Corine Cohen talks to Barrie Gelles about the Gallery Players production of “A New Brain” by William Finn and James Lapine.
Barrie Gelles is a theatre director, teacher, and scholar. On the Gallery Players mainstage, she has directed Baker’s Wife, Seussical, Marry Me a Little, and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. For the Overtures new musical reading series, she has directed Lunacy, The Yellow Wallpaper, and Emma. She is also the program director and curator of the Overtures series. Barrie is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Theatre at The Graduate Center, CUNY where she is currently writing her dissertation on the ways in which Broadway musicals in the second half of the twentieth century reflect the Jewishness of New York City’s Progressive Era. Barrie has presented regularly at conferences (ASTR, ATHE, Song, Stage, and Screen) on topics such as the aesthetics of musical theatre, pedagogical approaches to theatre courses, Jewishness and Broadway musicals, and the role of theatre practice in the academy. She has published reviews in Theatre Journal and Theatre Topics and has authored the article “Glee and the Ghosting of the Musical Theatre Canon.” Barrie has taught a variety of theatre courses for Brooklyn College, Hunter College, and Baruch College.
Part 2 is here:
A New Brain
January 27 – February 18, 2018
Music and Lyrics by William Finn
Book by William Finn and James Lapine
By the Tony Award-winning authors of Falsettos, this autobiographical musical deals directly with the writer’s own harrowing personal experience with arteriovenous malformation and the healing power of art. The hero, Gordon, worries that he may not live to complete his work, and his near death experience encourages him to re-evaluate and better appreciate the people and relationships in his life. William Finn wrote many of the songs soon after his release from the hospital.
