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."