One Block From Broadway, 02139

Rehearsing Dickens

A couple of weeks ago we started rehearsals for the show, starting with the music. In particular, we wanted an early start on our opening number which is our take on a traditional Christmas caroling song. For the 'joke' to work, the actual song & singing has to be spot-on and fortunately for us, the cast we have is doing amazing work. Particularly amazing considering we're only a few weeks into the process and have had haphazard attendance due to some cast overlap with GoreFest (ImprovBoston's Halloween musical & Grand Guignol extravaganza, which runs through tomorrow night and which I highly recommend.)

Here's a couple of photos from tonight's rehearsal:

Rehearsing the opening number, from left to right: Jacey Bokunewicz, Joy Begbie, Maitland Lederer,
David Marino.

And here from left to right, Kathleen Brophy, Lindsay Strube & Sara Faith Alterman.

Control

While Dickens is moving along very nicely, I have the pleasure of music directing a production of Crazy For You (CFY) for a local after school program. For those who don't know, CFY is a compilation show: a bunch of popular Gershwin songs were pulled together, and a story was built around the songs. This trend is enjoying something of a resurgence these days with musicals like Movin' Out based on Billy Joel's music, and Mamma Mia! based on ABBA's rock anthems. It's not a new concept, but writing shows around songs instead of the other way around certainly takes out a lot of the grunt work. I feel it's a cop-out, but that's just me.

As Dickens progresses, I am increasingly happy that this whole project was, in essence, a two man operation. While I can't speak for TC, knowing everything up front has helped tremendously in figuring out the logistics of the songs. The rehearsal process, while as chaotic as any other rehearsal process, has fallen into a very comfortable and efficient groove.

Until GoreFest is over, we are sticking with just rehearsing music, and getting everyone comfortable with their songs. The opening number, a very tricky a capella song in three-part counterpoint , after only three rehearsals, is shaping up very nicely. The people doing solo numbers are already well ahead of the game, and the group numbers will be easy to piece together once we start blocking in early November.

All in all, as far as "pre-productions" go, we couldn't ask for smoother seas. Then again, Murphy may be saving up his roadblocks for later in the process...

I really hope I didn't just hex us.

Callback

Callback. Every profession has jargon and "callback" has multiple meanings for an actor-- a callback for an audition means you're still in the running and could get the role, and a callback in comedy is bringing back a joke a second, maybe even third time (rule of threes, people). I mention it because I'm making a callback to this post by Adam, in which he mentioned that "Basically, TC and I wrote a small snippet of  a relatively simple song – a song we’ll eventually expand for use in the show".

Well, we did just that, and the song- titled "Santa Claus Brought Me You"-- is the big emotional love duet between our Scrooge-like character and the girl he loves, but whose heart he is destined to break. (The song comes at a hopeful moment for the two before all hell breaks loose and our Scrooge becomes, well, Scrooge.) The short snippet written for the audition is intact within the finished lyrics.

And the bus is rolling

So much in just the past week-- we had our first readthrough & played the songs for the cast. Kicking off the experience on an auspicious note, the writer/director (yours truly) was nearly 90 minutes late. (It's a long story that involves xerography. Thanks, Staples!)

And it was- despite my egregious tardiness- well received. Which is great, because improvisers can make for some brutal critics. Fortunately, they also make for some talented actors. I couldn't be more happy with the cast assembled, featuring some of the best ImprovBoston has to offer, and a few non-IB folks coming along for the rollercoaster ride. People seem to have a good handle already on what we're looking for in terms of characterization. The early work (Oct.) will be on the songs, particularly the opening number which is very demanding, but which will sound beautiful if we can all get it down.

Now some cleanup work & last minute details to tend to-- a little bit of rewriting, now that I've heard a cast read the lines rather than just read them myself on a page, and finishing the grand finale number for the show-- and we're ready to start the homestretch toward curtain time.

Inspiration

I grabbed a copy of the Boston Metro on my way to school today. In the two-page entertainment section, there was a great little article titled "Busy 'Bee', Putnam County composer on the insanity of putting together a buzz-worthy musical."

Obviously, my interest piqued.

Though the aforementioned "insanity" never really gets commented on, composer William Finn recounts how the show -- the Tony award-winning 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' -- came about: it started as an improvised play. He and other writers spent two months reworking the show. He wanted to continue using the actors from the play; the trouble was "that cast didn't necessarily sing." They worked around the actors' shortcomings, further developed characters... long story short, they've now got an award winning production, and more importantly, a phenomenally popular show, and it born through improvisation. I hope to see it while the show is in Boston.

The songs for Dickens are almost done; I'm making up a practice CD for our cast so they can get comfortable with the songs on their own time, and we can better make use of our rehearsal time together. Our first read/singthrough is this Saturday.

I know this is only my second musical, but I am already so proud of all the work TC and I have put into it. This show, technically, was born through improvisation...

Just let me dream here for a moment...

