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THE LONGING AND THE SHORT OF IT
Music & lyrics by Daniel Maté
Additional conceptual assistance by Victoria Clark, Max Friedman & Barbara Tomasic
WINNER of the Cole Porter Award for Excellence in Music and Lyrics (ASCAP Foundation)
VOTED Best New Work, BroadwayWorld.com (South Florida)
NOMINATED for 5 Carbonell Awards, including Best Musical
THE STORY OF THE SHOW
The Longing and the Short of It is a song cycle that depicts six lovably neurotic people of various ages, all searching for connection and peace of mind despite their own tendency to self-sabotage. The songs are theatrical and mostly comic takes on a wide range of popular styles, from r&b to jazz, folk to funk. As the evening unfolds the characters start to question old patterns, purge old hurts, express new desires, and open up to new possibilities. The show ends on a note of compassion, communion, and forgiveness.
THE STORY BEHIND THE SHOW
The core of these songs began as standalone theatrical numbers, many of them written on assignment in William Finn’s NYU master class where I began in earnest to hone my voice as a composer-lyricist, with Bill’s invaluable mentorship. In the summer of 2009, Bill invited me to Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, MA), where he hosts a yearly musical theatre lab, to present my work in a public concert. We called it The Longing and the Short of It: the Songs of Daniel Maté, and when it came time to weave these songs into an actual theatre piece, the name stuck. My dear friend and frequent collaborator Victoria Clark directed the first reading at Playwrights Horizons in 2012. The following year, it received an acclaimed production at The Theatre at Arts Garage in Delray Beach, Florida, directed by Max Friedman. Most recently in my home country of Canada, the show played festivals literally from coast to coast: Vancouver’s In Tune Festival and Prince Edward Island’s Charlottetown Festival, both in Summer 2017.
REVIEWS
“Judging from the abundant quality of [the songs] in The Longing and the Short of It, it is inevitable Maté’s work will become widely known and acclaimed… If there’s any justice, these songs and Maté’s voice will be heard across the country.”
-Hap Erstein, Palm Beach Arts Paper
“The show includes no dialogue, but there’s no need for any. Each of the 23 songs is a mini-scene, in which Maté mind-melds with many downtown denizens… The only problem—and if a song cycle is going to have a problem, then this is the best kind to have—is a surfeit of terrific material.”
-Rod Stafford Hagwood, “Your Gay Boyfriend” blog, southflorida.com
“Wryly humorous… deeply affecting…. suffused with passion…. charming, quirky storytelling… Like a reporter, Daniel Maté holds up a mirror so we can examine ourselves more clearly… [His] vision has such incisive clarity that he is more a chronicler whose work decades hence will enable our descendants to see […] this is how we lived in the early part of the 21st Century… If there’s any justice, these songs and Maté’s voice will be heard across the country.”
–Bill Hirschman, Florida Theater On Stage (click to read full review)