Link: 'Thirties Forever' in the news.

Here are links to some of the various video, reviews, and interviews from the 'Thirties Forever' workshop performance last monday...

I'm in one of them (miscredited as Edward Baskin, which is hilarious in and of itself), but they caught me completely off-guard by asking me to anwer in Russian at the last second, so my Russian here is, to be quite honest, shameful. 

If anyone asks, it's Edward Baskin who speaks awful Russian, not Adam Muskin...

Сноб/Snob Magazine

Первый Канал/Channel One News

Телеканал звезда/Star TV

Голос Америки/Voice of America

Sorry, my patented 'on-the-fly translation' won't work here... there's just too much.  Hope your Russian is good...

-A

Onstage: "Thirties Forever" at the Baryshnikov Arts Center

On August 16th at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City, the 'Thirties Forever' musical workshop was performed for an invite-only audience of about 200 in the Jerome Robbins Theater.  Mikhail Shydkoi (the former Russian minister of culture) was the author of the script, idea, and is the artistic director of the project.  The cast involved approximately 10 American and 10 Russian actors, with music performed and arranged by Levon Oganezov.  The workshop was directed by Gary Cherniakhovsky.

...And the vocal coach was my good friend and colleague Taylor Sutherland, and I was the associate director.  Both of us doubled as actors as well, which was nice for a change, getting back in front of the lights instead of being in the house...

The show revolves around a concept and dream long held by Mr. Shvydkoi; to show audiences in America and Russia how similar we are by presenting us with real examples of music from the 1930's that was popular and heard in both cultures and in both languages.  The story line revolves around a Russian takeover of an American oldies radio station by the same name of the show, 'Thirties Forever', and the action takes place over the course of the thirties, forties, and today.  While the project is certainly ambitious, it underlines a very interesting, and very true point: that we as two cultures have much more in common than we realize.