The Lincolns Of Springfield Musical. Composer Interview with Terrence Cranert.

[Music] oh John Brown's Body lies moldering in the grave while Weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save but though he sleeps his life was lost while struggling for the slave his soul is marching on Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory welcome to a special interview episode of War of the Rebellion stories of the Civil War I am your host Leon and today we are covering a musical production titled the Lincoln of Springfield joining me today is the writer and composer Terren L crene for this new musical that is already running it premiered back on June 15th and it continues its run through July 30th 2023 so if any of my listeners are having a a free day head on over the website will be down in the show notes you can go see it today this live show is at the Peggy writer theater at the hland center of the Arts in Springfield Illinois it is a familyfriendly musical about Abraham Lincoln Mary Todd Lincoln and the romance that brought them together to form quote America's first Power couple unquote Mr Terrence thank you for joining us today on this beautiful morning it is my absolute pleasure to have you on please tell us who you are what you do and maybe a little bit about yourself for our listeners sure and thank you for having us uh yes I was um involved in theater from an early age and got my degree in musical theater at Indiana University and uh before I I I went out into the world and got a real job I was working as an actor in New York I was good friends with Howard Ashman who wrote the lyrics for Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid we went to IU together and then had gone to New York at the same time and studied with a man named Layman Engle who was known as the dean of the bro musical where we learned the real craft of how to write musical theater uh at some point I moved to California I met my lovely wife and I I I taught high school for a brief period but uh ended up going to law school so I figured if I was ever going to be able to buy a house in California I needed a a better job of course and so I figured uh I was trying to figure out what what I could do and uh I figured well I could write and I could act so I'd probably be a good trial attorney so I became a trial attorney was I was in private practice for about 12 years and then I became Chief trial counsel for Zurich Insurance Company at their largest office in the country in Los Angeles and um so altogether I practiced law for close to 40 years oh wow but I continue continued to write and I've written several musicals but this one is uh is my is my My First Love of All the ones that I've written I had a lot of passion for the subject matter so both so both my wife and I are originally from the Midwest I I grew up in Cincinnati and she grew up in Davenport Iowa oh excellent uh that's man that's amazing you uh we could do a whole podcast just about your life it sounds like with uh how incredible it's been the people you've met the places you've been and the cases you've been a part of I'm sure oh my goodness yes and and uh you know when I lived in New York and and and then did the my stint as an attorney but at the same time I wanted to develop uh this show in particular so about 10 or 12 years ago I began co-producing shows on Broadway uh I co-produced A A Night with Janice jopon for which uh Mary Bridget Davies was nominated for best actress in a in a musical and I co-produced uh Revival of Leonard Bernstein's um on the town and also uh co-produced the the 39 steps which had both on the town and and and 39 steps had multiple Tony nominations and and 39 steps ended up winning Tony so uh yeah it's been a varied and interesting uh life that I've been through oh my gosh just amazing so I have to know what was the Catalyst that convinced you to write and compose this musical production where where did the idea come from well like I said I grew up in Southern Ohio Southern Indiana so I was exposed to all the link uh Legends and and traveled with my family to all the Lincoln historic sites uh when I was young about fifth in the fifth grade I was the kid chosen to wear the construction paper stove pip hat to deliver the Gettys Burger dress for the school and and I had a good friend when I was in elementary school and high school uh whose whose dad was a history teacher and and he was his passion was the silver War as when I would go to their house they were always you know Confederate money and Civil War newspapers and just I was just fascinated by it all and then when I went to study with Layman Engle in New York and again and when I moved to California he also would come out to California so I studied with him up until the time that he passed away while I was in the middle of law school and he he would say not to worry about getting the rights but as I found out uh if if you're going to do an adaptation a musical that's an adaptation and 90% of them are either adaptations of a novel or a play or perhaps a movie or now we have what they call the Jukebox musicals where they do a compilation of pre-existing music and put it together and create a story around it but you have to have time obtain the rights and U it's it's not as easy as one would think and I didn't want to put all my energy into adaptations where you might end up not getting the rights and then you've wasted a tremendous amount of time and energy on a project that uh you can't actually have performed so I wanted to do an original musical where I didn't have to worry about getting rights and having been exposed to all the the Lincoln uh sites and the Lincoln stories and even going to Indiana University where they had a great Lin an archive there I U I said to L lemman I have this idea for an original musical about the Lincoln and not just focusing on him but but the two of them and their whole story and his response to me was well Terry all I could tell you is you know if you're going to