What a night it was! A sold-out Cinegrill audience cheered
The National Academy of Songwriters and ASCAP one-night concert
presentation of The Last Session composed and performed
by Steve Schalchlin with book by his mate
Jim Brochu,
and hosted by Rue McClanahan, to benefit the medical fund for Steve Schalchlin
who has AIDS.
There have been other plays and musical about AIDS but never
has there been one as powerful and entertaining as this. With
humor, heart and honesty it tells the story of Gideon (Steve)
the son of a parson and a nurse in mid-America, and his journey
through life playing piano in churches, ocean cruises, N.Y. bars,
until he lands in L.A. where he becomes the president (sic) of
NAS. Two years ago he faced death from AIDS and decided to devote
his remaining years to composing songs for what has become
The Last Session written with his mate of 11 years
Jim Brochu.
With the superb singing and and acting talents of Yve Evans,
Marjory Graue and Steve Wilde. Schalchlin piano-played and
performed his magnificent creation. Staged at the Cinegrill
(courtesy of J.D. Kessler) as if it was being recorded in a
studio, it's filled with rehearsal laughs, stirring melodies
and clever lyrics. And a book that's never mushy, maudlin or
downbeat. It's message is emotionally uplifting -- it's not
how long one lives, it's how well you live by caring and loving.
Schalchlin is hoping for a Broadway engagement by 1997. With
the way it touches the heart and tickles the funny bone it could
happen."
Larry Glenn
Delos BBS (Larry is a retired Variety & LA Times reviewer)
It was SRO tonight at the Cinegrill at the Hollywood Roosevelt
for Steve Schalchlin's "The Last Session," in concert
format. The room was packed with Steve's peers from The National Academy
of Songwriters and ASCAP.
A lot of tears and a lot of laughter...all in the right places...as
Steve and a cast of four others moved briskly through a witty piece
of musical dramaturgy that was basically Steve's biography, fictionalized
to protect the innocent, and perhaps the guilty too.
They got some help from a full church choir whose name I was
going to remember but didn't. It was, I think, a Presbyterian group
from the Valley. They were heavenly at the right spots. (They were
the Heaven Bound Sound from First Presbyterian Church in Sherman Oaks
led by Alan Satchwell. --Steve).
Steve's life partner Jim Brochu wrote the book and Steve wrote
the lyrics. He credits Marie Cain for lyrics to "Friendly Fire."
John Bettis and
Jim Brochu are
credited too for additional lyrics. Jim is also the director and
sardonic Voice from the Control Room.
Rue McClanahan, who most of us remember from "Golden Girls,"
was the host, before the show.l She was in top form, at her gently
lecherous best, though we're told she was nursing a cold.
Steve, always at the piano, played Gideon. Yve Evans played
Tricia. Marjory Graue played Vicki, and Steven Wilde played Buddy.
Buddy has a protagonist role, introducing superstitious self-righteous
religiocity into an otherwise loving situation, a recording session
among people who know one another very well.
What they don't know is that Gideon plans to finish recording
all his songs that night then go home and take enough pills to end
his life, so painful have the AIDS treatments become. Along the way,
they somewhat educate Buddy to a more loving attitude
and convince Gideon that he has more songs to write...that this really
was not his Last Session.
It's set in a Cold-War bomb shelter in Burbank. The shelter's
been converted into a recording studio. It plays well. The tunes and
lyrics are hard to forget: Going
it Alone [Together] - The Group
supportive men and women with HIV who listen, no matter how difficult
the story; Friendly Fire - where the
doctors and
the pills are like the misdirected bullets that rain down on one's own positions
in war, unintentionally killing; the sarcastic At Least I
Know What's Killing Me! aimed at minnow-minded homophobes and
other brain
dead; and the tender and eerie Save Me a Seat,
sung by
the (presumed) spirit of Gideon watching his own funeral and going
home with
every one of his friends afterward.
I got one of the autographed audio tapes handed to all who attended.
Steve signed it "Steve S." Maybe he has the same trouble I do spelling
Schalchlin.
When I started writing this, I wanted to make a brief report
but old habits die slowly. I used to review events like this for
newspapers. I didn't go tonight as a reviewer. I was there as a
fan. But I'm a fan because of the wit and beauty of the songs and
lyrics and because of the down-deep decency and courage of Steve
S. Before the performance, he took some ribbing from recording industry
types who are well aware of his irrepressibility. No one's ever
going to defatigate him.
The heavy rain outside helped rather than hindered. I think
it made everyone in the room feel closer to one another and to the
loving crowd on the stage.
It was a feast, guys.
And, with normal luck, we should be reading about "The Last
Session" opening off Broadway sometime after the first of the year.
Remember you read about it here first! :)
