Alan H. Fishman, Vice Chairman Of The Board Adam E. Max .

#50SongMemoir2016 BAM Next Wave FestivalBrooklyn Academy of MusicAlan H. Fishman,Chairman of the BoardWilliam I. Campbell,Vice Chairman of the BoardAdam E. Max,Vice Chairman of the BoardKaty Clark,PresidentJoseph V. Melillo,Executive ProducerThe MagneticFields: 50 SongMemoirBAM Howard Gilman Opera HouseDec 2 & 3 at 7:30pmRunning time: approx. one hour & 40 minutes, including intermissionWritten and arranged by Stephin MerrittProduced by the Magnetic Fieldsin association with Nick Schwartz-HallDirected by José ZayasSet designer Arnulfo MaldonadoProjections designer Alex Basco KochLighting designer Mark O’MaleySound designer Dan BoraSeason Sponsor:Support for the Signature Artist Series provided byHoward Gilman Foundation.THE MAGNETIC FIELDSStephin Merrittvoice, etc.Sam Davolcellos, etc.Christopher Ewen keyboards, etc.Anthony Kaczynski guitars, etc.Quince Marcumpercussion, etc.Shirley Simmsbouzouki, etc.Pinky Weitzmanviolas, etc.

50 Song MemoirPROGRAM ONE—Dec 2PROGRAM TWO—Dec 37.38.39.40.41.42.43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.Wonder Where I’m FromCome Back as a CockroachA Cat Called DionysusJudy GarlandThey’re Killing Children Over ThereI Think I’ll Make Another WorldEye ContactIt Could Have Been ParadiseNoMy Mama Ain’tHustle 76Life Ain’t All BadThe Blizzard of ’78Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Ruin Your LifeLondon by JetpackHow to Play the SynthesizerHappy BeepingFoxx and IDanceteria!Why I Am Not a TeenagerHow I Failed EthicsAt the PyramidEthan FromeThe 1989 Musical Marching ZooDreaming in TetrisThe Day I Finally.Weird DiseasesMe and Fred and Dave and TedHaven’t Got a PennyA Serious MistakeI’m Sad!Eurodisco TrioLovers’ LiesFathers in the CloudsGhosts of the Marathon DancersHave You Seen It in the Snow?Be True to Your BarThe Ex and ICold-Blooded ManNever Again“Quotes”In the Snow White CottagesSurfin’Till You Come Back To Me20,000 Leagues Under the SeaStupid TearsYou Can Never Go Back to New YorkBig Enough for Both of UsI Wish I Had PicturesSomebody’s FetishADDITIONAL PRODUCTION CREDITSAssistant projection designer John EricksonProjection illustrators Roger Miller, Jocelyn O'Shea, Alexander PetrowskyProjection editors Stephanie Beattie, Ryan PowellProjection animators John Erickson, Alex PetrowskyAssistant scenic designer Anshuman BhatiaMonitor engineer Mike AmacioTour manager Jason ThompsonManagement Claudia GonsonProduced with commissioning support from:BAM; Barbican Theatre, UK; Center for the Art of Performance, UCLA; Edinburgh InternationalFestival; Melbourne FestivalDevelopmental residency support provided by MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA.Rehearsals for 50 Song Memoir provided by ArtsEmerson, Boston, MA.The Magnetic Fields wish to thank Claudia Gonson, Robert Hurwitz, and Erik Selz.

Top left photo by Stephin Merritt. All others by Sam Davol.