write a a holy original musical he said before you can write my fair lady you have to write pigmon and I don't think it really uh sunk in at that time but uh Not only was I writing an original musical but one that had to be as historically accurate as possible and taking his little license with the uh the the historical accuracy about Lincoln because you know you do a show about Lincoln is like when you do a show about the Bible you better get your facts together and so it took a probably a longer time than other original musicals because because of that fact but I had the passion for it and I stuck with it and finally got to the point where we decided we would start developing it and it's been it's been a long but but um pleasurable and passionate project oh my gosh it sounds like it it's uh it seems like all of these um projects that I have been talking to folks about have been years and years and years in the making uh did I hear you say that this took you you you started doing this about 12 years ago 10 years ago I spent about 12 years doing all the research and and and I would say with with regard to you know the way these things work is we had a uh some we had a workshop uh in California we ended up going to New York and and doing um an equity staged readings with the Union Act uh we did a concert version in Pasadena we did our first full production in Santa Barbara California about two years ago now I think and now we're doing this production here in Springfield where was our hope that we would have a buil you know a built-in audience and the um the people from Springfield just love it we we've um we've gotten a standing ovation uh at every at every um performance this year and amazing yeah the PE people uh literally um will will come out of the theater crying but not tears of tragedy is really sort of tears of joy and I was taught by by by Layman how to how to do what he called his use his theory of emotional opposites if you you know that if you want to to make people laugh and there are comedy songs in this show Believe It or Not uh the instruction would be to find find something in the in about the material on the show that is tragic for the character but is uh is funny for the Observer so it's that whole Lucille Ball formula you know where she's going to a dance that night but she gets her hand stuck in a bowling ball that afternoon and for her it's tragic but for the The Observer it's it's funny and so the the the big comedy song in this in this number actually is called someone who's as good as General Lee and Lincoln and the cabinet are discussing how this there's this ly of of generals that one one after another you know the next one's worse than the one before and uh so they go through you know mlen and Burnside and everybody and uh what what Lincoln says to his cabinet while they're having this discussion is that you can hear the Army band playing and uh and he says you know look look at them they're all in perfect step every notes executed brilliantly you know why can't the rest of my Army be more like that and as they go through uh each one of these generals it it's it's it's very funny it's it's very funny on and then on the other side when we were talking when if you want to be able to move uh move the audience to tears that you have to avoid having your your heroins or your main people U delve into self-pity and so in in this case Abe has a has a a song at the beginning of the show when he leaves his parents and they ask him where he's going to go and and uh the the the common saying in those days was you know when you could hear your neighbor shotgun it was time to move and then if you asked them where they're going to go they would say Over Yonder and so he sings this song called Over Yonder where he's going off to to seek his Destiny and and um you know it's a Coming of Age song and and that the theme of that number repeats itself a couple times especially when he gets back to the uh when he's in the White House and he's being discouraged he just had a widow come in and asked to have her son released because he's only 17 and her husband was killed and and he and he gives him uh his his parole to to get out and he's he's very down and Mary at that point uh sings sings that song again about Over Yonder about this wonderful place that U it's a place where where he Rec he says hit hit your team to a dream and go over Yonder well what happens at the towards the end of the show you don't have to listen to this part if you don't want to know but at the end of the show when you know we know historically that Mary did not go to the funeral she was um this this about this AC the historical accuracy you want to keep we know she didn't go to the funeral uh she's lost her husband she's lost two sons you that have have predeceased uh her and she's there with her her best friend Elizabeth keckley who who is an amazing woman in herself she was uh a former slave who bought her own freedom and the freedom of her son by working as seamstress for High Society people and then moved to Washington DC and became Mar's uh uh dress maker and made all of her dresses from her inaugural gown uh through the her widow's weeds that she wears at the end of the show and becomes Mary's closest friend and Confidant and and she's kind of our Storyteller in in the show it gets to the end and and Mrs keckley and little Tad Tad is the youngest who still uh has survived they are going to the funeral and Mary is not going and before they leave Tad goes back to his mother and this is the very last number he asked her you know you know we will first of all he says we will see father and and Willie Again won't we mama and she says of course we will someday he says you know Papa was good and he's with God and he's with Willie And they're they're in heaven and then he says but where is heaven mama what's it like there and at that point she sings the repre of this Over Yonder song that we heard Abe sing that was so hopeful in the beginning and it emotionally it's