Liz Swados has died

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Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 9:43pm

My first adult-free Broadway trip was to see Runaways in 1978 with my best high school friend. We were very sophisticated. At least we acted as if we were the entire day. I have never forgotten the show and frequently make references to it to this very day.

Some people around here have been known to right mean things about Swados (how very me of them!), but I always respected her desire to try something new.

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Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 9:46pm

She also taught at Columbia, wrote some very cool books, and composed original music for small off-off-Broadway productions gratis as recently as two years ago. A genuine American pioneer of devised theater. This clip from THE TROJAN WOMEN is totally intense:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9sWweGh03Q

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Updated On: 1/5/16 at 09:46 PM

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 9:55pm

I knew Liz Swados. I was tangentially involved with Runaways, knew many of the cast members and was present during some of the rehearsals. Back then, I didn't like Ms. Swados. But, that was years ago and strangely, I was moved by the title of this post. Interesting. I do wish those who loved her well.

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Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:02pm

Worth reading:

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Man-Elizabeth-Swados/dp/0670842028/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452049178&sr=1-1&keywords=elizabeth+swados+myth

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:09pm

I like the medley performed on the Tony's from RUNAWAYS but I can't say I've ever heard the cast album, even though I have an LP of it. Might dig it out and give a listen in Ms. Swados's memory

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Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:13pm

She was truly an original. She win an Obie at age 21 for the music for Andrei Serban's Fragments of a Greek Trilogy, which was one of the most overwhelming and exhilarating theatrical experiences I will ever have.

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:15pm

I have a soft spot for the Doonsebury score.

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:16pm

I saw Runaways as a kid. I remember not understanding it but enjoying the experience.. Years later I dealt with Liz Swados when I was a student at NYU. I didn't understand her. But I enjoyed the experience. R.I.P.

HUSSY POWER! ------ HUSSY POWER!

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:22pm

I saw a touring iteration of the Doonesbury show but I don't think it was the show seen on the Broadway so I can't remember if it even had Swados music. It did have Mark Linn-Baker and a guy who did an uncanny Reagan impersonation, Jim somebody.

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#10

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:33pm

I have a Swados soft spot myself. Such a presence, voice, sound and theatrical idea ("a Liz Swados score" used to be a particular point of reference, an access in a conversation about musical theater). I think it's interesting that Jeanine Tesori mentions her much less frequently as a forerunner, a solid set of shoulders on which to stand (She doesn't mention Cryer and Ford either, to be fair.) When I moved to NYC in the late 70s, "Swados" was cutting edge, downtown, iconoclastic.

"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling

Updated On: 1/5/16 at 10:33 PM

#11

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/5/16 at 10:46pm

Which is why we HAD to bus in an see it on our own!! There are parts of that score I still think of all the time. I mean, there was a number called "Song of a Child Prostitute" sung by a teenage girl!

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#12

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 12:55am

FindingNamo said: "I saw a touring iteration of the Doonesbury show but I don't think it was the show seen on the Broadway so I can't remember if it even had Swados music. It did have Mark Linn-Baker and a guy who did an uncanny Reagan impersonation, Jim somebody.

Mark Linn-Baker was in the Broadway cast, so it's possible.

Also in the Broadway cast was Laura Dean (sad Lisa in Fame), who went on to have a recurring role on Friends, Lauren Tom (who also was a recurring guest on Friends), and Kate Burton.

I found the LP in a bargain bin at a record store when I was in high school. The girl checking me out got a weird look on her face and said "what is this?" The score is weird and astringent-sounding, but I really love it

#13

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 1:01am

She was a renaissance woman. And something of a genius. She deserves more recognition, and that's on all of us now who care about New York theatre history, education, experiment, and social outreach.

#14

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 1:21am

Well said

#15

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 1:28am

Let me, be a kid!

Listened to that constantly. may she rest in peace.

Just give the world Love. - S. Wonder

#16

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 4:05am

Sad news. I was obsessed with the RUNAWAYS cast album in middle school (thank you Mr. Hofler!)

She chose some extremely talented kids (at the time) to be in the show, among them: Carlo Imperato, Ray Contreras, Josie De Guzman, Trini Alvarado and Diane Lane.

May she R.I.P.

Liz Swados has died

Updated On: 1/6/16 at 04:05 AM

#17

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 5:59am

So sad. I'm a fan of her scores (especially Runaways and Alice in Concert). Her writings on music and collaborating with young people on theater have influenced so much of my approach as a theater educator.

#18

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 6:15am

I'm also a fan of Doonesbury. It was probably her most conventional work but it's oddly addictive.

I really wish someone would remaster that score. The material is impossibly dated, but release it with Rap Master Ronnie and you'd have the perfect double bill of 80s musical political satire.

Scarywarhol, that post summed her up perfectly.

R.I.P.

....but the world goes 'round

#19

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 6:30am

That short-lived "Doonesbury" tour featured Marin Mazzie as Boopsie (the Laura Dean role), not long before I worked with her in the summer of 1985. She sang "I Can Have It All," my favorite song from that score.

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#20

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 7:08am

She also sang Complicated Man, which is one of my faves.

....but the world goes 'round

#21

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 10:14am

I re-watched the Tony clip of "Runaways" the other day! I loved that recording and the devastating "Song of a Child Prostitute", "Lullabye for Luis", "Lullabye from Baby to Baby" etc. stuck in my head and couldn't be shaken for days! I'd was 15 and in school singing along with Diane Lane, Josie deGuzman or Trini Alvarado just under my breath.

And don't forget "Alice at the Palace" with Meryl Streep and many others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Y15Crljk4

RIP, Liz!

Sad to hear she was difficult to work with, but I thought she was a genius.

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#22

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 11:22am

No mention of her loopy Alice at the Palace yet? At once such a product of its time and also one of the few adaptations of Alice in Wonderland that captures the feel of the book's strangeness.

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

#23

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 11:29am

I mentioned it and linked it above.

#24

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 11:44am

"My Depression" a short animated musical film she did for HBO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHp1rRy4vzw

#25

Liz Swados has died

Posted: 1/6/16 at 11:59am

Liz Swados has died

Elizabeth Swados, Meryl Streep and Joseph Papp on the set of NY Shakespeare Festival production of musical "Alice."

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