The joy of motherhood
AMERICAN singer-songwriter Sue Fabisch has drawn on her own experience of raising three children to pen the dramas and delights of parenting in Motherhood – the Musical.
Fabisch, who is currently in Melbourne for the Australian premiere of the musical that opened in her home town of Nashville, Tennessee, in 2008 and recently toured the US and Britain, says she started writing comedy songs about her children – aged 7, 11, and 14 – and found that people responded to it.
“Before I knew it, I had about 60 songs about motherhood, and I put some into my one-woman show and then expanded it to the four-woman format in Motherhood, and that is when it really took off,” she told The AJN.
Listen to Sue Fabisch’s She’s Meshuga:
[audio: https://static.timesofisrael.com/ajn/uploads/2011/02/Meshuga-DEMO-Voc-up-MP3.mp3]
Motherhood – the Musical is a journey about the lives and friendships of four mothers – Barb, an over-worked, underpaid, stressed-out mother of five; Brooke, a lawyer who works too much and barely sees her kids; Trisha, a single mum struggling to balance work, family and her divorce; and Amy, a naive young woman about to have her first child.
It stars Amelia Christo, Ziggy Clements, Jacqueline Hoy and Rebecca Moore as the mothers, and features 20 songs ranging from rock in Nothing But the Best for My Baby to gospel in The Kids Are Finally Asleep to a ballad titled Now I Know.
Motherhood – the Musical is being staged by Hit Productions and after the Melbourne season, which opened at the Athenaeum Theatre last week, will tour around Australia for the rest of the year.
“The title is Motherhood and it is from a women’s perspective, but we are not male-bashing and men can relate to the parenthood aspect of it,” says Fabisch, who grew up in New Jersey and moved to Nashville about 10 years ago to concentrate on her song writing.
“And what’s so funny is that I’m a Jewish girl from New Jersey who moved to Nashville and now has a musical theatre show that is going around the world.
“You would think that to do musical theatre you need to be in New York, yet I felt that if I lived there I would have had too many preconceived notions about how you were supposed to do it and probably would not have been able to do it.
“Even though I live in Nashville, I’ve never had any country songs cut, so it’s weird how it all happened.”
Fabisch says she started writing comedy songs about her kids after attending writing workshops.
“Nashville is a strong writing community and in workshops they tell you to write about what you know. Everyone else was writing about relationships gone bad and heartache, but my marriage was secure and the only thing that I could write honestly about was my love for my kids.”
Fabisch lives in Nashville with her husband Chris – among her celebrity neighbours is Grammy Award-winning singer Donna Summer.
“We have a small Jewish community in Nashville. I did a show for a community function and one of the songs I wrote was called She’s Meshuggah that had every Yiddish word that I knew!”
Motherhood – the Musical is at the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne until February 27. Bookings: www.ticketmaster.com.au
REPORT: DANNY GOCS
PHOTO: Motherhood – the Musical stars (from left) Ziggy Clements, Rebecca Moore, Jacqueline Hoy and Amelia Christo.