“Spectacular!”

It’s finally here! After what feels like an interminable lead up, the New York debut of Bill and Danny’s song cycle, Once Every Hundred Years, is only a few days away.

I’ve been thinking about producing the concert and cast recording of the song cycle for a long time. I first thought about it in June of 2024, after the performance at William’s College, which was done as part of Bill’s 50th Reunion celebration. I decided I didn’t want to.

But it kept eating at me. Having come to appreciate Bill’s huge impact on the art form, and how many lives were touched and changed by his work, I thought it would be wrong if his last work was not recorded and made available to fans and students of musical theatre. (And I think it’s wrong that so much of his work has yet to be recorded.)

When Bill died, and Jennifer Tepper reached out to ask Danny and I to consider presenting it at 54 Below, I said “okay,” finally accepting that I wouldn’t rest until the song cycle was in the world. And I also decided that I had put too much time and effort into the song cycle since 2020, including producing it twice, to let anyone else produce it.

So here I am, with Danny, doing what Bill wanted. The show in New York. Same songs, same order (almost), same cast, as we did in Williamstown.

I know Bill will be there.

I know, from time to time, he’ll shake his head in disbelief because of a poor decision we made.

And I also know that, at the end of the concert, when someone asks him what he thought of it, he’ll say: “Spectacular!”