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 I thought you might be amused to see this. The musical in mid-rehearsal, from my point of view.
Hi friend, how’s your day? Hope you’re doing okay. Sorry to report that I’m feeling a little under the weather a bit just now. No big deal, probably running a bit harder than I should, and playing on the weekend was more of a strain than I was up for. So today involves a little more downtime than I might like. It’s good to pay attention, though. So I do. Stuff’s moving along nicely for the musical, thanks for asking, although I’m still tweaking things a little bit here and there. But the cast is doing a wonderful job of lifting the work up off the page. It’s an amazing feeling, to hear the scenes of dialogue actually work, and the songs coming together with five voices. It’s good to know that this is really going to happen, and it’s going to be a good show for people. It’s one thing to believe, it’s another thing to start to see evidence. Feels good.
Funny that writing a musical was never part of my plan. It just sort of happened. Although I remember one very odd period of time in my younger years. Late childhood actually, I was maybe 13. For some reason I decided to write a musical. I have no idea why. But this’ll make you laugh–what I had been inspired to do was a musical adaptation of Shakespeare. Macbeth, no less. I know, madness. I have absolutely no idea why. I do remember cheerily hacking and slashing at the various speeches to try and get them to fit into some kind of sung structure. I had no clue what I was doing, of course. But I was sure doing it. I do remember that I was quite a way into things when I started to think, ‘Wait a minute, I’m re-writing Shakespeare’. Sort of put it down quietly and walked away embarrassed. Strange in many ways, eh?
Funny, I’d forgotten about that. Brought to mind another memory, no idea why. High school english class. Teacher points out that not only is Shakespeare great storytelling, but it’s all written in iambic pentameter. He shows us on the blackboard what that means, makes the little squiggles of stressed and unstressed syllables. My kid’s mind starts filling in words in the pattern he presents. I’m thinking, ‘Oh, that’s really neat how that works.’ and I make a few lines roll around in my head for fun. Then he says, ‘and that’s really hard.’ Without thinking what fell out of my mouth was, ‘No it isn’t.’ Alright, says he, everybody write me three lines of iambic pentameter now. The whole class groaned. Charming. I did. Just rattled off the two lines I had already figured and tagged a third on. I didn’t think much about it, figured it was no big deal. Still don’t. Sure didn’t help to make me mister popular, of course. Funny what sticks with you, eh?
Happily I have no urge to revisit revamping the bard. If I ever do, give me a poke would you. Thanks.
And so when I finished all of the various jobs of arranging and scoring and revising and transcribing I had a moment to think. And in that moment I thought, ‘oh right, I have to learn these parts now.’ Honestly hadn’t occurred to me until that point. Okay, how hard can this be? I guess it’s only fitting that one of the first people who has to deal with learning one of the voices in the thing is the guy that put it together in the first place. I can report with some bemusement that the parts are challenging enough that I do have to spend a bit of time at it. Although I guess I’m also happy that if, as someone suggested, some poor student has to learn the thing because that’s what they’re doing for their school musical, with that same little bit of work the parts are all do-able and sound pretty cool. That was never the reason I wrote it, of course. But it’s nice to know that the show will work in either a professional or amateur setting. In the meantime, I’m learning. Who wrote this stuff, anyway?
for immediate release:
Witness–a musical
June 25, 26, 27, 2009 8pm
The Registry Theatre
122 Frederick Street, Kitchener
Tickets $15 available at the door or in advance through the Centre in the Square box office. Call 1-800-265-8977, or go online at www.centre-square.com . Directions to the Registry and suggestions for parking are available at their website.
Words and music by Ken Brown. Cast: Nabi Loney, John Watson, Jay Moore, Jack Cole, Ken Brown
“She’s landed at the train station, what she discovers first are four guys. Together they search the town and find out what they’re really looking for.”
After a successful workshop process, five talented performers will present a brand new 14-song musical in a staged reading with full music. A rare opportunity to see a new work before it comes to a theatre company near you.
 This project has been made possible by the support of the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund.