Reading Someone Else's Brainwaves

In the reading I've done on Broadway songwriting duos, there has always beeen precious little on how they work together. The answer to "how do you go about writing songs?" is always a little poetic or obtuse: Kander and Ebb had a lot of stock answers to this question, such as "We enter a room as John Kander and Fred Ebb, and we leave as Kander and Ebb." Other pairs have similarly nebulous and elusive explanations.

So I'm left to wonder; however, if the process is anything like that which TC and I have been going through, then I have new found respect for all those who have ever teamed up to write songs.

Folks like Cole Porter, Stephen Schwartz, even Sondheim who are/were talented with both music and lyrics, while having to take on twice the work, have the distinct advantage of familiarity: since it is all coming from the brain with the same motivations and same style, it is much easier to write and re-write. There's no one to consult but yourself.

With two people, it's all about building familiarity and synchronicity: knowing where your partner can (and will) come from stylistically. TC and I are still very much in the early stages. He is an excellent lyricist; I've never seen anyone churn out quality lyrics as quickly as he does. I like to think I can do the same thing with music. But so far, our process has basically consisted of coming up with song concepts, then him going off -- whether we're together or not -- and writing most or all of a song. I get the lyrics, and if we're together, he'll sing me a basic melodic and rhythmic shape and then it's all mine to mold. The hardest thing for me is adding music to the song while trying to maintain TC's lyrical intent. I discovered over the summer that I'm a pretty good lyricist in my own right, so I can alter lyrics to fit any musical ideas I get while working with it. It's probably my relative newness to this whole process, but it feels like there should be more involved in the process: more what, I couldn't tell you.

For reasons I won't go into here, the times TC and I can convene to work have been less than what both of us want. We had set a goal of having all the songs written and recorded by mid-September so we could hand out practice CDs to our cast so they can start familairizing themselves with the music before we actually start rehearsals in November. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

At this point, music is getting there. A few songs are finished, a few have progressions, but melodies still have to be solidified, and the rest are still sitting next to my keyboard, waiting to be brought to life. Whether it still all gets recorded in time remains up in the air. My next semester at Berklee starts next week, and my life gets just that much crazier and full. As a sidenote, I've always wanted to get my life to the point where I had to schedule out every hour of every day, just to see if it would help correct my lack of self-discipline. Me thinks I'll get my chance this fall.

Also, I've been listening to tons to musical soundtracks: I'm currently getting acquainted with Spamalot (saw it live in Boston; LOVED it), Carousel, Assassins, Into The Woods, and A Little Night Music (yeah, I'm on a bit of a Sondheim kick these days.)

Wish I'd Written That

I've been listening to a lot of other show tunes and standards over the past couple of months, because Adam and I really want to have a 'musical' rather than just have songs dropped into a show.

It's not an old standard, but I have to say-- there's an Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach song, "God Give Me Strength", that just slays me lyrically. One part in particular is just brilliant, because it can be interpreted differently depending on who sings the song, and it works either way.

That song is sung out
this belle is wrung out

And of course it could be heard as "this bell is rung out", which conveys a lot of the same underlying emotion, though make you feel the singer's turmoil quite as acutely.

If you want to hear it sung properly all around, I recommend Alison Moyet's version, on her album Voice- where she also does a gorgeous version of Costello's "Almost Blue".

Things I Learned About Holding Auditions

-Musical sense is much easier to gauge than dramatic sense.

We handled the music audition in an unorthodox manner: we adopted the method from the guys doing GoreFest. Basically, TC and I wrote a small snippet of a relatively simple song – a song we’ll eventually expand for use in the show --for the auditionees to learn during the audition. We needed to see who could pick up the tune quickly, and who had good tone quality and rhythm. It was quick and dirty, and remarkably effective, certainly easier than having people prepare songs for us. I’m a lousy sight reader, anyway.

-Bring extra everything.

If you think you’ll need 20 audition forms will be enough, bring 30. If you think 10 pens will be enough, bring 30. Every single writing implement we brought for people to use was gone by the end of the weekend.

8.) You’ll always get talent that surprises you.

One gentlemen who auditioned for us was a countertenor. For those who don’t know, that’s a man who like a woman, e.g. as an alto or soprano voice. I had never heard one before, but it was absolutely stunning to hear.

After having a pow-wow with the GoreFest people, we were fortunate enough to discover we had very little in the way of overlapping talent, e.g. the people we wanted for our main roles were distinct from the people the GoreFest team wanted. Inevitably, there were people on both lists, but nothing we couldn’t negotiate.

After looking over the potential talent in this show, I am even more excited to really start cracking at the songs in the show. This camp gig I have right now – writing four original 6-song musicals over 8 weeks – is getting me revved up for this project.

Forever in peace may you wave

I forget the precise progression of events, but I know that was aware of the music of George M. Cohan by no later than the first grade (Thanks, Dad!) when I have a vague recollection that I performed "Harrigan" for some kind of class talent show. And by "performed" I mean "sang along with a scratchy vinyl record."

