Lesley Gore has added another hyphenate to her resume: playwright. Yes, she had written plays or parts of plays before with Carol Hall or, on her own, about a baseball team (!), but for the past six weeks she has been workshopping the first act of a new autobiographical piece entitled "It's My Party...Yeah, Right" at the inaugural Pillowfight Festival at the Bleecker Street Theatre in Greenwich Village as part of the Hot Chicks of Substance series. I had the distinct pleasure of attending two of the workshop performances on July 25 and 26 and all I can say is that I was blown away. Although it has elements of nostalgia and a classic showbiz fairy tale arc (think Lana Turner sitting on a stool at Schwabs), her story is remarkable because it is true and, very possibly, close to unique in the record business of yesterday or, for that matter, today.
But "It's My Party...Yeah, Right" is more than a recap of a legendary early rock and roll survivor. It is truly revelatory and generous and, in the same way Gore has retained contemporary relevance while her girl group contemporaries have continued on the Yesterday Treadmill, her story is powerful and emotional and packed with surprises. One in particular which coincides with her genuinely meteoric rise to fame blew the enthusiastic audience's collective mind and, while she told it, it seemed a pin could drop and no one still would take a breath. This took enormous honesty and courage, hallmarks of Gore's career path and unceasing artistic growth. She closes this portion of the show with an incredible version of "Out Here On My Own" which took on a whole new signficance in this context.
And, no, I won't reveal it here. It's Lesley Gore's story to tell, and you can hear it when her one woman show is completed and begins making the rounds.
I will tell you that Lesley shares marvelous memories of being a little girl in Brooklyn and later in Jersey and tells terrifically engaging tales of the steps which led inexorably to her becoming a singer. These stories are delightful and she tells them with panache and verve. She does more than talk, of course. She sings songs by Charles Aznavour and Nat King Cole that were significant in her musical development and does snatches of early rock and pop by Rosemary Clooney, Teresa Brewer and others as well as snippets of others like Charlie Chaplin's"Smile."
There is a wonderful passage detailing how she found her voice coach, Myron "Pappy" Earnheart and recording demos with Pappy and his wife, Hilda. These demos are played and she joyfully sings along with them. Learning who wrote the amazing "Travel On" would have been worth the price of admission alone, and her recounting of her first "Ed Sullivan Show" is colorful and riveting like a passage from a particularly well written short story or novel.
Act One closed with "It's My Party" becoming a huge record and door after door opening for Lesley Gore. We will have to wait for Act Two or the finished play to be performed to hear and see the rest of the story. She does close the show with a couple of her classics and the audience is on its feet cheering for both.
Following the show, a few of us got a chance to chat with Lesley, always warm, friendly and forthcoming. She told us that she will be unveiling a new act at upcoming shows at the Mohegan Sun and the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art later this year with a great deal of new material. I also overheard her telling a reporter that there has been significant interest by some producers in her show, and that's exciting news for sure.
