Editor's Note

By Jim O’Quinn

Heads up, lyricists (and those who love them): In two of this issue's feature articles, the techniques of lyric-writing employed on exciting new works of musical theatre are examined in detail.

In "Awaken and Sing," his cover essay about the long, rewarding creative journey of Spring Awakening—the unlikely, century-bridging musical whose abundant tally of honors was topped off last month by a spate of 2007 Tonys—author Steven Sater boldly welcomes us inside the show's writing process. As he and composer Duncan Sheik (see May/June '06) struggle to remain true to the dark and fierce intent of Frank Wedekind's 1891 play, the songs sung by the show's anguished adolescent characters are shaped and reshaped—to clarify, illuminate and, finally, amplify the original drama's startlingly contemporary themes.

The work of another songwriter and composer, Michael Friedman, receives similar scrutiny in "Acting in Good Faith," arts reporter Mark Blankenship's on-the-scene account of the genesis of a show you'll be hearing more about in coming months—This Beautiful City, a documentary musical about Colorado Springs, Colo., an epicenter of Evangelical Christianity in the U.S. Working from recorded interviews conducted by the New York–based troupe the Civilians (of which he is a founding member), Friedman uses the interviewees' natural speech rhythms to create funny and poignant musical observations about real people speaking their minds.

Artistic process is on other minds, as well: that of the inimitable Marian Seldes, who explains her pretension-free approach to acting and theatrical collaboration in one of the most charming and insightful interviews American Theatre has ever published; and that of playwright and actor Tracy Letts, who admits to critic Kevin Nance that his newest play, currently on the boards at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, bears the handprints ("some conscious, some subconscious") of such classic American dramatists as O'Neill, Albee and Hellman.

How does an artist get there from here? This issue is full of intriguing and entertaining clues.