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After a round of complimentary champagne (our special “be our guest” treat), we get to hear from the talented Susan Egan and Georgia Stitt. (Susan was the voice of Megara in Hercules, which I love.) We’re getting a song from the two at the white baby grand piano. “This is the me of the moment. You get the me of the moment.” I would really love to get the lyrics to the whole song. (Maybe Google will help later.) It will be on Georgia’s next album.
Your role (mom/wife/professional) changes based on the moment. It can be maddening. There is an artistry to building an online presence. They both said they got into the arts to meet boys. This leads into another song. (I think the song format is this year’s version of last year’s talk show format with Marissa Jaret Winokur.) She wrote the song about a boy she “fell in love with” when she was in fifth grade. People all over the world know it because of YouTube, and she found Adam on Facebook.
Through Disney magic, Susan is singing “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” live for us with a video clip from Hercules where they removed her lead vocals. This is my magical Disney moment. Despite the fact that Belle is my favorite Disney character of all time, this is my favorite Disney song of all-time. And this is the first time she’s been able to sing it live because she never has the five back-up vocalists with her for live performances! Thank you, Susan Egan! I wasn’t the only one mouthing the words along with her.
Susan says that what artists like her in New York love about Georgia’s music is that it’s really “slice of life” music that women can really relate to. She writes for musical theater the way Nora Ephron writes for film.
The media has changed so much since Susan started in the business a decade and a half ago. She doesn’t know if it’s even worth making CDs anymore. There were fears about not making as much money with iTunes since people could buy a single track instead of the whole album, but she’s seen an increase in sales because of iTunes. Susan said there was no real Web presence for Broadway back when she was Belle on stage in 1994. (Hey, I was talking about Broadway on AOL back then!) She created the first Broadway star’s official website ever.
Song about Facebook, Twitter, etc. Hilarious. Looking up old “friends” on Facebook and finding out horrible things about old classmates. Then looking up yourself online. The Internet lives forever. “I never expected that.”
And now there are online reputation management companies that will help you bury the worst of what you found about yourself online.
And now they’re singing “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods. This song always makes me cry. (Random: I dreamt the other night that I got cast as the Baker’s Wife. Sigh. That would be so awesome, except for my extreme stage fright.)
Susan talks about the shock of becoming a mom. She was used to being the star, and now she was just a bit player. She wrote a song about it, “Nina doesn’t care.” It was hysterical until it made me cry.
She talks about how she didn’t get a part in a sitcom, and her husband texted her to ask how it went. She texted back, “I didn’t get it.” And he texted back, “That’s okay. You still get to be Nina’s mom.” She teared up remembering it.
Then she talked about getting taken out to dinner by a famous composer where she turned down a part because she didn’t want to be painted green every night… Yes, she turned down the part of Elphaba in Wicked. but if she’d taken the part, she never would have met her husband and had her kids. Georgia also turned down the Wicked gig that is earning Stephen Schwartz a fortune because she was getting married during the blackout period.
And now Susan is singing “Defying Gravity.” It’s the most requested song she’s asked to sing, and she’s decided to embrace it. It’s a great song about woman power.
Beauty and the Beast was Susan’s first Broadway show. And now she’s singing the opening song. “Oh, isn’t this amazing? It’s my favorite part, because, you’ll see…Here’s where she meets Price Charming. But she won’t discover that it’s him ’til Chapter 3.” We’re watching footage like a “behind the scenes” thing from the show.
We got a special mom song as an encore. They said they found it on YouTube. Rolling on the floor laughing. (Not literally.)
That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.
