*** Steven Lutvak with The Weird Sisters, at The Noble Fool, 16
W. Randolph, Jan. 14-18, (312) 726-1156. The Time It Takes (Pemaco Rd), the
long-awaited debut disc by Steven Lutvak, succeeds in showing the out and gifted singer/songwriter in the
best, multi-hued light. From comic confessional numbers such as 'I Just Wanted You To Know' to
biographical bits including 'Mrs. Whitney' (about his piano teacher) and 'The Dinner Party (Bagelmakers to the
Czar)' to complex love triangles as in 'Debbie & Teddy & Me' as well as more serious subjects including the
loss of friends ('Those Of Us Who Knew James,' 'I'll Imagine You A Song') and father and son relationships
('Museums'), to mention a few. A well-respected voice in the realm of cabaret, musical theater and
contemporary pop, Lutvak recently spoke with me about past and recent career highlights.
Gregg
Shapiro: You have a long and impressive list of honors and accolades, including MAC and Bistro Awards, a
Johnny Mercer Foundation award and a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Grant. Is there one that
has more significance to you than the others?
Steven Lutvak: Oh, I love that question! On the one hand
it's, without question, the Johnny Mercer Emerging American Songwriter Award because of who it comes from.
That was an award given by the Johnny Mercer Foundation, and in fact I was the first recipient of it. It's Johnny
Mercer! He's one of that small group of people that when you go down the list you say, 'Oh, he wrote that too?
And he wrote that too?' So, in a way that means the most. Now, I'm going to also tell you of all my awards, the
NEA Grant for New Musical Works means the most because that was for my theatrical writing. I've always been
a little bit of a chameleon and kind of a funny cross-over guy. All the while I've been doing the live performing
and singing my songs, I've been saying, 'But I'm a theater writer!' One could say the same thing about the
Jonathan Larson (Grant), but the NEA was the first theater award given to me and also because I was in the
last group of people granted individual awards. After that the politics changed. They started only giving it to
organizations because they didn't want to be giving it to artists that were too controversial.
GS: There
are some genuinely glowing testimonials in the CD booklet for The Time It Takes from Michael Feinstein, Jerry
Herman and the late Rosemary Clooney, among others. What do those words mean to you?
SL: Oh,
my God, it was almost embarrassing to me when I put that list together, when my designer and I were doing
the layout. I sort of looked at that and said, 'Who is this guy?' (laughs)
GS: You didn't recognize
yourself?
SL: Exactly! Sheldon Harnick (from whom there is also a quote), who is arguably my favorite
lyricist of all time, I know I'm supposed to say Stephen Sondheim (laughs), but it's Sheldon for me because I
don't think anybody's warmer than he. If I can get a sixteenth of what he does I'll consider myself successful as
a writer. Everybody that's on that list: A. R. Gurney. Rosemary saw me at a showcase in Los Angeles a number
of years ago. It was a program of new, young songwriters and I got on stage at the end of the program and she
elbowed this mutual friend and she said, 'He's the real deal.' Actually, she came up to me afterwards and
threw her arms around me and said, 'Come to my house.' I got there the next day and spent the afternoon and
well into the evening playing, at her request, everything I had, to that point, written. It was one of those
breath-taking, pinch myself moments.
GS: The long-awaited release of your appropriately titled debut
disc The Time It Takes occurred in 2002 and the material spans a time period that began in 1986. Why the
long wait?
SL: Gregg, I love the fact that you saw that it took from 1986. There are so many ways that I
can answer that. The truth is I wanted to do it right and I had some opportunities to do it before then, in fact I
was working with a multi-gold and platinum winning producer out in Los Angeles, who I shall not name. I
spoke with him and he was very excited about me and my writing and he had credits the length of all four of our
arms combined. I got out there and he had already done this arrangement. I was in the studio singing, and the
whole experience felt weird to me. I remember having this feeling, this may be overstating it, but I felt like he
was yelling at me. I flew home and I was speaking to all my representatives and my friends at the time, going,
'I can't get a handle on it.' I got home, and three days later I woke up and realized, 'Oh yeah, I hated working
with him.' It was just wrong.
GS: What year was this?
SL: I want to say this happened in maybe
'97. They were gorgeous arrangements, and they were wrong for me. I was less evolved than I like to think I am
now. Certainly less evolved than I am. However evolved or un-evolved I am now. I wasn't able to express that
clearly to him. It's so easy for all of us to get reputations for being difficult or demanding and so on. In the end, I
chose this arranger named Joe Baker, who just got me.
GS: There's a difference between being
difficult and demanding and knowing what you want and wanting to be understood.