it's it's sad but at the same time it ends with hope and um and and it's so effective and I wouldn't have known how to do this without lemman angle's help but to have Mary rise above the situation and and comfort her child at the end and be singing about Over Yonder being Heaven the people just they lose it there gr there are grown men crying in the audience I yeah so I have a couple questions down I I will talk to you about that um I want to backtrack just a little bit because I do have um listeners from around the globe and I wanted to hear your perspective about why you wanted to have the musical I know you touched on it a little bit uh in Springfield Illinois what is the significance uh to having the musical there rather than maybe somewhere else in the United States well you know the music goal is in development like I said we did a workshop in California uh we we had stage reading in New York and these things do take a long time to to develop and we we didn't want to go direct trying to directly go to New York uh we do have a lot of interest from Ford's Theater in Washington oh of course and uh yeah and and there are the the the people who are in the these various Lincoln assoc associations there's one that's uh the I guess it's called the Abraham Lincoln Association they're a national group uh the head of that group called me the other day and they they're so excited uh about this show so we wanted to come here I did a lot of my research here when I started doing the research they didn't have the internet so I was you I was uh you know reading everything I could find about Lincoln uh there were archives at Indiana University I had gone to the Huntington Library in Pasadena where they had Lincoln Scholars and wanted to get everything as accurate as possible but as far as coming to uh Springfield itself we felt that uh you know Abe lived here for 25 years uh probably familiar with the farewell to Springfield address that he that he gave U when he left here and where he says you know he came here as here to Springfield that's where we are right now as a young man and left as an old man and his his presence is still here not just in Springfield but in the surrounding areas and people are pass they they're as passionate and PR as proud of Lincoln uh as I am and and they all have something um to say about Lincoln that some things you know that I of course know but some things I've learned some some things that uh I didn't know and uh and they've learned things from the show that they didn't know it's but everybody here has a passion for it um and we felt you know we would we would we would just go into the lions den and if there was anything historically wrong uh I was sure that I was going to hear about it and I've heard I've heard some minor things but overall I think they're they're they're amazed they they're amazed how accurate it is they're they're amazed how educational it is yet how entertaining entertaining it is and how it is familyfriendly I I pride myself that that uh there there's not one uh swear word in the whole show and uh it's people are coming with their children and and when they leave the they they they just they thank us for bringing the show to to Springfield so we thought we would get a warm reception and and we have oh my gosh well uh obviously welld deserved because um having just listened to some Snippets of the music myself I was incredibly impressed um and it's amazing that you went and did so much research over such a long time to get it right because it's it sounds like it's paying off uh but without giving too much away uh can you tell us what the musical is about what do it encompass in Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln's uh lives well the show has what we call a very large Arc you know it's going from the time when when Mary was about 10 or 12 years old uh until after the assassination so the the whole First Act is how how was it that this unlikely couple uh came to be together the Southern bell from a slaveholding family uh who marries this Backwoods genius but who was self-educated she you know she's very well educated and she went to a French finishing school she's from a high you know uh social Plateau her family you know is against the marriage because they don't think that that he's a a good match that he's too poor and and that he's not well educated and and that he's so tall um the the First Act is how you hear from from Mary when she's very young that she said that to everyone that who would listen that she was going to marry a president and live in the White House and she was determined to do that and when she moves to uh she eventually moves to Springfield where her older sister has married the son of the governor of Illinois and is trying to fix her up with Steven Douglas but when Mary and ab meet at this catian at the Edward's Mansion it's it's Kismet and they uh they have this on again off again romance through the the the First Act mainly because her her family is against the match but when they finally they you couldn't make this up you know it's it's all true that it's boy meets girl and boy loses girl and boy gets girl and when at the end of the first act when they decide that they are going to get married and she doesn't want to have a long engagement Abe suggests they get married that very day and they do they get married at her sister's house she has to borrow a dress uh and Abe runs around and gets the the Reverend dresser and some friends of theirs and they get married right there at the Edwards homes I a lot of people don't know that whole story and wow a lot of people don't know also that that Mary was raised by a household slave who was a nursaid to the Todd family and she must have been very busy because between the first wife and the second wife the stepmother uh they had about 14 or 16 children uh in the house and the this household servant mamy Sally served as a surrogate mother for for Mary because um her her mother had died at six and she didn't have