Carnelia (far right), with David Bell and Studs Terkel.

If you know the name Craig Carnelia, you are probably a close follower of American Music Theatre. Carnelia has been working in the business a long time, as a songwriter, as a lyricist, and, more recently, as a panel member at ASCAP's music theatre workshops. But he remains unknown to the general public. Many theatre fans who don't follow music theatre are only vaguely aware of him.

When ASCAP presented their first workshop in Chicago in April, Carnelia was an integral member of the panel, leading discussions, and dispensing advice calmly, carefully, articulately. At one point, he fell into the trap lots of seminar leaders fall into, that of pontificating when it might be better to raise questions the creative teams should answer on their own. But Carnelia redeemed himself by poking fun at himself and his lapses and apologizing to the participants.

Craig Carnelia is an elegant man with a neatly trimmed mustache, carefully combed hair, and an air about him of a man who always knows who he is, where he is, and why. What he is not, however, is a person who swaggers around, puffed up with his own importance.

Carnelia has credits and credentials many songwriters would sell their souls for. He contributed songs to Working, the innovative musical revue based on the groundbreaking Studs Terkel's book. He was part of the team, along with John Guare and Marvin Hamlish, who wrote and crafted the Broadway musical version of Sweet Smell of Success. Carnelia also collaborated with Craig Lucas on the acclaimed 1987 play with music, Three Postcards. Not to mention being nominated twice for a Tony, once for Working and once for Sweet Smell of Success.

But you wouldn't know he had accomplished so much from his demeanor during my recent phone interview with him. He was, at the time, hip-deep in rehearsals for his new project, a musical based on Studs Terkel's oral history of the Second World War, The Good War. Carnelia created the show with David Bell, who wrote the book and is directing. The Chicago production is the world premiere production for this new show. But if Carnelia's nerves were frayed, he didn't show during an interview that lasted longer than planned.

We began by talking about The Good War and his long collaboration with David Bell. Bell and Carnelia have worked together since 1987, when Bell directed a production of the musical, Is There Life After High School? (score and lyrics by Carnelia) at the Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Bell had been eager to meet Carnelia and direct Is There Life After High School? ever since he'd seen the show during its brief Broadway run (May 7-16, 1982). "When I saw the show," Bell remembers, "I got this shiver. I realized immediately the music and lyrics were from a major composer."

Enthusiastic about the show, Bell applied for and got the gig to direct a touring production. He also took the show the Ford's Theatre, where he was artistic director at the time . It was during the process of putting that show together that they became close friends.

When Carnelia collected his songs together into a two person musical revue, Pictures in the Hall, to run at a small piano bar in downtown Manhattan, Bell directed it. Later Bell and Carnelia collaborated on an original musical, Actor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, inspired by the case of Clayton Moore, an actor best known for having portrayed the Lone Ranger on TV in the 1950s. Long after the series ended, Moore had made his living making appearances as the Lone Ranger. Then, in the 80s, the corporation that owned the rights forbid Moore from wearing the Lone Ranger costume.

"It is my favorite score," Carnelia admits, but then adds sighing, that the show is a victim of current economic realities: "It's too big to be a small show and too small for Broadway." With a 12 member cast, plus orchestra, the show is too large for many regional theatres. For this reason the show is rarely done, although it did receive an acclaimed production at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1992.

The next show Carnelia and Bell went to work on was a project Bell had been noodling on for years. "I began work on that when I was associate director at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta," Bell explains, adding, "I'd thought 'wouldn't it be great to do The Good War.'"

Bell couldn't remember a time when he wasn't fascinated by WWII and his father's involvement the war. "My father was on a very different life track when the war started," Bell notes, "My dad went to the Philippines as a naval aviator. After the war, he went to college on the G.I. Bill and became the first PhD in sociology at UCLA." Bell's father is noted sociologist and futurist Wendell Bell of Yale University. Bell explains that if it hadn't been for the war his father would have ended up working in the family business, a restaurant called Sharky's.

Carnelia joined the project when one day, over dinner, the two started comparing notes about the effect of the war on their families. The war had been a life changing experience for Carnelia's father too.

