Tracey Lynn Frame’s performance of “Amelia’s Nocturne” won first place in the Virginia Theatre Association Festival (2014)! Congrats, Tracey!! Video to follow.
Click here to watch a video of a workshopped performance of the piece (be sure to watch both parts): Brenda Webb – Amelia; R. J. Fleck – piano; Donna Caspar – voice.
Contact chris for a copy of the score. The opening of the script appears below; the complete script can be purchased at stageplays.com.
And click here to listen to the music as a stand-alone piece (it’s the last track on the album titled for Amelia).
***
Dearest Anne, I am writing to you in such misery tonight. Whether the clock has struck two or three I do not know, but there is not a half hour’s light left in this poor candle stub. Becky, the little servant girl (God bless her), smuggled it up to me and I dare not go in search of another lest I be discovered–for I fear then they will take away my piano forever. Oh Anne, what a state has befallen me–I am locked in a garret with strict orders not to be disturbed. Disturbed! –as if external stillness could calm this raging fury–but then the good doctors don’t account for that–I believe they don’t think it can exist, they don’t think anything can exist inside of a woman, they think we are all beautiful empty shells waiting to be filled with their dreams and desires–but I do run on. Surely you will soon agree that I am quite mad–and you mustn’t! Anne you must believe me when I tell you I am of clear, lucid mind as I write to you this blackest of nights.
But let me go back, in an orderly fashion. You recall the last time we had the pleasure of a visit. I had come to see Mr. Liszt to request a copy of the Field nocturnes. Well of course he wouldn’t see me, so I left the request with his man. It was never answered. Then quite a while later, Lord Ashbury–what a name, have you ever considered it? ash and bury–Lord Ashbury gallantly presented me with the complete edition. He thought he was doing me such a pretty favour–which he was–and expected my gratitude and rapt attention in return–but it irked me that he, who knows nothing about music, should have his request attended to, while I had been virtually ignored. And besides the man is such an irritation.
[continued…]