the uh the The Good Fortune to have a great relationship with her stepmother like a did it was just the opposite and so they sent her off to finishing school and other schools where she became very politically astute and very well educated better educated than most of the men at the time and ab was impressed with that when when when they met and we we like to say or Mrs kley likes to say in the show that you know had it not been for Mary uh it I believe it's doubtful that Abe would ever have aspired to be president she was the one that who encouraged him and she had her mindset on marrying a president and living in the White House and by by golly she she ends up manifesting that so the that that whole First Act is the romance the second act of course he becomes elected president and there's a there's a traveling song called on the stump where he's first he's running for the Senate of Illinois but by the end of the number he's the president elect and um and they go off to Washington at that point it becomes an up Clos and personal story primarily about the two of them against the the background of the war and you see how the ups and downs you you where they have at times there a very loving relationship but at times it's very contentious because Abe is caught in that conflict between his duty to the to his family and his duty to the country and uh he has to put uh his duty to the country above his family uh for the the duration of the war and it was very hard on Mary Todd I think this show uh vindicates her um one of the uh reviews that we had D said that she she gets her rightful place where she gets to come out of the shadows and more into the spotlight as being the uh what we call the power behind the saint that if if it weren't for her her encouragement and her drive um he may never have been never have been president and and you know and and the sad thing is of course everybody knows the end of the story I say it's like Titanic you know the ship's going down but um you still go along for the ride and even though you know what's coming um it hits people hard and there's a great song um in the in the second act just before the end called bind up the nation's wounds and it's uh it's sung by this uh tremendous uh singer Mel Connor who's uh been on was in Broadway on brag brag time and I can't even remember the other show but he's been he's a Broadway veteran um our Abe is a guy named Matthew Patrick Davis he's also a Broadway veteran our our Mary uh hasn't really done Broadway but she studied in in England she studied at the the London academy uh for the music and and dramatic arts and she's just fabulous soprano and uh so and then because of this large Arc we had um Mrs keckley the one I was talking about who was a former slave herself but uh became became free by buying her own freedom and she's the Storyteller and she can sort of fill in the gaps as as we you know we keep jumping forward in time but uh she keeps the the chronology together and she's a tremendous singer as well and The Ensemble and and also I can't forget my wife my wife my wife uh Becca she was with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera she's classically trained oh my and she plays the French finishing school teacher Madam Mel and and then the rest of the Ensemble we have a gospel choir U that backs up um U Mrs kley and a tremendous Ensemble the choreography is is fabulous and the uh the or orchestral Arrangements um we're we're we're using um pre-recorded uh Arrangements here in Springfield but they're they're just tremendous I went out to been going I was going back and forth between California and here uh helping to do the the cast recording and rehearse the um the ensemble in in California and we brought in players from the um Los Angeles uh philarmonic and created a string section created a uh a horn section Woodwinds uh and recorded everything live in the in the studio uh and then added um added these wonderful singers that we've had so we have a tremendous Studio cast recording that the uh physical uh CDs uh have just been uh produced and we're about ready to release everything on Spotify and all the streaming um streaming music venues so that'll be out soon all right well that's great to know that's uh that was one of my questions so I I'll go ahead and um cross that off I talking about the different incredible singers that you have in this um and after reviewing the main characters for the musical I have to ask with such a large potential cast at your fingertips how did you settle on all of these individual characters I mean so there were so many players at large during this time frame and then how did you match up the cast members with those characters well that's a good question U with regard to H Matthew Patrick Davis uh we we we ended up going to a casting director we we had not been able to find the right Abe and um uh he he was brought to us and we knew that we wanted him from the the very beginning he has a has a great voice he's a little taller than Abe was he's actually 68 I don't think people realize that when they watch it because you know everybody's gotten bigger right you yeah now I'm used when I go to a mission in California and the the doorways are so short and the and the armor the Spanish armor is so small so you know I think relatively they're they're about the the same ratio that that Abe and Mary would have been but uh the other thing about uh Matt is he's I I was an actor myself and and have directed this version and he's he uh really listens and uh and and has developed a great feel for all the lincolnesque humor and there's a lot of it in in the show and he was he's able to tell those long jokes like they they told in the old days you know Lincoln's stories that he collected uh I don't know where they all came from but it was similar to like Mark Twain you know where people would have having storytellers was a big deal and his father was a big Storyteller and there was a whole collection of his stories that had to be it