PAUL GEMIGNANI –

"The Dean of American Musical Theatre"

INTERVIEWED BY FORREST PATTEN

When it comes to success on Broadway and the musical theatre, Paul Gemignani has reached the pinnacle. Having been associated with some of the greatest musical productions in the last 30-plus years, he shows no signs of slowing down. On the contrary, Paul continues to accept new challenges in promoting the songs and music of the theatre by performing in a wide variety of concert venues. Through concerts, ballet, opera, recordings, and videos, he is helping new audiences to embrace and appreciate the traditions and wealth of this material.

Paul has worked with just about every big name in the business and is greatly respected by his peers. Producers consider him "the dean of the industry." In 2001, he was presented with a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater. As an artist, he is able to shape a performance by totally communicating with his musicians and the performers on stage. By completely memorizing the conductor’s score, Paul is free to involve himself as "a third actor" in the show.

He has strong opinions and doesn’t mince words. His success is not only based on pure talent, but because he’s always known what he’s wanted to do and stayed the course. One can sense that Paul loves what he does and a dedication for pushing the envelope and going for the best results possible.

On a recent trip to the west coast, Paul and I had a chance to talk about a number of topics. In this exclusive interview for Journal Into Melody, he takes us behind the scenes and comments on a number of issues facing the American musical theatre today.

FORREST PATTEN: Paul, you were born and raised in the San Francisco bay area. You graduated from San Francisco State University with a music degree and started out as a percussionist. How did that lead you to New York and a career as a musical director/conductor?

PAUL GEMIGNANI: I went there from a job I was doing in Minneapolis. I thought that since I was that close (to New York), I might as well go. I went to see a performance of Cabaret and was bowled over by it. I happened to have an actor friend in it. I went backstage after and she introduced me to Hal Hastings, the musical director at that time. I gave him my resume and started with that company (which was run by Hal Prince). I played (drums) for about six or seven months on the road with Cabaret and was then called back to New York (by the same musical director) to play in the Broadway production of Zorba. I then took that show on the road as conductor with John Raitt and Chita Rivera and that was the beginning.

FP: Did you intend to get into this field when you left for New York?

PG: I never intended to get into the musical theatre. I wanted to go into opera or ballet as a conductor. I was so impressed by the creative opportunities in the theatre that I decided to try that. I haven’t left yet!

FP: Today you are considered the "conductor of choice" for the Broadway stage. When you first arrived in New York, was it hard to get established and work your way up?

PG: No, it wasn’t for me only because it was very clear-cut. I told them what I wanted to do. I only played Cabaret on the road, Zorba in New York, and then I went back to do Follies which was a Stephen Sondheim piece. I did Follies in New York and took it over as a conductor in the middle of its run. After that, I never had to play drums again.

FP: So Follies was the vehicle that essentially established you as a conductor.

PG: That and a Sondheim "benefit" (that was recorded) for the AMDA. Everybody in show business was in the theatre, so it was like a big free audition for me. That’s how it pretty much started.

FP: You’ve had a very long and successful association with Stephen Sondheim. How did that relationship get started?

PG: That started with Follies. We work very well together. He’s a wonderful collaborator. We just hit it off. He’s called me for every show so I guess I must have done something right (although I don’t know what that is!).

FP: What a history to have been associated with so many top shows in the last 20 to 30 years!

PG: I’ve been lucky. Out of 40 shows, only one was a revival. Everything else was a brand new production. It gives you an incredible background in how to do these things because doing a brand new show is three times harder than doing something that is already there.

FP: Who are your own personal favourite Broadway composers?

PG: Well, Sondheim certainly. Also Jule Styne and Cy Coleman. It stops there.

FP: In San Francisco, we recently saw the revival of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate (in which you were associated). The house was packed. With that in mind, are the older, more established shows (i.e. productions by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Jerome Kern, or Cole Porter) apt to bring in larger audiences than some of the newer productions?

PG: I think it’s two-fold. I don’t think a lot of the new musicals have the shelf life like the Porter, Gershwin, or Rodgers material. The other thing is that there is an entire new audience who has never seen a live production of Oklahoma, for example. I don’t think that the older shows necessarily do better than the newer ones. If the new production is good, it will make it. One example is Mamma Mia. It’s not one of my favourites, but it is new and seems to have caught the public’s eye. I believe that the wealth of material in the musical theatre needs to be revived, not so much by Broadway (although that’s a good place), but by opera companies. That’s happening a little bit. Otherwise that whole thing is lost. It’s sort of like jazz. Look how long it took everybody to get together with jazz in this country. Now it’s an established thing, but when I was growing up it wasn’t. Some people knew about it or thought jazz meant Dean Martin singing. Since there’s a new generation who will see these things, I think it’s important that we preserve them because it’s an important American art-form. However we choose to preserve them (whether on Broadway or in the opera house), we need to take responsibility.