Well, we have a cast and it’s official–it’s a musical, and we’re in production. And the script has had its first official re-write, so I guess it’s officially a workshop, too. I’ll put up an official notice here soon. But for now most of my time is being spent working on the charts and script so everyone’s got accurate parts, and has a fighting chance of learning everything in time. We do it for three nights at the Registry Theatre at the end of June (25, 26 and 27). I’m delighted with the cast, I know they’ll have no problem lifting it up off the page for the first time, and I’m looking forward to having you hear what we put together. I will admit to feeling a little overwhelmed with what has to be done between now and then. But I know it’ll be more likely to get done if I keep working at it. So I do. In the meantime I’m so grateful for the real support I’ve received from folks in this town over the last little while. Sure beats doing it in a vacuum. I’ve had to do that, this is way better. So, hoping I can offer something solid in return, I try to get done what needs doing. And I weave my gratitude into the work. Nothing fancy, but thanks.
Still in the process of arranging auditions for the musical. A new notice is going out this week to a few more places. I expect to be holding auditions until the end of the month, but if you know of someone who would be perfect now would be a good time to have them get in touch.
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Auditions–new musical, R&B style, 1 female and 4 male roles (one bass/baritone).
10-session workshop and staged reading.
To book an audition e-mail witnessthemusical (at) gmail (dot) com or phone (1) 000-000-0000.
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Thanks in no small part to the Waterloo Region’s Arts Fund I’m working through what needs to be organized before we hit the stage at the end of June. Somehow I imagined I’d be spending most of my time working out arrangements. Turns out I was somewhat mistaken. Like much of the artistic life–the music is what one ends up doing somewhere in between the logisitics and the administration. Not a complaint. Just an observation.
Remember a while ago I told you I’d written a musical? Well the audition notices are out. And because I promised my friends I’d tell them about stuff I’m doing before it happens I thought maybe I should let you know. Feel free to pass it along to anyone you think might be interested.
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Auditions
New musical, R&B style, 4 male, 1 female.
To book an audition
email witnessthemusical (at) gmail (dot) com
or call (000) 000-0000
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Right now I’m scheduling auditions for Saturday, April 4 from 1pm and Monday, April 6 from 7pm. I’m looking forward to seeing who’s out there. Things will have to be well underway soon, seems like a mountain of stuff to accomplish between now and then. Ah well, somehow it always gets done. And worrying about it won’t get it done any sooner. So, I’m off to move a mountain, will let you know how things go. Meantime, wish me luck.
I know I told you I’ve written a musical. I really didn’t mean to, honest. I’ve certainly performed in more than a few over the years, but I never thought to write one. But some time ago I started to scratch down a few thoughts, first the title of one of my songs, then some thinking, then another title, then some more thinking. After watching myself do this for some time I began to understand that what I was doing was looking at the distance between those two songs, and figuring out what little glimpse of a story that seemed to tell. (I guess maybe you’d call that the narrative distance. I wonder what kind of unit of measure that would have… nevermind.) Finally a third song title, a bit more thinking, then I put it away. But I couldn’t leave it alone. After several days of carrying on like this, a few minutes here and there in between whatever else I was doing, I realized what I was up to. I was writing a musical.
After the shock wore off I decided to keep going and a couple of months later the first draft was done. Two acts, thirteen songs, five voices. I continued to tweak the script for a while, but it was definitely finished. Many of the songs are new and written for the show, others are pieces I’ve written and performed in concerts but which seemed to fit perfectly when I needed something to say just that. It will be interesting to hear someone else’s voice sing these songs. Oh yes, and I will actually hear someone else sing these songs. You see the Waterloo Region Arts Fund was kind enough to give me a small grant to go towards running the whole thing through a workshop process and then performing the results over three nights in June (25, 26 & 27) at the Registry Theatre. So for a couple of months I’ll be working out the script and the songs with a full cast, re-writing, editing and lifting the whole thing up off the page to see what it feels like. It’s sure to be an intense but rewarding process. I’ll let you know how it’s progressing when we get there.
Yes, of course, I should tell you the title. It’s called “Witness“.
Wish me luck.
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I thought you might be amused to see this. The musical in mid-rehearsal, from my point of view.