had to be confirmed by at least two witnesses that he told these stories and they were collected by a a professor who I I worked with on the show from the Huntington Library um Peter Peter zel and and it's a book called Lincoln laughing that collection of all his stories and they are spaced throughout the show it's this show is more like a Rogers and Hammerstein or a learner and low uh musical from that Golden Era of of of musical theater in New York and the songs uh are they vary in in terms of the style so there are songs like I said that uh make you laugh there are songs that will make you cry there are what we call charm songs I would say Madam Mel certainly U sings a charm song There are um as I said the the I want songs which express from the beginning what is that what does that character want and how are they going to get it and once you hear the that song of what they want then you're you're rooting for that character for the rest of the show so there's every style of musical theater that makes the music varied um and yet you know it all melts together very well but I'd like to say that you know a good musical in my opinion is uh sort of like Space Mountain I was in living in California we used take our kids to Disneyland all the time and I'm not a big roller coaster fan but one of my kids talked me into going on Space Mountain and of course it broke down with just my luck but the thing was you know Space Mountain is in the dark and there are projections of planets and galaxies as you're riding along and you can't see the track that's sort of the the the genius of the whole thing is like on a normal roller coaster you can see where you're headed and uh up or down or sideways but on Space Mountain it's it's all takes place in the dark so you don't know exactly where you're going you're just going along for the ride and I feel like a a good musical should be like that there's really a tremendous amount of structure but you don't want to you don't want the audience to see the structure you just want them to go along for the ride and that day at Disneyland I remember they had to flip on all the work lights to fix whatever the problem was and then you could see all the framework for the for the roller coaster but when they turn the lights off you're just going along for the ride and that's what I like when they turn the lights off in the theater you're going along for a ride that's oh that's that's amazing um oh gosh that's exciting and and thank you so much for giving such a uh I know I've got lots of Disney fans in uh uh that listen to my podcast so um they're gonna they're going to love that analogy uh I want to move on to talk about some of the music here I was able to listen to four songs and I kind of wrote some things that I wanted to ask you about them uh the first song that I listen to and if and correct me if I'm wrong um this is the one of the opening numbers or the opening number and the song is titled Cotton's no longer King and that's sung by Rosemary blankson correct it sent shivers down my spine I had to stop it and immediately go grab my fiance and sit her down and say listen to this uh she loved it I loved it I was floored where did the inspiration come for that song and can you tell us about the creative process for it it was uh it had me blown back in my chair well I would say in terms of the the creative process um my my writing probably is similar to to Dolly Parton and I do write a lot of country music I did did write a lot of country music especially Story songs uh even while before I started writing musical theater and she always calls that her God time and I would say it's sort of like that I would I tended to um I'll get an inspiration and I feel like sometimes I feel like I'm not even writing it myself I I usually I'll get an idea that just comes to me and I like to work from a title and uh I I thought it was a fascinating idea originally that song uh I called um well I called cot I it was actually called cotton is Still The King and I and I my I thought the conflict would be between the fact that okay a might be have been elected president but money still runs the country and and coton is still the king but as I developed it uh I realized that it was a Hopeful song uh for the African-American community and all the people especially the of course the enslaved people and that they were going they were celebrating the fact that there was this hope now that slavery may come to an end and I I eventually I changed that title to to Cotton's no longer king and the U that that theme sort of carries through and and there's a c it has turned into a celebration well actually when I first wrote it and you know when you say when you write musical theater it's never really done when I first start the show I didn't know about Mrs kley when I first started writing and I had given that song to uh to Mami Sally who was the woman that like I said was a surrogate mother to Mary but I ran into a problem at the end of the first act because mamy Sally did not go to Washington with the Lincoln and she could no longer be the Storyteller and then as luck would have it as I was doing my research I stumbled upon Mrs kley and I knew at that point that she was going to have to be my Storyteller so the I I I rewrote the song into a celebration song for m kley so what happens that's in 1860 when a gets elected and then from that point it flashes back so we have a flash back to Lexington when we see Mary for the first time and and then it progresses to to Sangamon County and so forth so that's sort of how that song came about oh wow well I it's it got an A+ from me uh my mouth dropped uh as I was listening to it um well if you listen to the cast The Studio cast recording um the I I'm I'm sure the one that you listen to uh was is on our website but that was a concert version that was a concert version of the show so that's actually a um a a smaller version of the of the whole song and when you if if you get to to listen to the studio cast