Silver Spoon in Cambridge, MA

Apr 8, 2011

Si sat down recently with Kate McNally, host of The Folk Show on New Hampshire Public Radio, to talk about his exciting new musical, which debuts Thursday, May 19th at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge.

For tickets and showtimes visit the Central Square Theatre website.

Si’s new musical debuts in Cambridge, MA!

Silver Spoon, a new romantic musical comedy with music and lyrics by Si Kahn, book by Amy Merrill, and orchestration by five-time Tony nominee Larry Hochman, is a love story about the dividing lines of heritage and class. Set in the late 1960s against the background of the grape boycott led by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers of America, it’s about parents and grandparents who, proud of the institutions they’ve helped build, want their children and grandchildren to carry on after them – and, in the process, to justify the lives they’ve lived and the choices they’ve made.

But, for the grandchildren and children, “going into the family business” just isn’t enough, whether that business is a multi-national brokerage firm or “the Party,” a political organization working for a more just world. They share the vision and passion that is part of their history, but they have ideas and lives of their own.

In Silver Spoon, the struggle to honor your family commitments, while still becoming the person you want and need to be, rages through the generations, and across the lines of class and ethnicity – and across the East River.

For ticket information visit the Central Square Theatre website.

April 14th will be a very special show.  My dear friend of over 50 years, Si Kahn, turns 80-years-old on April 23rd and I’m throwing a Si Kahn 80th Birthday Party.  Besides being a frequent partner-in-crime, Si and I co-wrote five consecutive Grammy-nominated albums, toured our Signs of the Times tour (with sign language artist, Susan Freundlich). Not incidentally, Si is the godfather of my son Peter.  I was the first person to record a Si Kahn song, even before his incredible debut album New Wood.  So, I’ll reprise that first song, along with lots more of his great music.  But, most wonderfully, there will be over a dozen artists, including Billy Bragg, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Tom Chapin, Jane Sapp, Holly Near, and Kathy Mattea, who’ll be chiming in with tales about Si and singing some of his classic songs.  This will be an incredible evening and a chance to not only hear some great music, but honor the guy I declared, “The best damn songwriter in the South…in his spare time!” back in 1975. 

Even if you’re not able to watch the celebration live, your ticket will allow you to view a recording of the full event for the next two weeks.

100% of ticket sales will go to support the official launch at the concert of the Si Kahn Living Legacy, a new non-profit project that will make available in perpetuity those of Si’s songs, stories, song cycles for children and adults, poems, unpublished books, musicals, and other creative works that have never before been available to the public, and ultimately keep them alive and easily accessible after he’s gone.