FP: Compare Andrew Lloyd Webber with Stephen Sondheim.

PG: I think that Lloyd Webber has done some good things for the musical. I consider Jesus Christ Superstar to be his best score. The rest have not been based around the strongest of material. Take Phantom Of The Opera, for example. It’s more production-oriented, like a Hal Prince show. I just did a recording with Renee Flemming and Bryn Terfel. We had to include two Lloyd Webber songs because of the record company’s perception of what sells. In all fairness to Andrew, I do think that Jesus Christ Superstar is a wonderful score for the theatre. Phantom and Evita were not as good scores as that, but were developed by production values. Everybody has their place.

FP: You mention the concept of production values. With the emphasis on staging and visual elements, is the music actually getting lost in the shuffle?

PG: There are two factors, I believe. Writers, composers and authors are in a bad place because they want their work to be performed. In some ways (to be crude), they don’t care how it’s done. They just want it done. The one person that could fight for something (and get away with it) is the composer. They won’t. None of them will. The last one I knew who would fight like that was Jule Styne. It originally cost $750,000 to do a show like Follies. If we were to do the same show today, it would cost something like $14,000,000. It’s just astronomically expensive to work in the commercial theatre and to get your work done. And it’s run now by a bunch of businessmen and corporations. They’re not the David Merricks who, as tough as he was, was a showman. That makes it hard. I do think production values have taken over and have over-shadowed what is necessary. Has the music suffered? It didn’t in Kiss Me Kate. I don’t think that it has in others. In some places I think it has. The more they take the live orchestra and reduce it in size to save money, the less important music becomes. Someone has to fight, and the best person to do that is the composer. I have a thing about myself where I’ll not take a show where the orchestra is off-stage. I’ll never do Cats, for example, where the musicians are spread out somewhere in a building and you have to watch them on television monitors. That’s not the art-form. It’s the same way in using click tracks or not having the whole orchestra present when you make a record. Using technology for the wrong reason is garbage. Sound enhancement in the theatre is something else. I’m constantly fighting for natural sound using the pure acoustics of the venue. When we toured with Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, we used only drapes and a few props. Nobody said a word. It was a great show and we didn’t need all of that production stuff. It’s still true as far as I’m concerned.

FP: I’ve often felt that it was Andrew Lloyd Webber who started the trend of using more synthesizers in his shows while eliminating the need for real players.

PG: He did use synthesizers, but he didn’t reduce the number of players. What he used in Evita, for instance, was a Moog synthesizer for the lower tones. That was the only synthesizer in the show. He came from rock and roll and brought along some of the technology. He used a real piano and two real guitars. Lloyd Webber knows about synthesizers and how to use them. I think what’s happened is in an effort to save money, producers have forced the technology of synthesizers. I’ve had several shows where I’ve had synthesizers in the pit. Passions was one. We had two, in fact, but not replacing instruments. When we were at the Plymouth (theatre), we could only fit 15 players in the pit. Two were on keyboards. They happened to be synthesizers because we couldn’t get a grand piano in there. From a recorded sample, you try to make it sound like the real thing. We just went through a union thing in New York about "virtual orchestras." Nobody is going to accept that…..the public or anybody else. The sad part about it is that the producers know very little about what we do, what should be, and how little pride they have in presenting what the sound should be in a live musical. I don’t think that the use of the synthesizer with the orchestra is bad as long as it’s used correctly. I’ll give you an example. On Kiss Me Kate, John Sebesky (whom I have the greatest respect for as an orchestrator) and I decided to push the style button on that show. When we were in an Elizabethan period, he would orchestrate using little drums and recorders. For the 1940’s sections, we’d play real swing. This was a lot different from the 1950’s when most musicals tended to sound the same and have a "Broadway sound." Because the producer would only allow us 15 players, we took the Kurzweil synthesizer and got a great Baldwin piano, and then used the rest of the keyboard for various percussion effects that we couldn’t fit into the pit.

FP: You mentioned the recent strike with New York musicians. Were you satisfied with how that was resolved?