50 Song Memoir—NotesSTEPHIN MERRITT ON 50 SONG MEMOIROn Wednesday, October 22, 2014 at 1:45pm, at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, Nonesuch PresidentRobert Hurwitz told me he had a swell idea for a new album by the Magnetic Fields: an albummarking my 50th birthday with 50 autobiographical songs. I had just completed a rigorously factbased mini-musical for the radio show This American Life, and it seemed like an idea I could takefurther, with myself as subject.So I started recording at my 50th birthday party—which I forgot to put on the album—and meant tofinish in a year; I was seven months late. Most of the recording I did at home, as usual, with the planto use 50 instruments, but I ended up playing twice that, and involving 13 other performers (whoplayed 40 other instruments). The record also expanded into the past as I incorporated recordingsfrom 30 years ago, and fragments of songs I wrote as a teenager.For the concert version I am working with some musicians I have known for decades (I met ShirleySimms when she was nine and I was 12) and some not (Quince Marcum I met a month ago; I don’teven know where he lives). But I expect us all to reunite for 100 Song Memoir, half a century fromtonight. Possibly on Mars.—Stephin MerrittDIRECTOR’S STATEMENTThe first image that came to my mind when I started thinking about a framework for the concert wasSamuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. I imagined Stephin singing into a tape recorder in an enclosedspace, traveling backwards and forwards through time and calmly moving from reel to reel. I thoughtof it as a memory archive. But what would a Stephin Merritt memory archive look like?His house of course. An environment full of musical instruments, books, toys, unusual portraits, tikibars, space ships, robots, geegaws, tchotchkes, and dollhouses. Stephin collects tin dollhouses. Andthat’s the space you find him in. He is inside one of his dollhouses as if transported there by a scienceexperiment gone awry, surrounded by 50 years of ornaments and gadgets. Outside the dollhouse arethe six musicians who play 50 assorted instruments and accompany him on the magical mystery tourthrough his past.The things on the set are all from his home. Above him is a picture frame. And inside this frame youwill see a shifting landscape of images and text—think of it as a speech balloon in a comic, some ofthe things you will see are true and some will be less true but they will all tell the story, in fragments,of Stephin Merritt’s life.—José Zayas

Who’s WhoBack. Merritt has composed incidental music forthe HarperCollins audio books of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket and for NeilGaiman’s Coraline, and subsequently releasedan album Songs from a Series of UnfortunateEvents. In 2014, Merritt released 101 Two LetterWords, a book of poems about the tiniest wordsin the Scrabble dictionary, illustrated by RozChast. houseoftomorrow.com.SAM DAVOL (musician) has recorded, performed, and toured as a member of the MagneticFields for almost 30 years. He and his wife Leslieco-founded and run a nonprofit called the UniProject, which creates programming for publicspace in NYC. They live with their two childrenin lower Manhattan.CHRISTOPHER EWEN (musician) is a Cambridge (MA) based electronic musician andDJ. Formerly a member of 80s/90s alternativerock band Figures on a Beach, he is now thecomposer and main instrumentalist for FutureBible Heroes, his ongoing electro-pop collaboraPhoto: Sam DavolSTEPHIN MERRITT (composer, musician) is thewriter-singer-producer of the Magnetic Fields, the6ths, and the Gothic Archies. He also has thegroup Future Bible Heroes, in collaboration withChristopher Ewen. To date, he has written, produced, and recorded 11 albums with the Magnetic Fields. Their 1999 album, 69 Love Songs,garnered widespread acclaim, including “best of”year-end lists in Spin, Rolling Stone, The NewYork Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and many other major publications.The Magnetic Fields have performed as part ofLincoln Center’s American Songwriters seriesand at BAM’s Next Wave of Song in the NextWave Festival. Merritt has composed originalmusic and lyrics for three music theater piecesdirected by Chen Shi-Zheng, and mounted anoff-Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman’sCoraline. He composed the score for the Academy Award-nominated film Pieces of April (dir.Peter Hedges) and for the independent film Ebanand Charley, and released soundtrack albums foreach. His song The Book of Love was performedby Peter Gabriel on his 2010 album Scratch My

