Sound Shore

It had been too long since I’d been to a rehearsal at New Rochelle High School, where Scott Zimmerman and David Jutt guide students through interesting musical after interesting musical — and make what have become regular visits to the American High School Theater Festival in Edinburgh.
They don’t do a lot of the traditional stuff, titles like “Big River,” and “Cradle Will Rock” and last year’s original musical by a couple of alums: “Saving Seatown.” This year is no different, but no less rewarding: “Working,” the musical culled from the reporter’s notebook of Studs Terkel, that great Chicago people chronicler, and the fertile minds of a half-dozen different songwriters, including Stephen Schwartz and James Taylor. From the interviews and the songs emerges a snapshot of how Americans of all stripes and persuasions see the world of work. Fascinating.
Here’s the Running Lines video from New Rochelle’s “Working.” Enjoy.