PG: No. When it comes to dictating the number of musicians for a given show, producers are saving, maybe, $10,000 a week. And for a major Broadway musical (with its multi-million dollar price tag), this is considered "chump change." After all, it’s called the Broadway musical. A blind man can’t come to a performance and see just the set or the staging. I’m going to guess that shows like Mamma Mia and Phantom bring in about $400,000 a week. To penny-pinch and argue about minimums is false. The union for stagehands will look at a show and tell you how many of their members need to be involved and that’s it. If we (the members of the musician’s union) were under the same system as the stagehands, producers would be forced to accept our input. For example, if I walk into a show like Into The Woods and tell them that I need 20 musicians, they’ll turn around and tell me that I’m only getting 11. And I have to deal with it. The stagehands don’t have to deal with it. Somebody tells them that they need 15 men and that’s what they get. So it’s not logical. I was fairly vocal about how I’m against this and I don’t think that I’m very popular with the producers at the moment. That’s OK; that’s what unions are for. But I do think that our union sold us down the river. I do think they pulled out too early. We lost a lot of men when you add it up. We went from 24 or 26 players (in the bigger theatres) down to 18 or 19. And that’s now the minimum. You’re going to have to fight for every extra player, but you’re not going to get it. It’s caving in on itself. This has never been a business in New York that knew what they had. It was always the artists and composers that used to fight for stuff because they understood the medium. There used to be a "Broadway" sound. There’s no "Broadway" sound anymore because it’s too diverse. I can’t remember the last time I had an orchestra of more than 15 players. And the average orchestra in New York used to be 26. When we did A Little Night Music, we had 26. The same for Evita, I believe. When we did Crazy For You, it was 24 or 25. The average orchestra in New York has gone down to 15 or 16. I’m at the point in my career where I’ll probably do more Broadway shows, but I will also do a lot of stuff in the opera house….not necessarily opera, but these musicals, especially Sondheim. I’m going to London to do Sweeney Todd. That will be followed by a concert version of Passions with the Chicago Symphony this summer. Those kinds of things will be more and more. I’m going to gravitate to them because it’s more the real thing as opposed to leading a "pep band."

FP: Paul, once you’ve agreed to do a show, take us through the process from the beginning steps through to the opening night curtain.

PG: I make sure that the orchestrator is shown each number in the show. He needs to talk to the choreographer, the composer, and to me. That comes after about three weeks of rehearsal. The first thing you do is audition for the cast. You audition with the director, the choreographer, and maybe, one producer, plus the casting director and myself. Your job there is to make sure that the people you’re hiring can actually do the job. The next step is the rehearsal where you’re going to put all of these people together and teach them the music. In my case, I’m also responsible for the vocal arrangements and the underscoring. That’s not a prerequisite of a musical director; it’s something I just do. You’re the composer’s right hand guy. If the composer’s dead, you’re still his right hand guy. You’re protecting what you think the composer meant when he wrote the score. In a case like Steve (Sondheim), you can talk to him. In the case of someone like George Gershwin or Cole Porter, you just hope that you’re smart enough to do what they wanted. Once you’ve completed the usual four weeks of rehearsal (or up to six weeks if it’s a brand new musical), you need to contract the orchestra. I do this; lots of guys don’t. They let an outside contractor perform that function. I feel like if I’m going to say to you "do something" or, if I’m standing in front of you every night, I need to be the one that asks you to come to work for me. I’ve always done that from the beginning. I hire my own orchestra. I start thinking about that when I get the score. Who would be good for each chair? I then give a list to the guy who works with me (the orchestra contractor that the union requires), we discuss it and make any additions or deletions, and then he goes and hires the orchestra. We then start a two-week period of technical rehearsals where we start to go through the show very slowly with a piano and maybe drums. You’ve gone from the rehearsal hall into the theatre. There’s a minimal set and the lighting guy is there. During that period, I rehearse the orchestra. This is where the cast gets to hear the score for the very first time. It’s one of the most exciting times because everyone who has been working on the show will hear the music beyond the piano and drums. The orchestrator is also there. Then we do dress rehearsals with costumes, staging, and the orchestra. We’ll maybe do three of those. After that, we do a first preview. From then to the opening (which is about a month), we’ll rehearse during the daytime (usually 1 to 5 in the afternoon) and then do a preview each night (for about four or five weeks) and then we open.

FP: How do you handle artistic temperament?

