Side by Side by Schubert

In chinos, basketball sneakers and a pink Lacoste shirt, Michael Schubert paces about the Hasty Pudding Club's cluttered office. "I think everyone in the world has one chance to do what they want to do," he says fervently. "Hal Prince has got to listen to me once, Stephen Sondheim will have to listen to me once."

He pauses for breath and continues. "It's just a matter of writing one thing that will be really great,' he says, making travelling to New York City and becoming a big Broadway composer sound almost easy. "I don't know if I have it in me to write it, but I sure the hell think I do."

Michael R. Schubert '82, Kirkland House resident, itinerant Philosophy major, daring of Harvard's musical theatre crowd, has been a big fish in small ponds for many years now. As the self-proclaimed "hot-shit composer" of Highland Park High in the Chicago suburbs, he co-wrote and wrote three original allows. Here, he has written five shows, including three consecutive Pudding shows (the all-time record) and, by his reckoning, more than 100 songs.

The prospect of going to New York, (where he'll be "nothing and where there are hundreds of people trying to make it") is frightening but not overwhelmingly so to Harvard's leading songster. "I don't think anyone who really has it is going to be stopped from making it," he says. "It's a matter of writing that one piece. Selling it is the easy part--if it's that good they'll want to produce it as much as I want it produced. Everyone wants to make a buck."

Nevertheless, the possibility of an empty larder in the big bad city has occurred to Schubert. Although the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers has shown some interest in him, and he has "a few contacts" at New York University, home of a prestigious composition program, Schubert knows that he will have to start very much from scratch. "There are people who are going to help me, but no one who'll produce a show for me," he says.

The senior's plans at this point are sketchy: find an apartment and start writing. And actually, his main worry at the moment is not getting food on the table but finding someone to write the words for his songs. "I don't see the challenge as making it right now, as much as finding a person who can do really good book and lyrics," he says. "Song is music and lyrics--you don't write music in a void."

Although he has written lyrics before (most successfully, he says, in the show he wrote last year, "Leaders of Tomorrow"), Schubert knows that his strengths lie in musical areas rather than literary ones. "I'm a cocky kind of guy," he says with a smile. "I tend to think my ideas are better than anyone else's. But I know I'm not a lyricist." Unfortunately, he notes, the ideal partner/lyricist has eluded him at Harvard.

Schubert's contacts in New York include his idol Stephen Sondheim, whom he met last year at a rehearsal of Harvard's production of "Side by Side by Sondheim." Sondheim encouraged him to continue writing at that time, Schubert says, adding that he hopes to show material to the older composer for criticism and advice. "He's very helpful about that sort of thing, "Schubert says. "Not that many people are willing to take the time to listen to people--that's partially why there's a dearth of good musical theater on Broadway right now."

If things work out as planned, Michael Schubert will soon start filling this dearth. And he little doubts that things will work out. "I could work for five years without anything happening,' he says, "But I don't think I could ever be happy doing anything else--it's just not a possibility I'm preparing myself for."