recording uh you you get the full song uh and and now we when we did the concert we had a great Gospel Choir but now that we went into the studio and did new Arrangements it's even more po power ful I believe than it was before and and as soon as you sent it to me it was the first one that I listened to uh and I oh it it made the uh hair on my arms in the back of my neck stand up I uh I got Goose that's supposed to it was it was amazing um the the the next song um that I got to listen to was diamond in the rough by Deborah Robin yes I loved listening to this and while I was listening to it it made me uh wonder when you're writing your music uh and you have the idea in your head about I suppose what you want it to sound like do you have particular pitches or or chords in mind like you already know that a soprano needs to to sing this song actually actually no I I have sort of you know I say it's in the style of Rogers and Hammerstein but what what the other thing I would say is and I I was I was influenced a lot by Irving Berlin and I was so busy as a practicing attorney in Los Angeles I didn't have a lot of time uh for riding except on the freeway I had I there was one Court 37 miles from my home that would take me close to three hours to get to in the morning it was only 37 miles away and I can remember that particular song driving what they call the saula pass on the 405 freeway and what I would do I would write in my head in in the car and sometimes uh if I had you know portable dictaphone I would maybe sing some of the music but what I what I generally would do I I I had read of course that she Mary referred to AA as her diamond in the rough and that she was going to be the the woman behind him that could help him be successful and this is consistent with a there's a there's a historical novelist um a woman that I I I I read a lot about and one of her favorite says is that history makes more sense when you put the women back in and that's sort of what this show does when you put Mary and Mrs kley in the show you started getting a real sense of how exactly it was it that this guy who was pretty rough around the edges was able to be you know gain gain the sophistication to become president and taking nothing away from him I mean he's a genius and and and and politically astute but he he he he needed her to be behind him and so she she was uh she says in in you know in that um my one of my favorite lyrics of the show is at theend the very last verse of that that song she She says um you know how this diamond in the rub how I'd love to be the one to help him shine and until at last I understand every facet of the man is that diamond in the rough or mine and I can tell you that my working my working lyric before that was I polish and I buff and I give him all my love and I told her that told that to my wife and she said that's horrible you've been do a lot that so so by my wife is very much the same way behind me and you know if I run things past or she's not afraid to tell me no that's not good enough to keep working on it and I can remember being on that suul pass when that lyric came to my came into my head and uh I I thought well thank my wife and thank God that uh I came up with s such a much better lyric I which you know the facets of course referring to the facets of a diamond um I do a lot of that and Irving Berlin did a lot of that he he mostly wrote in his head there's a famous story about him where he was at he he became the the music writer both lyrics and and music for Annie Get Your Gun and originally that's that show was it was produced by the F Rogers and Hammerstein they they also produce this far in addition to writing and they had procured the rights uh to to the the whole story of the Buffalo Bill story and they had um they had gotten Dorothy Fields signed on to do the lyrics and um and uh they they also uh got the the writer that had done Showboat jome Kern with Hammerstein to do the music but Jerome Kern got to New York and promptly had a heart attack and then Dorothy Fields told told Rogers and Hammerstein that if Jerome Kern wasn't going to do the music she didn't want to do the lyrics so they approached Irving Berlin who who said well I don't know anything about writing country music and Hammerstein said oh it's it's easy Irving you just you you just leave the G's off the ends of all the words and so they they were at a rehearsal and they were they were doing this Moss Hart was the director and they were doing the scene where it's the competition between uh Annie and and uh and the man who ends up being her uh her husband and but they they were you know they're antagonistic uh at first and mossart says to Irving you know Irving this seems like it be a really good spot for us all and Irving agreed and he said you know I'm gonna I'm G to go work on that so he leaves the rehearsal grabs a cab and about 45 minutes later there the phone rings at at the rehearsal and mossart picks it up and it's Berlin and um and he says yeah what is it Irving and Irving proceeds to sing that the entire song of anything you can do I can do better verse you know just verse after verse and M har says well that that's fantastic Irving he said when did you write that he said in the cab on the way back to the hotel and so w yeah and so you know I I uh years ago when I decided I was I thought well this is crazy I'm an actor and I'm writing country music but I had to be doing musical theater and uh I was a little intimidated about doing it and then I really sort of got took my inspiration from Irving Bloon and you know he would have other people notate his music he could only play on the black G's and and in fact he had you know today you can buy an electronic keyboard and press a button and go to any key that you want uh but in those days um they didn't have that and and and Berlin had several Pros made where they the keys would lift up and mechanically shift over and he could still play on The Black Keys but but be playing in a different key