New Haven Arts Orgs, Broadway Heavy Hitters Shine With “Shimmer”

Downtown | Arts & Culture | Musical Theater | Theater | Yale Schwarzman Center

Emily Flamme Photo.

"Always keep an eye on the back of the chair in front of you," sang the women of the New York Star steno room as they introduced Sylvia Golubowsky to the harsh truths of their life at the bottom of the professional ladder. Drawn in by the shimmer and opportunity of New York, Golubowsky was quickly realizing that her dreams were much farther away than she thought.

Welcome to Shimmer, a new musical with which playwright and Guggenheim Fellow Sarah Schulman hopes to join the legacy of New Haven premieres that have gone on to experience Broadway success. Last Thursday, the work came to Yale's Schwarzman Center for a live workshop and performance of 23 original songs.

It received production help from Long Wharf Theatre and the Midnight Oil Collective, partners both based in New Haven. Last week, it was part of the Yale Innovation Summit's inaugural arts track Following the June 1 performance, the show will continue its development in New Haven.

"I think that Shimmer will really appeal to younger viewers, because the message is so relevant to today's society," said Midnight Oil Collective Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frances Pollock, a composer who is working on her doctorate at the Yale School of Music. "The next step is to find an enhancement theater to bring the production to life, and eventually we hope to bring it to Broadway."

As a piece of art, Shimmer has been nearly 20 years in the making. In 2004, Schulman began adapting her 1998 novel "Shimmer" into a musical. Initially, she joined forces with four-time Broadway librettist Michael Korie and Pulitzer-prize winning composer Anthony Davis. As she brought it to New Haven, the performance also included New York-based director Jess McLeod, whose work has included collaborations with Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Creatives Rebuild NY, and the Roundabout Theatre Company.

Set in post-World War II New York City, the musical tells the story of three New Yorkers in pursuit of their respective American dreams. Calvin Byfield is an aspiring playwright working in a deli to support his dreams of writing Broadway plays. Sylvia Golubowsky works in the stenography room of the New York Star, hoping to climb the ladder and one day get her chance to write for the paper.

At another paper across town, columnist Austin Van Cleeve struggles to navigate the politics of the time in his reporting. Set against the backdrop of the Red Scare and McCarthyism, all three protagonists come face to face with harsh realities in their pursuit of their dreams.

"New York is a place of incredible potential, and people come there to chase their dreams, and they are willing to go through the struggle of living there to make them come true," Schulman said. "While the story is very much a period piece, the message and commentary rings true today."

The music pulls from many of the emerging sounds of the time. Composer Anthony Davis said that much of his inspiration comes from the jazz, blues, and early R&B that were popular at the time of the play. "I was hearing the music of my parents in my head all throughout the creative process," Davis said.

The theme of the play also struck a personal chord for Davis, whose childhood was directly impacted by the Red Scare. While he was a kid, his own father was on the notorious (and erroneous) "Hollywood Blacklist," which grew out of the era's House Un-American Activities Committee. "I had a lot of experience with McCarthyism and the politics of the time," he said.

Midnight Oil Collective Chief Operating Officer Emily Roller, who learned about the work from librettist Michael Korie, praised the project. She said that it fits into the collective's mission, which seeks to identify and disrupt the gig-based, daily grind of arts work with a more sustainable and community-based model.

The group grew out of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which "we had time to really sit down and think about how we'd been on these career treadmills, where we're doing gig after gig after gig," Roller said. She was excited to bring the musical to New Haven for that reason.

"We see New Haven as a place that has a lot to offer for artists looking to develop their work," she added. "Between the local arts scene and the infrastructure that is already there with all of the really supportive arts organizations, New Haven is a place where artists can really thrive."

And indeed, the production of Shimmer drew from New Haven's rich arts landscape; over one-third of the musical's 21 cast members are based in the city. Long Wharf Theatre, which this year moved formally into its first performances of itinerancy, was excited to join as a collaborator.

Rachel Alderman, assistant artistic director at the theater, said that Long Wharf "originally came on as a thought partner," but was especially instrumental in helping with casting.

For New Havener Albert P. Lee, who played Calvin Byfield, the production represented a significant homecoming. Lee originally left the city when he was 17 years old, "because I had these big ideas and big thoughts and felt confined to one subset of the city." Years later, he's excited to see art flourishing in his hometown—and to be part of it.

"To come back and see art proliferating from all sides of the city is so exciting to me," he said.

The workshop promises to be the first major step in bringing a full-fledged production of the musical to the stage. The play will continue to develop in New Haven in hopes of following in the footsteps of many great musicals to come out of the Elm City.