Movie musicals are a slightly different breed than stage musical, particularly those of the 1930's and 1940's, if only because stage musical didn't provide jobs for synchronized swimmers and you can fit a lot more people on a soundstage than the average proscenium. What with Indpendence Day having come and gone again, I'm naturally in mind of one of the best movie musicals ever made, one of the best Jimmy Cagney films ever, and one of the best-if-almost-completely-inaccurate biopics of all time, Yankee Doodle Dandy.

It's entirely possible that Cohan wrote the two lines in all of American patriotic music that best distill the dual nature of America- "Forever in peace may you wave" and "We won't be back 'til it's over, over there."

Auditions in Tandem & Functional Music

I have tried numerous times to write a cohesive post, but each time it came out stilted, so I decided to wait until I had a real purpose to write, and now I do.

Details for auditions for What the Dickens and GoreFest, our sister show, are at the end of this post. (I decided GoreFest is our sister show; to my knowledge, this is the first time ImprovBoson has had two holiday musicals in such close temporal proximity. Yeah, I like using big words.)

Over the summer, I am working at the Charles River Creative Arts Program; an intensive, 8-week program that lets kids from all over the state be creative in just about every way you can imagine. As part of the music program, we'll be putting up two large, original musical productions, one each month. I had the opportunity to listen to the music for the first one.

It sounded more or less what I was expecting it to sound like: lots of bouncy, bubbly energy, relatively simple melodies. In and of itself, an okay score. But it set my mind going on musical purpose, something composers sometimes overlook, or even ignore.

The tender love ballad, the villain's song, the "I wish/I want" song. These songs tend to get certain musical treatments because of the emotions involved with them. Sondheim consistently made every single word and every single note in his songs count towards heightening and advancing the drama, often at the cost of making the songs less hummable. Music for film fits the same profile: it heightens the drama of the moment, but you'll never hear people humming it (There are, of course, exceptions: Who wouldn't recognize John William's two-note motif for Jaws' approach, or the screeching violins from the shower scene in Psycho?).

These days, most songwriters want their music to be accessible and memorable to an audience, and thus tend to write songs more for aesthetics than function: beautiful melodies, chord progressions, styles, and orchestrations many times guarantee that people in the audience will leave whistling at least one of their tunes, which is fine; most audiences don't even notice whether or not there was a reason for singing.

My favorite songs are those serve their purpose to everyone: they leave the audience singing, and they express the feelings/desires of the characters singing. Writing good music and songs is just that, good. Being able to write good music and songs with purpose is what I feel every musical songwriter should strive for.

End sermon.

I promise, it'll be less preachy next time.
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Do you love to act? Do you love to sing? Do you love to dance?

Do dream of doing one, both or all of those while coated in red food dye and Karo
syrup? Or doing one, both or all of those while lovingly parodying Charles Dickens
and Schultz?

Then look no further!!! Auditions for GoreFest IV: Gross Encounters and the
ImprovBoston Holiday Spectacular VI: What the Dicken's?!? have arrived.

GoreFest IV: Gross Encounters is the fourth incarnation of ImprovBoston's standing
room only Halloween musical, which is both an original Broadway-style musical:
singing, dancing, the whole bit and the bloodiest, grossest show we can possibly
stage. This year's show uses songs hearkening back to the golden age of rock and
roll to tell the story of an alien attack at an Ohio high school in 1962. Think
"Grease" meets "American Graffiti" meets "Aliens" meets "Evil Dead" and you start to
get the idea.

What the Dickens?!? is this year's installment of ImprovBoston's annual holiday
spectacular-- an original musical based on the unholy genetic experiment of
combining Dickens' immortal holiday classic "A Christmas Carol" and the perennial
holiday favorite "A Charlie Brown Christmas." If possible, dress in primary colors.
No, really.

Auditions for both shows will be Saturday, July 15 from 10 - 2 PM and Sunday, July
16 from 12 - 4 PM at 50 Vassar St. in Cambridge (MIT building). You only need to
attend one day. No call backs are planned at this time. You can audition for one
or both shows (auditions will be held in separate, adjoining rooms). No preparation
is necessary (you will be asked to learn and sing a short song, read from a script
and perhaps do a small amount of dancing). Folks auditioning for What the
Dickens?!? should dress in primary colors. Please come prepared to tell us your availability for rehearsals and performances evenings and weekends from late July through December.

To reserve a spot in auditions please email donschuerman@yahoo.com. Please include:
your name
which shows you would like to audition for
two (2) one-hour blocks that you prefer (i.e. Saturday 10-11 AM or Sunday 3-4 PM).
Here are the details again:

What: ImprovBoston's GoreFest IV and What the Dickens?!? auditions
When: July 15, 10 - 2 PM, July 16, 12 - 4 PM
Where: 50 Vassar St. in Cambridge (MIT building)
Why: To be a part of ImprovBoston's annual musical (and gore) extravaganzas
How: Email donschuerman@yahoo.com to request a time slot (and which shows you will audition for), bring yourself (ready to sing, act and dance) to 50 Vassar St. at the selected time, bring your schedule to we can get your availability
We hope to see many of you the weekend of July 15-16.