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"Pop Star Billy Joel Collaborating With Dance Legend Twyla Tharp On Dance Musical"
By: Randy Gener
(July 24th, 2001)

Pop-rock star Billy Joel is collaborating with ballet legend Twyla Tharp on a new Broadway dance musical, which will receive a workshop production starting August 20th, 2001. Though the new project still has no working title, it will feature music by Joel and direction and choreography by Tharp. James Nederlander Jr. and Emanuel Azenberg are the show’s Broadway producers.

The Nederlander office did not return BroadwayOnline.com's calls seeking more information.

According to the show’s music director Stuart Malina, cast members in the workshop are being asked to sing three songs including Joel’s "She's Got A Way." "The whole thing is done in song and dance," Malina told Fox News. "There is no dialogue. Billy's songs tell the story, although we're probably not using his 'story songs' like "Piano Man" because we have to tell our own story." Malina is the highly regarded music director and conductor of two American symphony orchestras of Greensboro, NC, and Harrisburg, PA.

If the Joel/Tharp dance musical does make it to Broadway, it would follow the recent trend of dance musicals that are drawing critical praise and audience acceptance on Broadway, many of which are spearheaded by major director/choreographers. Notable productions include Tony-winners "Fosse" and "Contact," along with "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," "Blast!," and "Swing!."

Dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp is known for her innovative, energetic style which combines jazz, tap, ballet, and modern dance. She trained with the greats in modern dance - Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Alwin Nikolais and has danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, choreographed for the American Ballet
Theatre, and formed her own troupes. She served as an artistic associate for American Ballet Theatre from 1988 to 1990. Her danceworks include "Grand Pas: Rhythm of the Saints" (1991), choreographed for the Paris Opéra Ballet; "How Near Heaven" (1995)and "Americans We" (1995), choreographed for American Ballet Theatre; and "I Remember Clifford" (1995), choreographed for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Tharp's autobiography, "Push Comes to Shove," was published in 1992.

According to Malina, his music orchestrations for the Broadway production of the Joel/Tharp dance musical will stay close to the spirit of the songs Joel composed. "We're going to stick with the sound of the originals," Malina told Fox News. "We have a lot to choose from."

In addition, this new project seem to be marked different from "Piano Man: The Musical," a show that he was reportedly working on according to a 1997 New York Post report. The latter musical was supposed to be a Broadway musical based on existing songs, stitched together into a songbook much in the same spirit as "Smokey Joe’s Café" or, more pointedly, the ABBA musical "Mamma Mia!."

However, "Piano Man: The Musical" never materialized. If the new Joel/Tharp project does indeed see the light of stage, Joel would be the latest graying rocker to fancy himself a Broadway composer. He would join the ranks of Randy Newman ("Faust"), Pete Townshend (The Who's "Tommy"), Paul Simon ("The Capeman"), Barry Manilow ("Harmony and Copacabana"), Jimmy Buffett ("Don’t Stop the Carnival"), The Bee Gees ("Saturday Night Fever"), John Cougar Mellencamp (who’s reportedly writing a musical with Stephen King), and most recently Harry Connick Jr. whose "Thou Shalt Not" is opening on Broadway this season.


"Darker Days"
By: George Rush & Joanna Molloy
(July 26th, 2001)

He can laugh about it now, but Billy Joel can't forget that he once tried to kill himself.

"I was 21 and I had no prospects: no high school diploma, my band had broken up, the girl I was with had split-up with me," he recalls. "It was a period of intense self-pity."

Socrates chose hemlock. The "Piano Man" chose furniture polish for his poison.

"I was sitting on a chair waiting to die," he tells Blender magazine. "All of a sudden, my stomach starts to process this stuff. …I said, 'This is ridiculous; this is sick.'"

The experience later prompted Joel to write "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" as advice to depressed teens.

Having lived to tell that tale, Joel can now share what it's like to tour with Elton John.

John's dressing room, according to Joel, is decorated like the "last days of the Roman Empire. He's got layers and layers of drapery hung, plus guys hanging around wearing olive branches on their heads and little charioteer outfits. He's got 55 pairs of shoes and 1,000 pairs of sunglasses. It's like going shopping at Versace."