrist (a 3-Part Mini-Opera)_________Marvin, Mendel & Jason My Father's A HomoJason Everyone Tells Jason To See A Psychiatrist Everybody but Mendel This Had Better Come To A Stop_______________Everybody Please Come To My House Jason's Therapy (Part One)Trina, Mendel & Jason Jason, Mendel & Everybody SldeB Jason's Therapy (Part Two)Jason, Mendel & Everybody A Marriage Proposal A Tight-Knit Family (Reprise)Mendel Marvin & Mendel Trina's Song March Of The FalsettosTrina The Men The Chess GameMarvin & Whizzer Making A HomeTrina, Mendel & Whizzer The Games 1 PlayWhizzer Marvin Hits TrinaEverybody 1 Never Wanted To Love YouEverybody Father To SonMarvin & Jason When I was a kid growing up in the late fifties and early sixties, I used to spend all of my free time holed up in my room, listening to original cast albums and dreaming of a life in the theatre. Of course my only definition of theatre in those days was "Broadway" and "musical comedy" or "musical play"; I never actually saw anything until I grew older. All my information, which I remember passing on in lofty and knowing tones to anyone who'd care to listen, came from the back covers of record albums. Liner notes! They were almost as important as the record itself I used to think, and I read them over and over and over again. Now that original cast albums are (temporarily, I hope) a thing of the past, and most shows that actually do get recorded are too goony to be worth writing about, it's a pleasure to be able to focus on March Of The Falsettos, a very small, very talented musical that took New York by storm last April. I first met William Finn three years ago because he kept calling me up at Playwrights Horizons, demanding that I come to a musical audition at his house—at 11 p.m. I didn't particularly want to go to the upper-upper West Side at 11 o'clock at night, but Bill usually gets what he wants, so I went. The performance started way after midnight—"important" people from Washington were late—and what I heard was something very brilliant and very very angry. We were not producing musicals at the time, so nothing happened. A few months later, Bill called again demanding that I or someone come to hear an audition of a new piece called In Trousers. I sent Ira Weitzman, a staff member with a strong interest in musicals, and he came back and said let's do it. I had wanted to start working with young composers and lyricists, to give them the same support and exposure that our playwrights enjoyed, and so Bill turned out to be the first. We produced In Trousers in workshop as a cabaret piece, and later that year (1979) in expanded form as a mainstage production. The show was received with some interest and a few raised eyebrows, and it developed a strong cult following which has grown because of the recording. In Trousers was the first of three projected "Marvin" musicals, a series of highly personal, idiosyncratic cham- ber pieces that revolve around a thoroughly charming, intelligent, spoiled, neurotic hero named Marvin. If In Trousers was about Marvin and the women in his life, March Of The Falsettos is about Marvin and the men who replaced those women. We put Bill on salary for a year while he started writing The Pettiness Of Misogyny (the first title); we produced a concert version, Four Jews In A Room Bitching (the second title), and finally we opened it as March Of The Falsettos. A great deal of the show's success is due to James Lapine who helped Bill focus and find a through-line in terms of plot and relationships, and staged the play brilliantly Bill's long- term collaborator, Michael Starobin, is responsible for the highly-praised orchestrations. And the story of Falsettos is very simple. Marvin leaves his wife and young son for his male lover, while his psychiatrist moves in on his wife. At the end he is left with nothing except the possibility of a relationship with his son who is no longer terrified of growing up just like Dad. Marvin, who in In Trousers "always gets the things he wants—except the things he wants" and in Falsettos sings defiantly, then hesitantly, "I want it all," realizes, as we all eventually do, that a life on those terms is impossible. As I listen to the recording and imagine the show in my mind several thoughts occur. March Of The Falsettos is entirely sung, and yet it demands that we respond to it as we would a play. In the world of Marvin, Trina, Jason, Whizzer and Mendel, singing is the most direct and vibrant means of communication, and there is an enormous sense of urgency to their song. There is great joy as well. Marvin is happy to "sing out as I cook." Jason, upon hearing that his mother may remarry, celebrates with "I'll buy confetti and sing." In the final moment, Marvin urges his son to "sing a different song" if he wishes, but to "sing for yourself as we march along." Finally, what strikes me as I listen to the characters grapple with passions that they cannot control, is that these people are so damn articulate and aware. How can they possibly get themselves into such messes? And that dilemma between clear intelligence on the one hand and emotional confusion on the other is what makes the show so accessible to so many people. I do not know if there will be a third Marvin musical, but I do know that we will all be hearing and singing the words and music of William Finn for years to come. For the record: March Of The Falsettos opened at Playwrights Horizons on April 1,1981 in the 75 seat Studio Theatre. It moved on May 20 to the 150 seat Mainstage Theatre where it continued to sell out. It has since moved to the larger Chelsea Westside Theatre. Even though it did not go to the Shubert in New Haven and the Shubert in Boston before taking on New York, I'm sure that those liner note gods of my childhood—Louis Untermeyer, Charles Burr and particularly George B. Dale—would have enjoyed listening to the album and writing about it. Here then is virtually the entire show, sung and played by a group of passionate actors and musicians, that as one critic wrote "is only a few bars old before one feels the unmistakable, revivifying charge of pure talent." —Andre Bishop, Playwrights Horlzlons, October, 1981 P.S. The title song is a dream. The four men, voices unchanged, trapped by their own immaturity, march together toward each other—and go nowhere. Musicians: Michael Starobin, Cynthia Gittleman, Richard Prior, Richard Heckman, Brooke Aird, Gretchen Paxson, Fred Weldy, Glenn Rhian. Addition Musicians for this recording: Phil Granger, Sung-Il Lee, Gina Tavelli, Beth Ahmann, Patmore Lewis, Susan Jolies, Michael Lee Stockler. Album Design: Neal Pozner Photos: © 1981 Susan Cook Assistant Producer: Beth R. Greenberg Recorded and Mixed at Sound Ideas, New York Engineer: Jim McCurdy Assistants: Bob DeCaro, Jimmy Santis, Todd Anderson, Barry Harris Mastering: Vladimir Meller, CBS DISComputer Special thanks to: Howard Rosenstone, Alan Skiena, Katherine Hogan, Ted Wolff and everyone at Sound Ideas. FULL LIBRETTO ENCLOSEDMARY LEA JOHNSON FRANCINE LEFRAK MARTIN RICHARDS WARNER THEATRE PRODUCTIONS. INC PRESENT THE PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS PRODUCTION OF MARCH OF THE FALSETTOS BY WILLIAM FINN SET DESIGNED BY DOUGLAS STEIN LIGHTING DESIGNED BY FRANCES ARONSON COSTUMES DESIGNED BY MAUREEN CONNOR PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER JOHNNA MURRAY VOCAL ARRANGEMENTS BY WILLIAM FINN, ALISON FRASER & MICHAEL STAROBIN ASSOCIATE PRODUCER SAM CROTHERS ORCHESTRATIONS AND MUSICAL DIRECTION BY MICHAEL STAROBIN DIRECTED BY JAMES LAPINE PRODUCED FOR RECORDS BY HUGH FORDIN




LP469