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Molly Picon as Lyricist
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Lecture
Admission: Free |
The inimitable Molly Picon — actress, singer, dancer and comedienne — has been celebrated for her work not only in the Yiddish theater, but also on Broadway and London stages, to say nothing of film, radio, recordings, and television. Missing from all the acclaim, however, has been any recognition of her deep accomplishment as a lyricist. She penned the words to dozens of the songs she sang, revealing her formidable skill as a writer — not merely as a clever wordsmith, but as a poet and storyteller, too. Most of these were in Yiddish , as for example “Abi gezunt,” her theme song. But some were in English, as well. And some, in Yinglish, combined the two! Musician-scholar Ronald Robboy offers a guide through Picon’s long career, choosing selected songs to show how she marshaled her writing skills not only to show off her singing to best advantage, but to flesh out characterizations and further the dramatic action of the many musicals in which she starred. Not only a performer of the first rank, musical actress Molly Picon was a lyricist of distinction.
This event is part of Carnegie Hall’s season-long exploration of the many contributions that women have made to the world of music.
About the Speaker
Musician and writer Ronald Robboy was the Senior Researcher for Michael Tilson Thomas’s Thomashefsky Project, for whom he developed the Yiddish theater musical reconstructions that MTT premiered at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in 2005. For many years a cellist in both the San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Opera, Robboy was also active in the earliest years of the West Coast klezmer revival. In 1995 the San Diego Jewish Film Festival commissioned his original score to Molly Picon’s early silent film East and West. Other of his own music has been heard in New York, at MOMA and The Kitchen, as well as in California. A contributor to Encyclopaedia Judaica, Robboy has held research fellowships and taught at YIVO Institute and University of California–San Diego, and his writing on Yiddish film, literature, and theater music has appeared in academic journals and arts magazines. He has recently completed scholarly studies on Molly Picon and on Yiddish theater composer Abraham Ellstein.