Hail, Cryer & Ford! I met Gretchen and Nancy in the summer of 2017 in New York. Over brunch on the Upper West Side I persuaded them to co-host a docu-concert of their songs with Nancy Maier and me here in Cleveland. I had known and loved their work since I was 16 and bought the LP of their first New York show, Now Is the Time for All Good Men. Still have it...

But our concert the following March almost didn't happen. Three days before the Big Event a Very Big Snow Storm was headed for New York. All flights were canceled. But the team resolved to get here on time. So what did they do? They volunteered to board the all-night Amtrak!

I picked them up at the station on Friday at 4 AM, and after taking a nap, they threw themselves into our two rehearsals. The Sunday afternoon show was a smash. When they heard the live recording, Gretchen smiled and said, "Isn't it nice to know it's as good as we thought it was?" That concert led to a glorious three-CD retrospective of their work produced by TMTP/Harbinger Records.
Ever since then, mounting a fully staged version of their most popular show, I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road, has been on my bucket list. So at 89, here they are again....

Much has been written over the years about Cryer & Ford's status as the first female writing team for the American musical theater, and how they began their collaboration in college. That probably makes it, as Gretchen points out, the "longest partnership in the history of the world."

But you know, not nearly enough has been written about something else: Virtually everything they've created since 1967 has revealed their deep and abiding social conscience.

In these unsettling times, isn't that inspirational?

-Bill Rudman