Riverside Shakespeare Company within the company, not unlike Shakespeare's company 400 years before. Early in 1979 the company produced "Much Ado About Nothing" directed by Gloria Skurski with original music by Deborah Awner, with Margo Gruber and Gannon McHale, and Timothy Oman, Jim Brewster, Robert Boyle, Ronald Lew Harris, David Florek, Arland Russell, Daniel Tam and Leigh Podgorski, at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage 73. The production was set in the roaring 20's, as if F. Scott Fitzgerald had imagined the meeting of Beatrice and Benedict at a festive garden party on Cape Cod. The production of "Much Ado About Nothing" was staged as
Much Ado talents I have found is his ability to write music in the style befitting the age his work is set, as MUCH ADO so admirably demonstrates. Paul McGann's singing voice adds style. and panache to his solo numbers (If I Could Write A Sonnet and The Strange Affliction Called Love) as well as a pleasing accompaniment to the redoubtable Claire Moore In Disdain" and Then Kill For Me. Of course, as always Claire Moore gives a breathtaking performance with (among others) I'll Never Marry and How Can This Be, but then that lady can do no wrong in my book.