 Discography Musicals News Press Schedule Store Tunes Home |
My favorite version of "In the Bleak Midwinter" (words by Christina Rossetti, and music by Harold Darke)-- performed by the King's College Choir, Cambridge. "SMOKE STATISTIC" -- According to Wikipedia, the longest continuous run of SMOKE ON THE MOUNTAIN is at the Cumberland County Playhouse in Crossville, Tennessee. The opening on May 30, 2014 for 22 scheduled performances represents the 21st consecutive year the play has been performed there. Cumberland County Playhouse produces 16 shows in a normal season, playing to over 130,000 patrons.  The photo at left is not a cheerful image, but it is powerful and "says it all". I could not discern the source, so unfortunately I can't give it the proper credit. A picture is definitely worth a thousand words.
OUR NAME IN LIGHTS AT LAST>>>
New York City Center goes Off-Broadway with Encores! Off-Center, a new musical theater series led by artistic director Jeanine Tesori (composer of Fun Home, Violet, Shrek). Off-Center features landmark Off-Broadway musicals filtered through the lens of today’s most innovative artists. As part of this series there will be an "encore" performance of Pump Boys and Dinettes -- New York City Center, A hybrid of country, rock and pop music, Pump Boys and Dinettes is the story of four gas station attendants and two waitresses at a small-town dinette in North Carolina. Originally written and performed by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann, who accompanied themselves on guitar, piano, bass, fiddle, accordion, and kitchen utensils, the show is a musical tribute to life on the roadside. Pump Boys premiered Off-Broadway at the Chelsea West Side Arts Theatre in July 1981 and opened on Broadway on February 4, 1982 at the Princess Theatre, where it played 573 performances and was nominated for both Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical. Cast and credits for this production: Choreographed by Danny Mefford Music Direction by Chris Fenwick Directed by Lear deBessonet, featuring Jordan Dean, Hunter Foster, Mamie Parris, Randy Redd, Katie Thompson and Lorenzo Wolff.
The bloody Sun, at noon, 'Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, no breath no motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER  
Suzanne Propp is the choral director of the Green Farm School, in Westport, Connecticut. She arranged one of my tunes ("Home Is Where the Heart Is" from A LIE OF THE MIND) for her 4th and 5th graders and here's a vid of them performing it. Sweet!
From the Self Realisation Fellowship Voluntary League Newsletter Summer 2012  Music critic Wayne Bledsoe, who writes for the Knoxville News Sentinel, has included my latest album BOSH & MOONSHINE in his list of the best CDS of 2013. I'm included with some august company, such as David Bowie, Van Dyke Parks, and the Handsome Family! Here's what Wayne said: "Mike Craver has created folk operas for many years. This set collects songs from several of these dramatic period pieces and many of the tracks sound as if they could've been written in the 1800s when the plays are set. Full of humor, theatrics and strangeness (a taxidermist dreams of preserving his relatives) it is a peculiar pleasure." (drawing by C. Baker)
Thanks also to Wayne, BOSH & MOONSHINE was also included in the VILLAGE VOICE's 2013 "Pazz and Jop" poll. Each year the VOICE sends ballots out to music writers across the globe, seeking consensus about what the best musical works of the previous year were. In this year's Pazz & Jop poll, 457 critics participated in the vote.
2013 2012 2011 Summer/Fall 2010 Spring 2010 Winter 2009/2010 Summer Fall 2009 Spring 2009 Fall/Winter 2008/09 Summer 2008 Spring 2008 Fall/Winter 2007 Summer 2007 Spring 2007 Winter 2006/07 Fall 2006 Summer 2006 Spring 2006 Fall Winter 2005 Spring Summer 2005 Fall/Winter 2004/05 Summer 2004 Winter/Spring 2004
|
The photo to the right is one of my favorites. It's of spiritual master Paramahanza Yogananda at the Hammond C2 organ in the Windmill Chapel on March 6, 1952 -- the day before his
passing.