arts & entertainment
One To Watch
Show features music by
up-and-coming musical-theater composer-lyricist.
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
A
dam Gwon brings one Jewish
remembrance into the music and
lyrics he wrote for Ordinary Days,
the production running through Dec. 9 at
the Tipping Point Theatre in Northville.
A song recalls friends getting married in
a synagogue with a rock band playing the
music.
"The idea for the song felt like a cool
mingling of tradition and contemporary pop
culture, which is something I enjoy in my
writing:' explains Gwon in a phone conversa-
tion from New York.
"The matchup of the traditions of musi-
cal theater with contemporary stories and
people is a fun juxtaposition that captures
the spirit of these friends, who are tied to
their traditions but their contemporary lives
as well:"
Ordinary Days, a four-character play in
vignette, takes place in New York, where lost
graduate-school notes lead to the meeting of
one couple as a second veers through prob-
lems of living together. The couples never
meet but impact each other.
Directed by Brian Sage, the cast includes
Farmington Hills native Eric Gutman (Jersey
Boys), Sonja Marquis, Kryssy Becker and
Christopher Tucker. Musical direction is
by Windsor native Jeremy Ryan Mossman,
a local vocal coach, college instructor and
performer.
"I think the show sounds funny and hon-
est, which is what I like when I go to the
theater;' says Gwon, 32, named among "50
to Watch" by The Dramatist magazine. "I like
to laugh, be moved and see things that make
Adam Gwon with his parents at the
2008 Fred Ebb Award ceremony.
was a composer;' Gwon recalls. "I was moved
and inspired by his music and started writing
incidental music for college productions.
"After that, I started writing proper songs
and kept writing and taking master classes
and workshops. I put out my work as much
as possible in cabarets and showcases.
"I recently was asked by a musical-theater
company to do something that explored my
personal background, which is Jewish and
Chinese. My mom is Jewish, and my dad,
who is Chinese, converted to Judaism while I
was in high school."
Gwon, whose mother teaches synagogue
preschool while working for the Council on
Jewish Education Services and whose dad
is a hospital administrator, is the first in his
family to pursue an entertainment career.
He shares that interest with his partner, a
musical-theater actor.
Other musicals for which Gwon has writ-
ten both music and lyrics include The Boy
Detective Fails, Cloudlands and String. He
contributed the music for Bernice Bobs Her
Hair (lyrics by Julia Jordan) and wrote the
title song for the current Broadway hit Old
me think about my own life. That's what I
enjoy when I see Ordinary Days:'
In a review of Ordinary Days in the New
York Times, Charles Isherwood called Gwon
"a promising newcomer to our talent-hungry
musical theater ... who writes crisp, fluid
and filmy lyrics:' Adam Feldman of Time
Out New York labeled the show "full of
idiosyncratic charm" and Gwon "a young
writer of significant promise." Variety noted:
"Gwon's brushstrokes mark him as a talent
to watch."
As Gwon's first show to be professionally
produced, Ordinary Days grew out of a series
of songs he wrote during a fellowship pro-
gram sponsored by the Dramatists Guild.
"The characters emerged from the songs:'
he says. "Some of the songs didn't end up
being in the show, but they were my jump-
ing-off point:'
Born in Boston and raised in Baltimore,
Gwon learned classical piano and par-
ticipated in middle-school theater. After
attending a high school for the performing
arts, he became a theater major at New York
University's Tisch School of the Arts, where
he discovered his writing interest.
"In my freshman year, I had a teacher who
Jews Telling Jokes.
He recently tweeted about his Friday-
night attendance at a new comedy at the
Roundabout Theatre in New York City: "It's
Shabbat. I'm seeing Bad Jews @RTC_NYC.
Seems appropriate."
When he is seeking inspiration, Gwon
gets moving. "I'm a big fan of rimming," says
this holder of many musical-theater awards,
including the Fred Ebb Award, given to
encourage and support aspiring songwriters
to create new work for musical theater. "My
brain gets untethered, and I get a lot of ideas
for my writing."
their future together.
Furstenberg was born in Israel. When
she was an infant, her Israeli parents
moved to New York but returned to
Israel with her when she was 16. In the
last decade, she has become a star of
the Israeli theater and has co-starred
in the hit Israeli films Yossi and Jagger
and Campfire.
Loktev was born in Leningrad, the
child of two computer-scientist par-
ents. The family moved to Colorado
in 1977. Her 2006 film, Day Night Day
Night, about a suicide bomber in Times
Square, was a hit with critics.
The episode airing on
Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 9
p.m. is titled "Boys II
Menorah."
The plot: Brad's
buddy Max Blum
(Adam Pally, 30),
who is supposed to be
Pally
Jewish and gay, has
been working the bar
mitzvah circuit as a professional "hype
guy" — emceeing and getting the crowd
excited and up and dancing. Brad reluc-
tantly agrees to partner up with Max,
but things get a little testy between
Bar Mitzvah Boy
good.
Pally is a regular contributor to the
humor website Funny or Die, where
he is best known for his series Riding
Shotgun with Adam Pally, in which he
interviews celebrities in his car. Raised
Adam Gwon: "Funny and honest."
In September, Gwon received the inau-
gural Donna Perret Rosen Award, an honor
recognizing an up-and-coming musical the-
ater writer selected by James Lapine, Susan
Stroman and Jack Viertel.
"I was completely surprised and ecstatic
to have been chosen, and by some of my the-
atrical heroes, no less!" Gwon wrote on his
website, www. adamgwon.com .
While taking on new projects, his song
"Big Picture" from Ordinary Days has special
meaning for its composer-lyricist.
"Two people are talking about the futures
they imagine for themselves, but they're very
unclear about their paths," he explains. "The
song captures the tendency to forget how
things we're doing in the moment are just
as meaningful as the things we want to be
doing down the
E
Ordinary Days runs through Dec. 9
at the Tipping Point Theatre, 361
E. Cady, Northville. Performances
are at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays;
3 p.m. Saturdays and Wednesday,
Nov. 28; and 2 p.m. Sundays.
$27-$32. (248) 347-0003. www.
tippingpointtheatre.com .
Jews
Film Notes
The Loneliest Planet, scheduled to open
Friday, Nov. 9, is a
film directed and writ-
ten by Julia Loktev,
43. It co-stars Gael
Garcia Bernal and
Hani Furstenberg,
Loktev
30, as Alex and Nica,
a loving couple who
like to travel off the
beaten path. They hire
a local guide and hike
through the Caucasus
Mountains, but their
relationshlp cl-iange3
in an instant when
Alex reacts to a threat
Furstenberg
to Nica in a way that
is either cowardly or
cautious. Nica then re-
evaluates her perception of Alex and
40
November 8 - 2012
The ABC series Happy Endings, about
six youngish best friends, has become
a much better show since it debuted
in 2011. This season began with Brad
(Damon Wayans Jr.) losing his job.
v;ncn
1L17113 OUt. tO 'LC C;;;:tG
a Conservative Jew in Livingstone,
N.J., he's been married since 2008 to
Daniella Lieben, 30, a "hometown girl"
whose parents belong to the same syn-
agogue as Pally's parents. In December
2011, their first child, a son, was born.
Slimming Down
Marissa Jaret Winokur, 39, who won
a Tony playing the heavyset Tracy
Turnblad in the
Broadway musical
version of Hairspray
and now co-stars on
the TV Land series
net:frac: at 35, recently
appeared at a movie
premiere wearing a
Winokur
size "0" jacket. She
says her dramatic
weight loss is due to "working out like a
mad woman and eating healthy."