His Girl HildyBook and Lyrics by Katherine Burger, Music by Hye Seon HongContact Email: katherine.burger@icloud.com |
|
|
HIS GIRL HILDY is a musical retelling and updating of the fast and funny 1940 classic screwball comedy film HIS GIRL FRIDAY. Newspaper woman Hildy Johnson returns to the Morning Post to tell her boss and recently divorced husband Walter Burns that she’s not coming back to work and is marrying someone else. Walter sets out to sabotage her plans by involving her in not one but two developing news stories – saving a man from death row, and bringing down a corrupt political regime. It’s a wild, convoluted ride, punctuated with 1940’s style songs. At the end, Hildy realizes that she’s still and always a reporter, and still and always belongs with Walter. The dialogue of the original script has been almost wholly re-written, and the politics revamped to resonate with a contemporary audience. This project was developed at the Lehman Engle BMI program, in both the Advanced Musical Theater Workshop, and the Librettists Workshop, where we presented scenes and songs. In 2023 we had a Zoom table read of HIS GIRL HILDY under the auspices of the Librettists workshop, with the songs read as text. We think our next steps should be to have an in-person staged reading with an audience of the entire libretto with the music, do any rewrites arising from that, then record the songs. We will then start looking for investors, producers or suitable theaters. Part of this plan will include creating a website and having an industrial reading. The seven productions of Katherine Burger’s play MORPHIC RESONANCE include: The Donmar Warehouse Theater in London; Theatre de l’Atelier in Paris; The Westport Country Playhouse; The Kleines Theatre in Berlin; and over Radio BBC. Her one-act WAY DEEP, winner of the Samuel French short play festival and published by them, has been produced throughout the United States. She’s had various productions of other short plays. Katherine has written two plays on commission for South Coast Repertory Theater, as well as two commissioned screenplays, one of which had a staged reading at The Nuyorican Poets’ Café Fifth Night screenplay reading series. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, Actors and Writers Theater Company, and of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, where she was awarded the Harrington Award for best librettist for her musical THE CURSE OF BATVIA. A singer and actor, Katherine has performed in the United States and Europe. Hyeseon Hong, pronounced as “(hay-son) Hong,” is a celebrated figure in the jazz world, renowned for her talent as a Korean jazz composer and band leader. Her musical journey has taken her from New York City to Seoul. Her music displays her ability to craft original compositions and intricate arrangements. What sets Hong apart is her gift for fostering a harmonious dialogue between her Korean cultural heritage and the Western musical tradition, a defining theme that resonates deeply within the Hyeseon Hong Jazz Orchestra. Her 19-piece band has been performing at historic NY venues such as “Birdland,” “Jazz Gallery,” “Symphony Space,” and various Jazz Festivals. Furthermore, Hong has embarked on another chapter in her career as an advanced member of BMI, contributing her compositional talent to “HIS GIRL HILDY,” a musical project she’s been collaborating on with her partner, Katherine Burger. Her multifaceted journey as a band leader, musical scribe, and orchestrator for both small and large ensembles has endowed her with a profound reservoir of knowledge spanning the realms of music and drama. |
|
|
|
|
His Girl Hildy
Book and Lyrics by Katherine Burger, Music by Hye Seon Hong
Contact Email: katherine.burger@icloud.com
HIS GIRL HILDY is a musical retelling and updating of the fast and funny 1940 classic screwball comedy film HIS GIRL FRIDAY. Newspaper woman Hildy Johnson returns to the Morning Post to tell her boss and recently divorced husband Walter Burns that she’s not coming back to work and is marrying someone else. Walter sets out to sabotage her plans by involving her in not one but two developing news stories – saving a man from death row, and bringing down a corrupt political regime. It’s a wild, convoluted ride, punctuated with 1940’s style songs. At the end, Hildy realizes that she’s still and always a reporter, and still and always belongs with Walter. The dialogue of the original script has been almost wholly re-written, and the politics revamped to resonate with a contemporary audience.
This project was developed at the Lehman Engle BMI program, in both the Advanced Musical Theater Workshop, and the Librettists Workshop, where we presented scenes and songs. In 2023 we had a Zoom table read of HIS GIRL HILDY under the auspices of the Librettists workshop, with the songs read as text. We think our next steps should be to have an in-person staged reading with an audience of the entire libretto with the music, do any rewrites arising from that, then record the songs. We will then start looking for investors, producers or suitable theaters. Part of this plan will include creating a website and having an industrial reading.
The seven productions of Katherine Burger’s play MORPHIC RESONANCE include: The Donmar Warehouse Theater in London; Theatre de l’Atelier in Paris; The Westport Country Playhouse; The Kleines Theatre in Berlin; and over Radio BBC. Her one-act WAY DEEP, winner of the Samuel French short play festival and published by them, has been produced throughout the United States. She’s had various productions of other short plays. Katherine has written two plays on commission for South Coast Repertory Theater, as well as two commissioned screenplays, one of which had a staged reading at The Nuyorican Poets’ Café Fifth Night screenplay reading series. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, Actors and Writers Theater Company, and of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, where she was awarded the Harrington Award for best librettist for her musical THE CURSE OF BATVIA. A singer and actor, Katherine has performed in the United States and Europe.
Hyeseon Hong, pronounced as “(hay-son) Hong,” is a celebrated figure in the jazz world, renowned for her talent as a Korean jazz composer and band leader. Her musical journey has taken her from New York City to Seoul. Her music displays her ability to craft original compositions and intricate arrangements. What sets Hong apart is her gift for fostering a harmonious dialogue between her Korean cultural heritage and the Western musical tradition, a defining theme that resonates deeply within the Hyeseon Hong Jazz Orchestra. Her 19-piece band has been performing at historic NY venues such as “Birdland,” “Jazz Gallery,” “Symphony Space,” and various Jazz Festivals. Furthermore, Hong has embarked on another chapter in her career as an advanced member of BMI, contributing her compositional talent to “HIS GIRL HILDY,” a musical project she’s been collaborating on with her partner, Katherine Burger. Her multifaceted journey as a band leader, musical scribe, and orchestrator for both small and large ensembles has endowed her with a profound reservoir of knowledge spanning the realms of music and drama.