Snapshots

Synopsis

A hybrid — part revue and part book musical — SNAPSHOTS is billed as a “musical scrapbook”.  A married couple, Dan and Sue, who have drifted apart after their son has left for college, discover a box of photographs of their life together on the night Sue has planned to leave the marriage.  As the photographs come to life (played by four other actors who also play Dan and Sue at younger phases of their lives), the couple uncovers secrets and surprises that change their relationship.  The songs are mostly well-known ones from Schwartz’s shows, but many of the lyrics have been revised by Stephen for this new context.

Resources

Stephen Schwartz Fan Site

Please feel free to use the statement below in your program:

A NOTE ABOUT SNAPSHOTS FROM STEPHEN SCHWARTZ

             When David Stern and Michael Scheman first approached me about using my songs to tell a story about relationships and rites of passage, I have to admit I was dubious. I had never seen songs written for other shows successfully repurposed to tell a different story with different characters, at least not songs as specific as those necessary for contemporary musical theatre. My response to other attempts of this sort that I had seen was that the songs, and particularly the lyrics, seemed to have been awkwardly wedged into the new structure, requiring the audience to overlook individual lines and ideas for them to feel somewhat coherent within the new story.

             However, since they were going to be the ones doing the work, I thought why not let them give it a try? Little did I know …

             Along the way, as I became attracted by the characters of Dan and Sue and their experiences which resonated so strongly for me, and as I became increasingly enticed by the cleverness of the book David Stern was developing, I found myself drawn into the writing process. Of course for the songs to function fully for these distinct characters and situations, the lyrics would have to be rewritten to a very great extent. And so I entered into an exercise that proved to be both challenging and a lot of fun, especially to a “puzzle mind” like mine: taking existing songs, retaining their titles and the music and for the most part their original structure, but starting from scratch with the lyrics.

             Now, literally decades later, we have arrived at Snapshots. To my knowledge, it is a unique form. Is it a book musical? Kind of. Is it a revue? Well, that too. There’s no genre it fits into neatly, so we call it a “musical scrapbook.”

             All I know is that it has been fun to write and gratifying to experience audiences being charmed, amused, and ultimately moved by a show that seems to speak to them in a personal and unique way.