PG: I’ve never had anybody walk out. But I think that performers can get insecure. Most of that temperament is insecurity. Elaine Stritch is a handful. Renee Flemming is a handful, but for the right reasons. What you have to do is to understand that and not push your ego up against theirs. You’re there to facilitate them. You’re there to make them look good. I find that once they understand that, you don’t get any temperament. I’ve been pretty lucky because I’ve worked with everybody. I can’t think of anybody who has given me such a hard time that I didn’t know what to do. That’s not what they really want to do. They want to be great. They want to be good. Anytime you get temperament or craziness, it’s something that they’re feeling insecure about. If there’s something wrong, you’ve got to find out what that reason is. There have been some tough people to work with, but I’m not always that easy to work with either! We’re all there for the same reasons. You’ve just got to keep that straight in your mind.

FP: Let’s talk about orchestrators.

PG: I have two who I think are brilliant: Jonathan Tunick and Don Sebesky. There are other good ones, but for my personal taste, I could be very happy with those two. There are many who can do a good job, but only a very few are geniuses at it. I just finished doing A Little Night Music. When you hear the orchestrations that Jonathan did 25 years ago, they sound as if they were done yesterday. It’s the same with the Gershwin library, especially the pieces that George personally arranged.

FP: Your recent Decca recording UNDER THE STARS featuring opera stars Renee Flemming and Bryn Terfel is an example of a cross-over album. How do the opera megastars feel about performing songs from musicals rather than arias from grand opera?

PG: Renee and Bryn both love the musicals. I’ve worked with people like Samuel Ramey, Marilyn Horne, Thomas Hampson and Jerry Hadley. They all love singing this material. Whether they all can is another question. They need to give the same mental work and understand the style. The hardest part of my job is to get them to come from the style that is mainly vowels and a different kind of singing to an art-form that comes from the lyric first. In opera, it’s the music first followed by the lyric. These two (Flemming and Terfel) are brilliant at it. We walked into a studio, never having heard a single note of orchestration, and had sort of a slip-shod run-through of the material the day before we started recording (so we could make suggestions and find out what they were thinking). I think the concept of "cross-over" is something that the record companies came up with. It’s music of the theatre, simply that. The whole idea of "cross-over" puts a stigma on it. They invented the word and they’re biting themselves on the foot for it. The record companies are doing this because they’re struggling. They’re scratching at anything because they’re in big trouble. For example, they’re putting a lot of weight on the new Simon Rattle recording of the Beethoven Symphonies in hopes that it will do something. The whole idea of having 12 versions of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in your record collection is because there are 12 different artists performing the work. Most people don’t care about artists. Audiences have not been developed along with the rest of the art-form. That’s why Broadway right now is a theme park. Audiences don’t demand anything. I don’t think 20 years ago that a show like Mamma Mia could have stayed open. Television has dulled everybody’s brain. They’ll accept anything that’s put in front of them. It does not help the artist in this country, or the world for that matter. I’m really proud of UNDER THE STARS. If they want to call it "cross-over," then it’s a premiere example of what it should be. Both artists are invested in the material; they both understand the lyrics; they both know who the characters are. That’s not always true when these opera singers cross-over. To listen to Tom Hampson (who sings great lieder songs) just walk through "All The Things You Are" is not enough. That music comes from a different place. I think it’s a good thing that opera singers are singing everything because it’s music of the theatre and it belongs with good voices. Most of the stuff is intended for good voices. It just doesn’t always happen.

FP: How do you feel about rock music and what’s happening in the commercial pop field today?

PG: I think that the kids have a good finger on the pulse of things. I think this guy Eminem is cool and is doing some good stuff. There’s so much garbage around it, however. Rap is my least favourite. I just don’t understand why it’s worth anything. And the "monster" or "gangsta" rap is very destructive. It’s wrong in every sense of the word. I have a 17-year old stepson. I try to go back and remember what I was listening to at his age. In the big picture, I think that the music industry is as good as it ever was. There are many artists in it and a good percentage will continue to emerge. Take somebody like Diana Krall. The record companies are destroying her at the moment (as they did Carmen MacRae). She’ll pull out of it, though. There are a lot of pop artists out there that are worth it. I would like to see kids listening to a variety of music. I did and my 23-year-old son does. He’s in the theatre now and always listens to quite a spectrum. I’ve always done that as a musician to keep up. As I said, I don’t like rap, but I listen to it on the radio in order to see what people are listening to. It’s like a bit of homework for me. I think it’s healthy and, at the same time, hard to accept. People have no real opinion artistically. That’s what guides everybody. If everybody stood up and said "if I see one more commercial, I’m going to turn my cable in," there wouldn’t be anymore commercials on television. As consumers, we have great powers that we never use. I’ve seen it dwindle in the theatre and in music. And the record companies wonder why they have to focus most of their sales devices to teenagers or to older people. For the middle group, there’s nothing for them to listen to. They won’t promote a singer like Mark Murphy, for example, who’s been around for as long as I’ve been doing my thing. He’s a great jazz singer. They don’t re-issue Jack Jones’ greatest material. They don’t do anything for the middle ground people. Kids will buy anything. They’ll go down and buy a record because they’ve heard of a particular artist (just like we did when we were their age). The pop music world is not catering to anybody except those who are buying the records. Nobody is forcing them to do anything else. It’s the same audience participation problem.

