SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2016 Women US rapper Common on look to even up the movie score teaming up with 13TH

s the movie business struggles with diversity and gen- merican rapper Common said it was “very special” to der equality issues, there are signs of progress on the team up again with director Ava DuVernay on her latest Amusic front: At least four features being released Adocumentary “13TH”, which deals with issues of race between now and year’s end have been scored by women, and the US criminal justice system. The Chicago native, who and at least two are expected to be major awards contenders. won a 2015 Academy Award for best song “Glory” from That may not sound like much. But consider this: No female DuVernay’s 1960s civil rights drama “Selma,” said it was impor- has been nominated for an original-score Oscar in tant for him to work on her latest project. “I think it’s very, very the past 15 years, and only four women have been nominated special. She is like one of those creative, passionate, intelligent in the entire 81-year history of the category. Two have won: beings and visionaries and is committed. So I’m like always British composers Rachel Portman, for “Emma,” and Anne saying, ok, what can we do?,” Common said in an interview. Dudley, for “The Full Monty.” The documentary argues that although slavery was official- “Rainbow Time,” scored by Heather McIntosh, opened Nov. ly abolished in the United States 150 years ago, it is still alive in 4. “Elle,” with music by Dudley, opened Nov 16; “Manchester by the form of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects the Sea,” with music by Canadian composer Lesley Barber, black people. The film, which uses television footage, music opened Nov 18; and “Jackie,” with music by English composer and interviews with former prisoners, politicians and academ- Mica Levi, was released Dec 2. “What films you get to work on ics, owes its title to the 13th amendment to the US. is a roll of the dice, like it is for everybody,” says Academy Constitution, which ended slavery in 1865. Common released music-branch governor Laura Karpman. “But there is change in in November his eleventh album, “Black America Again,” and then I watched the film and then I continued to work on the air, and opportunities for women like I haven’t seen, ever. which he hopes will spark a retelling of the black American the second verse. People want this within the Academy, and within the business experience and a past that includes lynchings, discrimination And she and I went back and forth as far as some of the as well.” Karpman is also president of the Alliance for Women and other injustices. ideas and what we wanted to hear in the second verse,” he Film Composers, which staged an all-women film composers The album includes the song “Letter to the Free” which was said. “13TH” is playing on . “Black American Again” concert attended by 1,500 in downtown LA in August. used in DuVernay’s documentary. “I had written the first verse debuted at number 25 on the Billboard 200 charts. —Reuters Recently, Women in Film sponsored another LA concert, showcasing the work of 13 more composers including Deborah Lurie (“Safe Haven”), the most successful American female film composer in terms of box office (15 films grossing Starry ‘Sousatzka’ Team on Garth over $400 million). Last year, according to statistics compiled by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, women made up just 2% of composers working on the top 250 domestic-grossing films; and in 2014, it was just 1% of the Drabinsky’s Comeback Musical top 250. “These numbers just need to change,” says music supervisor Tracy McKnight, chair of WIF’s newly formed music committee. “We have to be in the conversation. Directors, pro- here’s a Broadway-bound musical now rehearsing in to get it.” Author Lucas admits to having been unenthusiastic ducers and studios need to have these women on their radar.” whose creative team boasts an impressive 12 about the show’s storyline when it was first presented to him. Whether by coincidence or a commitment to change, the TTony Awards and 67 nominations. It also has a producer Drabinsky, he recalled, asked him to read the novel and come likelihood of women composers vying for top awards this year that’s served jail time for fraud and forgery in Canada and up to Canada to discuss working on the musical (since is greater than it’s ever been. It is impossible to ignore the remains under indictment in the United States. But then, Garth Drabinsky would be arrested if he set foot inside US borders). music of “Manchester by the Sea” or “Jackie,” two films that Drabinsky, the impresario (“,” “Kiss of the Spider “It’s a good book, but it didn’t send me,” admits Lucas. “I have already gotten buzz for their acting performances. In Woman”) who served 17 months in prison for cooking the went up out of deference and respect to Garth. He spoke me “Manchester,” ’s drama about a tragedy- books at his once-giant theatrical entity , has never to me about the bigger themes that the novel touched in him: stricken Massachusetts family, it’s Barber’s use of voices that, done things the easy way. His current