Photo: Sam Davol

Yannick GrandmontPhotos: Sam Davol

Photo: Sam DavolWho’s Whotion with Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson.He appeared on the Magnetic Fields’ 69 LoveSongs, and collaborated on a song with TanyaDonelly for her recent Swan Song Series. EwenDJs at several club nights in Cambridge, Boston,and Provincetown. He is currently recording hisfirst solo album.ANTHONY KACZYNSKI (musician) is a singersongwriter-guitarist/multi-instrumentalist. Hecurrently leads the rock band Fireking, and wasa founding member of 1980’s synth-pop bandFigures on a Beach. In 2013, he performed livealongside former FOAB member ChristopherEwen in one of Stephin Merritt’s other projects,Future Bible Heroes. Kaczynski lives in Boston withhis partner and the world’s largest chihuahua.QUINCE MARCUM (musician) has performedwith Greek Judas, The Hungry March Band, andMetal Flake Mother, among others. He has livedin North Carolina and Brooklyn.SHIRLEY SIMMS (musician) met Stephin Merrittthe week before her 10th birthday. Soon after,they composed their only song together, “Beacha Boop-Boop.” An accomplished songwriter,Simms has fronted several bands, including LazySusan, a group with long-time Magnetic Fieldsmember Claudia Gonson, whom she met in highschool. She provided vocals for an early versionof the first Magnetic Fields album, Distant PlasticTrees, in 1988. She reappeared with the band in1999 as a vocalist on 69 Love Songs, providinglead vocals for six songs. In 2008, she formallyjoined the Magnetic Fields, singing roughly halfthe songs on its subsequent three albums andtouring around the US and Europe, providinglead and harmony vocals and playing ukuleleand autoharp. In 2013, Simms also toured withone of Merritt’s other bands, Future Bible Heroes,along with Gonson and current TMF membersChris Ewen and Anthony Kaczyinski.PINKY WEITZMAN (musician), one of NYC’sfew but proud rock violists, has performed withBelle and Sebastian, Moby, Crash Test Dummies, and the Hold Steady. She toured with TonyAward-winning rock musical Spring Awakeningand has played theater runs including Natasha,Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 and Araby.She sings and plays viola, Stroh violin, musical

Who’s Whosaw, and bass in various bands, and gleefullyfronts the junkyard quartet Not WavingBut Drowning.Photo: Sam DavolJOSÉ ZAYAS (director) has directed more than90 productions in New York, regionally, andinternationally. Credits include: Aunt Julia andthe Scriptwriter, Burundanga, The House ofthe Spirits, Your Name Will Follow You Home,Barcelo con Hielo, La Nena Se Casa, Love in theTime of Cholera, In the Time of the Butterflies,Madre (el drama padre), Besame Mucho,Nowhere on the Border, Letters to a Mother(Repertorio Español); Cancun, Chronicle of aDeath Foretold (Gala Theatre); Pinkolandia (INTAR and Two River Theatre); Father of Lies andVengeance Can Wait (PS122); PS Jones and theFrozen City, Feeder: A Love Story (TerraNOVACollective); Okay and Mrs. Jones and the ManFrom Dixieland (EST); The Idea of Me (CherryLane Mentor Project); La Isla de Los HombresSolos (Teatro Espressivo, Costa Rica); andCorazon Eterno (Mixed Blood). He is a DramaLeague Fellow, and has been part of LincolnCenter Director’s Lab, Soho Rep W/D Lab, andthe 2009 —11 NEA/TCG Career DevelopmentProgram for Directors. He received a BA fromHarvard University and an MFA from CarnegieMellon University.ARNULFO MALDONADO (scenic designer)is a New York City-based set and costumedesigner. Recent credits include: Kingdom Come(Roundabout), Caught (Play Co), Men on Boats(Playwrights Horizons), Hillary and Clinton(Philadelphia Theatre Company), Macbeth (OldGlobe), As You Like It (Center Stage), Iphigeniain Aulis (CSC), and Iowa (Playwrights Horizons).Maldonado is a Clubbed Thumb Affiliated Artist,a recipient of a Princess Grace Fabergé TheaterAward, and the resident scenic designer at theNational Playwrights Conference. He earned anMFA at NYU Tisch. arnulfomaldonado.comALEX BASCO KOCH (projections designer)designs projections for theater, live events, andfilm. Notable designs include Irena’s Vow onBroadway; Marley, a world-premiere musical