and now now we can now we can do that electronically and so I tend to do that in fact that the the comedy number I mentioned someone who's as good as General Lee I I got the idea for that and usually in the middle of night like 3:00 in the morning or something and the ideal start coming to me then the lyrics start coming to me and then pretty soon I think oh shoot I'm going to have to get out of bed and so I get myself out of bed and and start working on it and uh I finished that song uh probably 6:00 in the morning or something uh and then went to the piano and and and I that's what I do that is go to the instruments say try to figure out what I just wrote and so I was working at the at the piano and and then suddenly dawned on me I said well this is cool because this is a March that's what it ought to be it ought to be a March but I it's not like I sat down and said I'm going to write a March these the ideas just come and I write them in my head and then I have to pull them uh out of the instrument and they seem like a strange way to write but the truth is if you if you compose at the instrument all the time you fall into patterns and pretty soon everything that you write sounds the same and since I was sort of forced to learn how to write without being at the instrument it has made the the music be varied and and fresh and and not where everything sounds the same oh wow that's I am constantly impressed by every single one of your answers that that is an amazing creative process thank you for sharing it with us um when uh I want to talk about bind up the nation's wounds for a moment sure and that is also sung by the incredible I think you pronounced his name m ma ma ma Connor um it if you had told me that they had sang sung that song at Lincoln's funeral I would have believed you um it was I had this feeling of melancholy that kind of descended over me and my entire room the entire time that I listened to it and that a like a better future had been robbed from us now we have to try and pick up the pieces uh exactly how did how did you write that oh my God it's amazing well you know on of course I wrote all the music and all the lyrics to this to this show but I always I I put I always put a little asterisk on my script and at the asterisk it says with additional lyrics by Walt whitmann and Abraham Lincoln because of course the bind up the nation's wounds is from the second inaugural and so it's partially written by him right and then Walt Woodman of course wrote that the famous poem Oh Captain My Captain and that's how starts and you know I was um I was entrenched in in in in that in all that Lincoln history and I used to read all the Bruce Kon books on the Civil War and uh I just what I was trying to do with the probably the entire show is to put flesh and blood on these people and let let the audience get to know them from when they were young so that by the second act you feel that you know them and I wanted to have the audience get a sense of what a tremendous loss it was when when Lincoln was killed at that time and uh and I know that you're you're a civil war Enthusiast and anyone who's ever looked at the photographs and seen all these different funeral uh receptions I don't know they built all these uh memorials or whatever it was what I don't know what to call them but as you know as he went from Washington to Philadelphia and Cincinnati wherever they went you know people were in mourning everywhere and uh I wanted to be have the country the current country try to understand what that was like and the putting that song Together uh I think it really it it captures that and and it not only captures that feeling I think but in a sense it's you know it's very timely and we need given the state of our country and how divided we are and at this time and to hear Lincoln give you the the house divided speech and then to hear after the the the assassination to hear mik come out and sing this with all the Ensemble uh Dressed in in in morning clothes and he's he's uh dressed as a Union soldier and he sings it to the audience and when he gets to the end and says you know that Master Lincoln's gone it's true if he were here he would say to you you've got to bind up them nation's wounds it's chilling and the audience can feel it and they relate to what's happening today and um how it came about I don't know I I can only say I think it was inspired it it oh it certainly it must have been because oh it uh once again another one of your pieces knocked me right back into my seat and uh and and speaking we talked about this earlier about crying coming after watching this when I listened to Over Yonder sung by Matthew Patrick Davis who uh plays Abraham Lincoln when I first listened to this song I can quite unashamedly say that I cried right here in my studio um and just I couldn't it was so emotional what are you doing to my emotions Terrence with this music and this reminded me of uh the America we all want the idea of it the future uh the past everything we want to strive for as a country it it felt like it was all rolled up into one um oh gosh can can you tell us a little bit about that well like like I said earlier part of that was by design that I myself and Howard Ashman and all the people who had the Good Fortune to study with Layman Engle learned about to um to bring an audience to tears and and not necessarily negative tears but just an emotional uh State I I think that um with Over Yonder it's it speaks to sort of a lost America and and you know we're at a stage again where people a lot of people believe we could lose the Republic and it's it's it's speaking it's speaking to all of that and it's it's it's by design that again uh especially when it comes back at the at the end and Mary sings it again uh to her son who's just lost his father and already lost his brother um to be able to try to rise above that it's it's it's sort of that it's a kind of a a a tired statement I guess but it's it's the idea that you have Ordinary People placed