pop songs in plays

catchy riffs for the suspenders and corsets crowd

how to work a new song into an old play?

and, really, should you even try?

watching a play is like discovering life on a fresh new planet. at least it feels that way to me.

Ghost Sonata, by August Strindberg, seemed to require that no surface, item, shape, idea, texture be pulled directly from our right-now life:

Edwardian knitwear! That sweater/jacket could exist on a rack nowadays, I guess. But it wouldn’t look quite like that. All my costume cult people out there - you would not believe how that sleeve is set. The only ‘seam’ in that whole garment were the underarms. It was one glorious piece made more than a hundred years ago and in perfect condition. No one has made anything quite as amazing since….

Plenty of things were close. Like the jacket above that plenty of us would be delighted to wear today. But it was made out of a material that doesn’t exist any more - every sheep is different and that wool had a spongy/stiff texture I never felt before or since.

If you were alive in the …