project, “Sousatzka”- The cost of being in exile, the essence of what it is to be a the composer says, “felt right for the location and the emotion- starting previews at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre Feb 25 — is proof refugee, how two people can share and bring out the best and al landscape.” The Toronto-based composer wrote music that of that. Related Theater Producer Garth Drabinsky Sets she thought might complement the classical pieces (Handel, Comeback With ‘Sousatzka’ As his comeback vehicle, he’s Albinoni, Massenet) Lonergan had already slotted into the film. picked a show with a cast of nearly 50 and based on a 1962 She took inspiration from Calvinist hymns brought by the novel by Bernice Rubens and a 1988 movie that starred Shirley 17th century Pilgrims to New England, wrote a piece for voice, MacLaine. and recorded her 19-year-old daughter-who is studying opera The story of a Polish Holocaust survivor and music teacher at McGill University singing all the parts via Skype. With the whose life is changed by her interaction with a Bengali chorale as a starting point, she then wrote additional music for prodigy has here shifted to become the tale of a South African a small chamber orchestra, predominantly strings and piano, boy fleeing the horrors of apartheid in the early 1980s. Sixty- all with “a certain amount of restraint, something a little bit seven-year-old impresario Drabinsky has always been drawn cold and inevitable as well.” In the case of “Jackie,” a searing to shows with that take race as a theme, such as “Ragtime,” portrait of Jackie Kennedy in the 1963 assassination of her “Parade,” “Show Boat” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Still, to husband, President Kennedy, and its aftermath, director Pablo many outside observers, “Sousatzka” seems an old-school Larrain specifically sought a woman and chose Levi, whose throwback in a musical theater world governed lately by the “Under the Skin” score earned a 2014 BAFTA nomination. traditional-flouting likes of “Hamilton,” “Fun Home” and “Dear Says Larrain: “I thought it would be more meaningful if our Evan Hansen.” composer brought a feminine sensibility to the score. Mica But you’d never know any of that from talking to the team understood the direction I had in mind, but came at it in a of high-profile creators Drabinsky has brought together for completely unique way. I would send her scenes and “Sousatzka”: Book writer Craig Lucas (“An American in Paris”), moments and she would send me back music which wouldn’t composer David Shire, lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. (“Ain’t always work for that specific scene but I would find another Misbehavin’”), director Adrian Noble (the former artistic direc- [scene] where it fit perfectly.” Their striking, unsettling use of a tor of the Royal Shakespeare Company), choreographer the worst of their histories.” Glover, who will play the mother massive string sound at the start of “Jackie” has already gar- Graciela Daniele (“Ragtime,” “The Visit”), vocal arranger Lebo of the young South African piano prodigy, had never met or nered attention. “I got together a group of instruments that I M (“The Lion King”), and the design team of Anthony Ward, spoken to Drabinsky, but the activist character she was asked thought felt resonant to the time because it was a period Paul Tazewell and Howard Binkley. The cast is headed by to play seduced her. “And when I heard Lebo M was involved, I piece,” Levi says. She chose a small ensemble of strings, flute, Victoria Clark (a Tony winner for “The Light in the Piazza”), knew there was no need to worry,” she said. clarinet, and percussion. Montego Glover (“Memphis”) and Judy Kaye. For composer Shire, the man behind the project was as much “That story is very unique, not just the privileged position an attraction for him as the musical itself. “Garth saw something she was in, but also the amount of loss and the kind of Bigger themes giant in this essentially tiny story,” he said. “He realized that over extreme trauma that she experienced. I was trying to write Conversations with many of them revealed a devotion to 15 million people are now living in the world as exiles, and the music that I think she’d like, something that might move her. the show that bordered on the fanatical. And not one of them time has come to tell their story. His recent history doesn’t figure The way that it was used came down to where Pablo put it.” expressed reservations about working with Drabinsky. “I in it at all for me. If he was back in business, then he was back in The opening piece was originally designed for “a more dra- directed ‘’ for Garth,” says Maltby of the Tony-winning business. That’s it, plain and simple.” In fact, none of the people matic moment, maybe the middle, Lee Harvey Oswald’s assas- 1999 showcase of Bob Fosse’s work. “He’s simply a great pro- connected with “Sousatzka” seemed concerned at all about sination,” Levi notes. — Reuters ducer. He cares about everything. He’s both supportive and working for a convicted felon. “It’s better than working for an demanding. He only wants the best work and he pushes you unconvicted felon,” Maltby quipped. — Reuters