SL: Thank you
(laughs)! The thing about working with Joe is I think he knew exactly what to do with me. And the truth is we
rarely disagreed. I had investors, people and friends of mine saying, 'What's taking so long?' My answer was
always, 'It takes the time it takes.' I also had every major record label in New York dancing around me. I had
meeting after meeting and the sequence was always the same. The person would come and hear me sing
and then say, 'Oh, my God! You are the most interesting and most exciting songwriter I've heard in 20 years,
but I don't know what to do with you.' They would say, 'Because you're not 22, you're not blonde and you're out
in your work!' (Laughs) It's so funny, because I remember when I first played 'Debbie & Teddy & Me,' it was at
Rainbow and Stars, I was doing a show with Dee Hoty, and as I was stepping out I remember thinking, 'Oh my
God, I think I'm about to come out on stage. How do I feel about that?' I thought, it's a little late to be having that
question (laughs) in your head right now, and I thought the song, like all of my songs, is not explicitly gay. They
aren't about that. That's something completely other than that, that happens to include that.
GS: I'm
glad that you mentioned that song because a wonderful gay sensibility does make its way into songs such as
'Mrs. Whitney,' 'Debbie & Teddy & Me,' and 'Those Of Us Who Knew James.' Is it important for you to make
that a part of your work?
SL: My answer to that is, yes and no. My songs tell my story. I sing about things
that are important to me. What's interesting and fun about 'Debbie & Teddy' is the human triangle. Is it about
that I'm a gay man. No! It's about the relationships. With 'Those Of Us Who Know James,' I hope one could
substitute the name James for whatever name they want to put in there. I've had people come up to me
afterwards in tears and say, 'I had a James.'
GS: I really appreciated the diversity on the CD. There are
songs that highlight both your distinctive sense of humor ('I Just Wanted You To Know,' 'Mrs. Whitney,'
'Debbie & Teddy & Me,' and 'The Dinner Party') and your proficiency with a ballad ('Rewriting History,' 'Those
Of Us Who Knew James,' 'I'll Imagine You A Song'). Do you have a preference for one style over the other?
SL: Somebody once said, if you look at the great writers of all time, I'm talking about Mozart and
Shakespeare—Mozart wrote The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni. Shakespeare wrote King Lear and As You
Like It. I love the notion that you can go to both places. You have to earn your ballads. Do I have a preference?
No, I'm happy living in both countries. I'm sort of happiest living in countries where they both exist. In a way, 'I
Just Wanted You To Know' has a little bit of both. I think looking for humor in everything is a characteristic of the
disenfranchised. The disenfranchised understand two cultures. The one they're excluded from, and their own.
GS: I realized that when I heard you singing 'I'll Imagine You A Song,' that I was also familiar with Lee
Lessack's version of the song. Are there any particular singers that haven't yet recorded one of your songs that
you would like to do so?
SL: Absolutely! Starting with Bette Midler, and why don't we add Miss
Streisand to that list. I actually do think that there are songs of mine that each of them would sing the shit out of,
frankly (laughs).
GS: But as a singer yourself, what does it feel like to have other people record your
songs?
SL: I love it. It's the icing on the cake and the cherry on the sundae. It's the best part. I
experienced that a lot as a theater writer. A very well-known Hollywood songwriter and screenwriter heard a
demo of The Wayside Inn, the adaptation of the A. R. Gurney play, which is me singing everything and his
comment to my collaborator was, 'Steve's a wonderful singer, and this is all too hard to sing. He's all over the
map. You're not going to be able to have other people sing this.' When I heard this, artist that I am, never mind
sensitive human being, I thought, 'Oh, God. Have I written too hard?' Then when we got together with the cast,
the fact is that I was writing for those specific characters. (The cast) said it was a little hard to learn, but the
singing of it was not at all hard.
GS: In addition to your theater and cabaret work, you also wrote the
music for the 2003 movie Anything But Love, which is sort of an homage to Hollywood movies of a certain era.
What was that experience like for you?
SL: It was really fun. Isabel Rose, who is the writer (and lead
character), is a long=standing (voice) client of mine. I've coached her for years. She suggested that I arrange
the songs and score the movie. We were able to bring in the sound that they wanted. It was a really interesting
collaboration in that way and very different from anything I'd done before and very satisfying.
GS: What
can people expect when attending your live performance?
SL: One thing that I'm doing is that I'm
singing different songs every night. Much of the show will be the same, but I'm going to rotate. There's one part
where I do a couple of my theater songs. My show has become an entertainment. Above all, it's entertaining.
Steven Lutvak.
