Director’s Musings

ANOTHER ‘BLAH BLAH BLAH: A NEW MUSICAL?!?!’ COME ON…..

I know, I know. But what else do you call it?! And we need to let you know it’s a musical and on many levels, The Winter’s Tale (the original Shakespeare play) works perfectly as a musical theatre piece! Scenes BURST with dramatic plot twists that are almost more believable in a musical! For example, when Leontes initially suspects his wife of adultery with the line ‘too hot, too hot…’ makes a damn fine song. And the infamous stage direction ‘he exits, pursued by a bear’….the bear gets a song, finally.

9 DAYS TO MOUNT A FULL LENGTH, 22 PERSON MUSICAL?

Yup. Chris and I flew to New York in July after taking out an ad in Backstage, and held auditions. We saw over 200 people and were blown away by the talent. I am honored to work with these folks. They were then given scripts/scores/CD’s via mail/email and away to work we all went. The cast is amazing, the rehearsal space booked, and the desire to rock is huge.

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN WRITE A MUSICAL?

Good question. I was raised on musical theatre. Literally. My dad proudly tells everyone his favorite thing to do as a 16 year old kid was dance around the basement singing “I Enjoy Being a Girl” from Flower Drum Song! My Dad said this, not my Mom, my Dad. He lives, breathes, musical theatre and so we all do. Me, my mom, and my sister. We moved up to Canada where he is Program Head of a Musical Theatre College, and so I slipped off to University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Theatre BFA Musical Theatre Program where I got the greatest education. Aubrey Berg is one helluva a great teacher, and I continued to learn more and more about this genre of theatre. Up in Edmonton, I’ve directed everything from Spitfire Grill to Marie Christie to NINE. I’ve written several plays, this is the first musical I’ve written.