in extraordinary times and and they're able to rise somehow rise above that and it's it's heroic and that that is all those emotions even the song that precedes that uh save our Union it's it's palpable in the theater as we're doing this production uh when they sing the song about save our Union and Mary sing because of all the contention that has formed between them she's singing about saving their marriage and a is singing about saving the country and it's it's palpable when he goes off to Gettysburg after singing that song and the whole ensemble is there you can you can feel the audience relating to that you know that we're at a time now again when we need we need to save the union and uh th those thoughts you can't help but have those thoughts run through your mind as you're listening to it but knowing that there is a higher power and and there and there there is there is hope and I I I want to give people hope Well you certainly pulled it off I can tell you that much it was uh I was not expecting to have so many emotions stirred uh inside of me so early in the morning uh this well you're not the only one when we first Workshop the show my wife and I had a small Private School uh that we ran for a while with a concentration on the Arts and actually our first workshops were at the school where we had the students play a lot of the roles and their parents actually played uh the uh the adult roles and as I told you I used to write country music and a good friend of mine who's now passed away uh he was he went by Cowboy Shane and uh he he was he was uh a great Entertainer and a good songwriter himself I invited him to come to just this little workshop production but the essential parts of the show were there it didn't matter that it was kids and parents that were putting it on and so when I always like to you know get out into the audience uh to see what the reaction is as I was working on the show and see if I was going to be able to draw those emotions out and my young son who's now now he runs the lights for me and created all of our projections for this production uh but he was at that time I don't know maybe 8 years old or something and and and he knew this this friend of mine we went out into the audience and I I could see him from the back and uh I called his name out and he turned around my son was standing with me and there were just tears rolling down his cheeks and and when when we were done that day my my son was in the car with me and he said dad because you made a cowboy cry oh my goodness that's adorable and and very true I'm a marine and you made me cry and uh wow that's yeah oh my goodness um thank you uh so much for joining this on this episode of War of the Rebellion uh we're almost at a time I want to leave you with the last word is there anything that you would like the audience to know either about yourself about upcoming work or this work or about how the audience can see this musical well I would say I would just like to give a lot of credit to my wife she's helped produc the show she performs in the show she has believed in the show U times when I felt like uh giving up on it uh she encouraged me and so um I guess this show makes more more sense when you put the women back in too because she she has uh been with me the entire time and uh I I probably wouldn't be here doing the show if it weren't for her so I like to to to give her credit and and and you know credit to all the tremendous cast all the people have helped me and Layman angles oh AB absolutely amazing um thank you so much for everyone listening uh the Lincoln of Springfield is playing now from June 15th to July 30th 2023 go online to the Lincoln ofs springfield.com you can get your tickets there if you got to drive there drive there if you got to walk there walk there and if you got to fly there go for it this musical is something else you got to go but with that we will see you in the next episode and thank you for listening bye-bye thank you so much Leon have a good day oh John Brown's Body lies a moldering in the grave while Weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save but though he sleeps his life was lost while struggling for the slave his soul is marching on Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory hallelu Glory Glory Hallelujah for his soul is marching [Music] on John Brown was a hero a daed true and brave in Kansas knewest Valor when he F her rights to save and now though the grass grows green above his grave his soul is marching on Glory Glory [Music] Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah for his soul marching [Music] on [Music] he captured Harper's fery with us 19 men so few and frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through they hung him for a traitor themselves the traitorous crew but a soul is marching on Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory hallelu Glory Glory Hallelujah for his soul is marching [Music] on John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see Christ who of the bondman shall the Liberator be and soon throughout the sunny South the Slaves Shall all be free for his soul is marching on Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah for his soul all is marching [Music] on the conflict that he hero it he look from Heaven to view on the army of the union with its flag red white and blue and Heaven shall sing with anthems or the deed they mean to do for his soul is marching on Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah for his soul is marching [Music] on [Music] ye soldiers of Freedom then strike while strike you may the death blow of Oppression in a better time and way the dawn of old John Brown has brightened in the day and his soul is marching on Glory Glory hallelu Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah for his soul is marching on Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah Glory Glory Hallelujah for his soul is marching on for his soul is marching on for his soul is marching [Music] on [Music]