LJay, here's an excerpt for an interview with Victor Garber from earlier this year when he did the concert of "Of Thee I Sing" for Encores!:
Since holding a script in hand is a concert-performance custom, how is Garber coping with it? 'It's sort of an art to learn how to use the book, to be able to turn the pages when everyone else does. I'm grateful to have it, but it will be challenging.'
'When I told Victoria Clark, at the time I saw Light in the Piazza again, that I was doing one of these, she said, 'I have one piece of advice: Know it all before you go into rehearsal.' I took her advice, and learned all the music, and read a version of the script...'"
Garber garnered great reviews during this show--unlike Dukakis who was widely criticized for relying too much on the script. I'm seeing the show opening night but I'm not worried because Murphy, McGrath, Garber, and Clark have all been part of an Encores! concert in the past and know what to do and how to handle themselves. I'm sure the four of them will give quite a performance and will not disappoint.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
