The Chorus Boy Chronicles

Brian Spitulnik has been a 'swing' dancer in CHICAGO on Broadway since 2009 but he is also a superb writer. I discovered his short stories on the McSweeney website and wrote him a fan letter.

As you can see he is hideously unattractive but he is also brilliantly gifted and truly lovely. We met for coffee and he very kindly asked me to take part in a reading of his stories as a benefit for the Point Foundation.

The venue was Recession Art Culturefix on the Lower East Side

The room itself only holds about 100 people but the gig was sold out and they were turning people away.

Michael Lavine was the musical director. He is a walking encyclopaedia of musical theatre so of course when we get together we tend to gabble at each other. He frequently flies to Australia for gigs at WAAPA and VCA.

It was an illustrious cast list. Brian introduced the evening in which we all read one of his stories and performed a song of our choice.

First up was Nick Blaemire, currently appearing in GODSPELL. He went to school with Brian and has a record coming out next Monday. He sang "All the Way".

I sang a song I wrote twenty five years ago with Ron Creager for the David Atkins revue DYNAMITE! I rewrote the lyrics so they applied to a Broadway chorus boy. It went over well even though I suddenly started singing the old lyrics and had to stop and start again.

Santino Fontana is a brilliant young actor who we saw last year in SONS OF THE PROPHET and IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. He sang "Stick Around" from GOLDEN BOY which I love.

Celia Keenan-Bolger has just played the lead in MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG at Encores. Trivia for musical theatre boffins, everyone else skip this bit: she was the original Clara in LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (Kelli O'Hara played Fabrizio's sister in that version). She sang a very funny song about a girl who dyes her hair blue.

I hope some influential folk turned up who can help Brian's writing career. I hear he has a memoir in the works about his family and from all reports they are a wild bunch.

 Here is the link to the stories. There is a new one every couple of weeks. Enjoy!
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/the-chorus-boy-chronicles