FP: Who are some of your favourite artists? Who do you listen to when you’re away from the theatre and just want to kick back?

PG: I listen to classical music. I listen to a lot of jazz. I enjoy singers like Carmen MacRae, Sarah Vaughn, and Diana Krall. I find myself going to the music store and instead of coming out with 10 records, I’ll have three. I don’t buy any real pop albums. I’ll listen to the radio for that. I definitely love Dave Grushin, especially his big band stuff. One of my favourite film scores by him is The Firm. He’s a great artist and I love his work. Don Sebesky has a few albums out that I would take with me. I love Mel Torme. There is no modern singer I can equate that to. That’s the period I’m stuck in terms of that music. I like Beethoven and Eminem. I particularly like George Solti’s recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. There’s Glenn Gould. I also like the recent release of the complete symphonies of Shostokovich. You notice that I haven’t mentioned any musicals!

FP: That brings me to my next question. Is there a particular musical that you haven’t done yet that you’d really like to do?

PG: Porgy And Bess without a doubt. There’s also a funny little musical I did back in college called Leave It To Jane by Jerome Kern.

FP: Would you like to be involved with more film or broadcast scores?

PG: Sure. I won’t do a film score where I have to listen to click-tracks or become too involved technically. It’s got to be the old way or I’m not going to do it. I did Reds. I did Kramer Vs. Kramer. I did a bunch of travelogues which were great because you look at the film, the guy shows you the scenes, you do the music and there’s a movement to it. It’s how John Williams and all of Europe do their scores. You would not be able to go into an Italian or French studio and tell the conductor to put on a headset because he was going to have to follow what was being fed to him. He’d throw the headset on the floor! So I wouldn’t want to get into the technical end of it at all. I don’t care about it. It’s not making music for film. I think that film music is as expressive as any music going if it’s done correctly. It needs to be played to a scene while you’re feeling the emotion of what you’re looking at in that scene. It’s free-form. Yes, on that level, I’d love to be able to do more films. Do I want to do musicals on film? No. I have no interest in doing a film like Chicago. It’s piecemeal; it’s too technical; it has nothing to do with anything. Even though I haven’t seen the film, I know how that kind of show is done. I wouldn’t be interested in doing that kind of thing. I didn’t like the film Moulin Rouge. Not because of what was done visually; I hated the choice of music. It was a joke. I thought that it made Nicole Kidman look moronic with the choices of music they put in there and what she sang. The jump-cutting is a technique that you either buy or you don’t. In Chicago I can see how it might work. I’d rather work on a romantic film or something like Mullholland Drive or The Firm where the music becomes a character (as opposed to a device to move the story along). In Reds, the music moved the story along and had a romantic connection to what was coming next. We just saw Tom Hank’s film The Road To Perdition. I’d enjoy working on a film like that. I’m not against the tools. I just don’t want to be involved with them.

FP: In New York, there was a rallying of forces following the events of 9/11. We heard how those in the theatre community wanted to go on, even when the crowds were not there. What were your thoughts?