"The war was very present in the house I grew up in," Carnelia tells me, "My father was a sergeant in the Army in Germany and France. The music was very present in the house I grew up in." Carnelia pauses and then adds that he believes he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the war, " I think the war caused my parents to get together."

When Bell realized he and Carnelia both had strong "connects" (Bell's word) to the material, he brought Carnelia on board. They divided up the work. Bell would work on the book, Carnelia the music.

The show they conceived was not to be a traditional musical. There would be no single story line. And the music would be culled entirely from music recorded during the war. Carnelia's role would be more like that of a researcher, digging through the archives, finding interesting tunes to fit with material Bell was culling from Terkel's thick tome. Later, after they had gathered their material, Carnelia planned to do a little rewriting of lyrics to fit with the show, but even that work was to be kept to a minimum.

Carnelia began his research a little more than a year ago; his work proceeded quickly, in large part because Carnelia relished the search. "I am quite a student of songwriting." He notes, "This was quite an archeological dig." Carnelia especially got a charge out of the "obscure material" he found, like the long forgotten hit, "You Can't Get That No More."

"That song begins about rationing and goes on to things you can't do anymore because of the war. Then it comments on how women have changed their roles, and how all the eligible men are gone. It is written in a deliberate lighthearted spirit." But, like all good comedy, it walks the knife edge between humor and trenchant observation.

Did Carnelia spend a lot of time looking through stacks of obscure sheet music or listening to the transcriptions of old radio shows? "I didn't have to. There are many, many compilations of the music from the war years." Carnelia spent his days listening to one record after another. "I found so many arcane whatnots, song that you can't imagine having been born, songs that are so daffy or so specific to the moment in history."

Carnelia uses as an example the hit novelty song, "Goodbye Mamma I'm off to Yokohama." Carnelia laughs as he tells me that he couldn't imagine any other time in history where a song like that would make sense.

There was not shortage of useable material. Carnelia gathered everything that moved him. Ultimately Carnelia's research netted him 50 songs from the period—more than they could have placed in a show twice as long as this one.

Periodically he and Bell would get together and compare notes or set songs side by side with the "spoken word" portion of the show.

"We really were painting with broad strokes," Carnelia says, adding "We trusted our instincts." The trust paid off. Slowly a structure emerged.

Carnelia weeded his collection of songs, keeping only those song that could be made stage worthy and could be made to "lean against the Terkel material." In some cases Carnelia wrote additional lyrics. "I did one for a children's song called 'The Fox,'" Carnelia informs me, "And there was a wonderful song called 'Uncle Sam Blues.'"

I ask Carnelia if there was much interaction between Terkel and Bell and Carnelia? "Most of the contact," he informs me, "Was about the book and making sure in doing this adaptation we were presenting a wide view of experience."

Since the Northlight poster features a large picture of Irving Berlin, I wonder how many of Berlin's WWII songs are in the show. Carnelia pauses and then laughs, "There is no Irving Berlin..."

No Irving Berlin?

"We started with a lot of Irving Berlin," he continues, "But we decided since those songs were written to be done on a stage we thought it would be much more interesting to go for songs that were not written specifically to be done on a stage."

Also, Carnelia was wary of Berlin's songs because they were so well known and well known war songs have been used to great affect in other shows about war, most notably Joan Littlewood's play about the First World War, "Oh, What a Lovely War."

The conversation turns from The Good War to the recent ASCAP workshop. Specifically, I want to know if ASCAP considered it a success. They did. Will there be another workshop next year? There will. And will Carnelia be the workshop leader again? He will.

"I am very comfortable up there flying by the seat of my pants," he admits.

"Chicago has wanted and needed this kind of program for a long time. I found the openness and the talent level in Chicago to be extraordinary. I love Chicago. I have tried out two shows out of town here (Working and Sweet Smell of Success). And [The Good War] makes a third one."

"Northlight is truly a haven for artists and there aren't many of them left. Lots of theatres give lip service to doing new work. [But the people at Northlight] want to do new work and they do it. There is a graceful balance between the creators allowing them to fulfill their vision while overseeing the production to make sure that what is needed in there. I have been thrilled."

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