Lynn Ahrens And Me
I had been looking forward to that weekend in May. Nothing was on my calendar except two full days at my laptop, working on writing projects. First two assignments for the weekend were finishing up applications for two big awards; the deadlines were the following week and I just needed to tweak my cover letter and proofread the documents I would be submitting. One of the applications was submitting Meet Your Mountain to a new musicals festival. The other application was submitting myself as a lyricist and as a librettist for a prestigious award set up by Ed Kleban, the lyricist of A Chorus Line, which comes with a large grant to use toward your career. After those tasks, I would spend my weekend working on a lyric for a new show.
But first, on Friday night I went to see the touring company of Anastasia, and I spent a lot of my evening telling my theater companion why I love Ahrens & Flaherty’s writing so much. I talked about the rich layers of their score for Ragtime. I talked about the deep heart of Once On This Island, and how seeing the original Broadway production of that show was a turning point in my theater career.
On this Friday night last May, I heard the Anastasia score live in the theater for the first time. There is a phrase in the song, “In My Dreams,” which has always caught my ear in a beautifully thrilling way whenever I listened to the recording. It’s the title phrase, so of course you’d expect it to catch your ear. But the way they set it up! Listen to it sometime: the verse material leading up to it puts you into a certain feeling … the words go tumbling past, phrases, images. The music rumbles along, most of it in the lower parts of the singer’s voice, music in anticipation of something, leading to something…. and then those words and that tune end with the words, “… At night all alone in my dreams” Aha! That’s the title of the song! I know it’s the title because it’s printed in the program, but it didn’t sound like a title phrase. It was simply the end of the thoughts preceding it. Then — and here is the absolutely thrilling moment for anyone who loves musical theater — the singer repeats the words, “In my dreams—” but this time the phrase is set to music that soars. Anastasia’s voice finally opens up into this soaring phrase and she’s off, into the groove of the song, a beautiful, inspiring song in its own right. But for me, it’s those three notes: “In my dreams—” which set up the song for success. To hear it live on this particular evening branded me forever as an Ahrens & Flaherty Fangirl. It wasn’t until the following morning I realized the significance of the title of that particular song.
As I drove home from the theater, I replayed my memory of the time I met Lynn Ahrens and she praised our craft of writing A Little Princess. “The lyrics are smart,” she said of my work. It was 20 years ago, but a treasured memory of my years in NYC.
I crawled into bed that night, happily immersed in the world of musical theater, and eagerly anticipating an early morning start to my writing work.
And then I had a dream.
It wasn’t a long, complicated dream. Very short, as a matter of fact. In the dream, I was sitting at my office cubicle at that other job – the day job where from Monday to Friday I process mortgage loans for a Big American Bank. Visitors, of course, aren’t allowed on the floor, where customers’ financial data is broadcast openly on our computer screens. But just as if it were the most normal thing in the world, Lynn Ahrens walked over to my desk, and cheerily said, “Hi, Margaret!”
“Hello, Lynn,” I replied, with the same casual tone as if she were my buddy Debbie stopping by for a chat on her way to the restroom.
“Margaret, I was worried when I saw you hadn’t applied for ‘Kleban’ yet.”
“I’m doing that this weekend,” I explained, but Lynn’s face was staring into mine with an expression of concern. I reassured her: “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s really important that you apply,” Lynn said.
And with that, the dream was over.
My favorite thing about this dream is that it took place at my day job. It wasn’t Lynn Ahrens chatting with me at a theater. No, Lynn Ahrens had marched her way into my dreary day-to-day existence to demand I work on moving myself over to her world.
Thanks, Lynn. I’m on my way. See you there real soon!
