Word! Bucks County Playhouse honors legendary lyricist Hammerstein

REGULAR READERS of this column are no doubt aware of my beef that what passes for "songs" in much of contemporary musical theater aren't songs at all, but merely sung dialogue and exposition.

Well, it turns out I'm not the only one who yearns for a return to the days when Broadway scores boasted pieces with actual verses and hook-laden choruses. Robyn Goodman also feels that way. And better yet, she's in a position to actually do something about it.

Goodman is a Broadway powerhouse who has produced such smash hits as "Avenue Q," "In the Heights" and "American Idiot." She is also executive producer of New Hope's Bucks County Playhouse which, next weekend, will be celebrating the art of writing show-tune lyrics with its first Oscar Hammerstein Festival, honoring the musical theater titan who supplied the often-unforgettable words for such landmark plays as "Oklahoma," "South Pacific" and "Carousel."

As a producer, Goodman said during a recent phone chat, she has long been aware that "the area that's not being focused on is lyric writing. It's an art, but very few people are teaching it. And since we're in the hometown of Oscar Hammerstein, what better place to start a mentoring program where we can work with emerging lyric-writers and [define] what that art is?"

Lyric writing, she continued, "has lost some of its poetry and metaphor. I read a lot of [new] musicals, and a lot of the lyric writing has become explanatory. The example I always give is, [Stephen] Sondheim didn't write: 'Look where we are at this point in our lives.' He wrote: 'Send in the clowns.' " Which is why, she noted, "I always say to lyric writers, 'Go up in a helicopter. Stop sitting on the ground.' "

Goodman also admitted she has a problem with modern-day wordsmiths' grasp of English. "If I could meet a young person who knew how to use a comma, I'd be really happy," she said only half-jokingly.

While the three-day event honoring longtime Bucks County resident Hammerstein boasts both an evening of songs by up-and-coming composers (Sept. 26) and a Hammerstein tribute concert headlined by Tony nominees (for "Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella") Laura Osnes and Santino Fontana (Sept. 27), its focus goes beyond performances.

During the day on the 26th, Goodman and lyricist Michael Korie ("Grey Gardens," "Far from Heaven") will conduct a lyric-writing seminar that is open to festival-pass holders. And on Sept. 28, those with passes can join a private tour of Highland Farm, Hammerstein's Doylestown estate, conducted by his grandson, Will Hammerstein.

As for the performances, the opening-night event is particularly noteworthy because it speaks to the fest's mission of discovering the next generation of Broadway composers by showcasing two works-in-progress, "String" and "Thanks."

"We'll present about 45 minutes of each," Goodman said. "We think it's a very good way for [the composers] to concentrate on the lyrics we think need work, and on their dramatic arcs as a whole." The goal, she added, is for at least one of the shows to be produced in the future, either by Bucks County Playhouse or another theater.

As far as Goodman is concerned, the festival's emphasis on young composers makes perfect sense: Hammerstein himself was mentored by Otto Harbach, who is credited with being among the first to use songs as a way to propel a play's narrative. And, Hammerstein served as musical "rabbi" to the young Sondheim.

For more information on the Oscar Hammerstein Festival, go to bcptheatre.org.

It will hardly go down as one of the year's more memorable offerings, but there's really little to dislike about "9 to 5," the Walnut Street Theatre's 2014-'15 season opener, which runs through Oct. 19 at the historic Center City venue.

Based on the 1980 film comedy of the same name, the show takes the flick's basic plot - the revenge taken on an obnoxiously sexist business executive by three of his female employees - and adds a sprightly, if ultimately forgettable, score by Dolly Parton, who, with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, headlined the movie's cast.

The Walnut's production, helmed by Bruce Lumpkin is agreeably slick, and the principal actors certainly fill the bill with vim and vigor: Dee Hoty as widowed single-mom Violet Newstead, Amy Bodnar as the va-va-va-voomy Texas gal Doralee Rhodes, Amanda Rose as the not-quite-self-assured Judy Bernly and Paul Schoeffler as the thoroughly repulsive boss, Franklin Hart Jr. And Mary Martello as the ultrarepressed Roz Keith all but steals the first act with her comic masturbatory soliloquy, "Heart to Hart."

But the show as a whole is such a trifle that it's hard to get truly enthusiastic about it.

Bottom line: If you go, you'll likely enjoy it. On the other hand, if you don't, you're really not missing much.