LIPSTICK & TOY BALLOONS PUBLISHING CO. has a 3 1/2-hour opera-musical comedy, Under the Moscow Moon, opera and musical, written by Dr. Jennifer McDowell and Milton Loventhal. Demonstration CD is available, plus piano-voice parts. This CD includes performances by Barbara Lymberis who has sung for Opera San Jose. Her performances here are some of the finest in American musical theater.

This CD also includes an outstanding performance by Pamela Polland of "She Likes Antiques and Young Men." Included too is superb work by top pianists, David Dumont, Sylvia Hunt and Stephen Boniface. Orchestrators are Robert Berry, Jennifer McDowell and Milton Loventhal.

Synopsis: In the year 2020, Fate visits Planet Earth hoping to stop a plot by the Sour Cream Cult to assassinate Russia's President, Nicholas Nevsky. His wife, Nadia, meanwhile, has run off with a New Zealand fashion designer, "a big-game body snatcher" named Willy Carbine. The lovebirds have set up a love nest in Wellington where Willy has his designer's den. The cultists are under the control of the Ghost of Stalin, and to defeat them, Fate chooses a loving couple-a detective named Natasha and a commodities trader named Jonathan-to stop the assassination. Psychics are called in, and this full-length frolic dealing with war and peace ends happily, on a high note: "The world is new and so are you/so let your spirits fly!"

Listen to these song samples:

Under the Moscow Moon
Who'll Speak for the Whales?
Antiques and Young Men
I Am a Shark!
Khrushchev has Moved Stalin's Body

PROFESSOR RICHARD D. PARKS, producer for NBC and theater director from San Jose State University, comments on Under the Moscow Moon:

With her [McDowell's] clear picture of the absurdity of our present situation and past times, she has created a piece where form and content become delightfully welded. [In her work] we have a mighty weapon penned by a superbly learned and talented commentator. [She has] sharp insight…critical acumen…humor that makes me giggle uncontrollably and groan in recognition of its underlying truth…superbly learned and talented.

UNDER THE MOSCOW MOON features a character named Scruffina who is a famous Harvard specialist in physics, math and law. However, on January 14, 2005, Harvard's president, Lawrence H. Summers, said women are not as smart as men, biologically speaking, in math and science. Scruffina sings a song in this musical that is a perfect corrective to Lawrence's now infamous remark, since Scruffina is in both physics and math.

Along these lines, the girls in Iran have been besting the boys in their SATs in ALL subjects, which prompted Professor Abbas Milani of Stanford's Middle East Dept. to quip, "Now the girls will have to marry down." In Iceland, the girls have been besting the boys in math for years. Funny that the news of girls' biological inferiority in math and science has not travelled to Iran and Iceland and stopped the girls from performing well. Here's Scruffina's song lyrics:

SCRUFFINA WENT TO HARVARD

Scruffina went to Harvard
Scruffina went down there
Scruffina went to Harvard
Scruffina went down there—oh on thin air
Scruffina's made of moonbeams
Scruffina's wild and fair
But they'll never beat Scruffina
Scruffina lives on prickly pears.

Scruffina ain't got nothin'
Just a brain to light the skies
Scruffina's got no manners
She can't dress, she can't tell lies
Scruffina she's too honest
Scruffina sees things straight
But they'll never beat Scruffina
She'll leave 'em standing at the gate.

Scruffina loved mathematics
She loved to see the numbers jump
They made such pretty patterns
In her little Harvard dump
Scruffina's socks were smelly
But her math was very clean
And her first year out at Harvard
She was honored by the Dean.

Repeat first verse.

Scruffina stayed at Harvard
With her smelly socks and all
She made some great discoveries
In physics, math and law
But at heart she was still a cowgirl
With math that flew so high
Who loved to do mathematics
And to see the Western sky.

Repeat first verse.

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This Shall Be Oatmeal's Finest Hour, a 30-minute food and music operetta, by Dr. Jennifer McDowell and Milton Loventhal.
The operetta's Oatmeal Party, headed by Talca Parsnips, aided by the Wholly Grain Choir, decides to institute world plantation with the mission of growing oat plants everywhere. The Oatmeal Party outlaws lawnmowers, and brings peace to plants and animals. The operetta roars to a mighty Churchillian conclusion, with a meditation on the blessings of peace.

Musical highlights include: "The Oat Spangled Banner," "Oatland the Beautiful, "The Jolly, Jolly Icing on the Petit Four," plus "Fig Newton." Parodies include: "Oh, Oh, Oat Sonnet" and "Oatlet's Soliloquy." Shakespeare has met his match in oatmeal. Script available, and demo.

Listen to these song samples:

The Oats Are Coming!
The Oat-spangled Banner
My Oatland 'Tis of Thee

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As Shadows Flee the Rising Sun, a 50-minute play, by Dr. Jennifer McDowell.

This is the first play on Female Genital Mutilation written in English. It tells how a woman, brought up in a tradition that imposes infibulation (a form of FGM) on female children, overcomes tragedy to become a successful physician and women's rights activist. No captive to the past, she seeks out love and beauty, and attains true maturity.

Maxine Kern, Literary Manager, New Georges;
"I was moved, informed and enthralled by your narrative…Your articulate language and imagery creates a strong theater piece."

Patrick Francis, Artistic Director, Soaring Eagle Productions
What a wonderful play! As Shadows Flee… blew me away.

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