To Jonathan Tunick

I saw the recent item regarding expanding A Little Night Music for a symphonic orchestra. I'm a fan of the chamber-like interplay of show scores, but that's definitely a score that could probably sustain expansion. I've watched that French production of Sunday with the fuller orchestra, and I wasn't a huge fan of that particular production. Personally, I've often felt that Merrily would be best-served with a full jazz orchestra. That's my suggestion to Linklater and his team. All those extra flugel horns and euphoniums and such to mellow the sound... but with a really full rhythm section. - I made demos for my musical, but I'm planning to write each one for different bands. That's an advantage of movies. Regarding my song cycle, I'm completely open to people orchestrating those songs as they see fit. I had fantasies of orchestrating it, but ultimately the piano score was what Emanuel commissioned me to produce, and I'm very keen to hear people interpret that score in a variety of ways. The synthpop was my approach - inspired by my friend Aidan Verity - but I'd love to hear a fully orchestrated version. Emanuel wrote a play about Monica Vitti, and that's where the material from The Asterisk was culled from. Personally, my fantasy was a trans-Tasman fantasy based on my time working for an Australian media intelligence company. I figured that if we set the female section in an exotic locale - which became all too real when Barbara and her husband moved to Dubai in early 2020 - that I'd get to travel to make that film. - I haven't seen the full score for most of the Hal Prince shows, except Sweeney Todd. I have the parts for Follies, but it's a massive effort to make a score from those.