PG: Our show Kiss Me Kate really started that whole movement. Actually, I was in London (in a rehearsal hall) when 9/11 hit. We were rehearsing the London production of Kiss Me Kate when we came up for a break. The doorman had a television set on where you saw the smoke coming out from one of the towers. Because John F. Kennedy Jr. had gone down in a plane not too long before that, the first thing that came to my mind was that some pilot (who had not done his homework) had crashed into the building. And boom, the second plane hit. It was obvious then that it was something else. The whole creative team was over there, so they sent me back (on September 11) to New York to conduct the Broadway show. They wanted somebody from the creative team to be there in order to make the cast feel more secure. The minute I got back, the closing notice went up. The producers are businessmen, they’re not artists. They didn’t want to lose their shirts. We went to them and said that we’d give 50% of our salary back for six weeks if they kept the show going. They agreed. Suddenly, everybody jumped on the band wagon when they heard what we did. That was one of the positive things that happened. The people came back in about a week. We played to full houses for the rest of the time we were open. Local people came back because it gave them something to do. The city was a mess. With the dust and the dirt, it was like being in a volcano for at least a month. It was pretty scary actually when you consider what happened in that city. The people really rallied. So when the business started coming back, the two producers of our show gave us all our money back. The problem right now is tourism in New York. It’s not what it used to be and people are still not coming back as of yet.

FP: Tell us about your next projects.

PG: I’m going to London to do Sweeney Todd at Covent Garden. In between now and then I’ll be conducting a West Side Story Suite and a new Richard Rodgers compilation piece called Thou Swell (orchestrated by Don Sebesky) for the New York City Ballet Company. Following a vacation, it will be Alan Menken’s A Christmas Carol (that we do every year). After that, I’ll go to London for about ten weeks. At the beginning of the year, we’re hopefully going to do Assassins at the Roundabout. That hasn’t been confirmed yet. Around May, I’m going to do Frogs with Nathan Lane. I’m looking forward to that.

FP: Paul, we’ve covered a lot of ground today. Any final thoughts or comments?

PG: I hope that all the young musicians who want to be professionals have the same opportunity and the same ability to hold onto their dreams (as I’ve been able to do.) I hope that audiences will get tougher on what they accept and what they don’t accept so that the artist has a platform in which to work from.

PAUL GEMIGNANI: A SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

INSTRUMENTAL ALBUMS

*Broadway’s Best (conducts the New York City Opera Orchestra) (1993)
*Broadway Extravaganza, Vol. 1: Symphonic Recollections (conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) (1987)
*Digital Trip Down Broadway (conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) (1987)
*Two Symphonic Pictures: Phantom Of The Opera / Jesus Christ Superstar (conducts the Royal Philharmonic Pops) (1988)

CONDUCTS FOR THE FOLLOWING VOCAL ARTISTS

*Betty Buckley: Evening At Carnegie Hall (1996)
*Patti Cohenour: To An Isle In The Water (1998)
*Placido Domingo: Man Of La Mancha (1996)
*Renee Flemming & Bryn Terfel: Under The Stars (2003)
*Jerry Hadley: Standing Room Only (1992)
*Thomas Hampson: Leading Man (1996)
*Mandy Patinkin: Dress Casual (1990)
*John Raitt: Broadway Legend (1995)
*Stephen Sondheim: Send In The Clowns (The Ballads Of Stephen Sondheim) (2002)

ORIGINAL CAST / STUDIO CASTS / REVIVALS (Musical Director and/or Conductor)

*Assassins (1991)
*Big (1996)
*Christmas Carol (1995)
*Crazy For You (1992)
*Follies: In Concert (1985)
*Frogs / Evening Primrose (2001)
*Grind (1998)
*High Society (1999)
*Into The Woods (1988 & 2002)
*Kismet (1991 studio cast)
*Kiss Me Kate (2000 revival)
*Little Night Music (1998)
*On The Twentieth Century (1991)
*Passion (1994)
*1776 (1997 revival)
*Sweeney Todd (1979)
*Sunday In The Park With George (1984)
*Zorba (1983)

COLLECTIONS / VARIOUS ARTISTS

*I Got Rhythm: The Music Of George Gershwin (1992)
*Lost In The Stars: The Music Of Kurt Weill (1985)
*Sondheim: A Celebration At Carnegie Hall (1993)
*Star Spangled Rhythm (Smithsonian) (1997)
*My Favourite Broadway: The Leading Ladies (1999)
*My Favourite Broadway: The Love Songs (2001)
*We Love New York (2002)
*Encores From Encores! (2003)
*Ultimate Broadway, Vol. 2 (2003)

ON VIDEO & DVD

*Follies: In Concert (New York) (1985)
*Under The Stars (with Renee Fleming & Bryn Terfel) 2003

Forrest Patten:

I’d like to thank Paul Gemignani, his parents, Paul and Marge Gemignani, and his sister, Marie Souza, for making arrangements and offering the facilities to conduct this interview.

The interview took place on April 22, 2003 in Danville, California.