Post-New York Updates

Breakfast of champions.

Welcome back, the week after Times Square.

By the time we made it back to Alexandria Monday night, I definitely felt like I was coming down with something.

But I felt well enough Tuesday morning to make my kickoff call with dramaturgs @Trent Clifford and @Rowan Gilvie who are working on a development program for Dream. We're shooting for another table read in late spring, locking the script by mid-summer, and a staged reading by this fall, location TBD.

Take that, virus, I thought. Then the virus, which I've named the Stay Down Virus, made its full fury known... which takes us to Friday.

But back to the dramaturgs, Trent and Rowan:

Back in the fall, Trent provided script coverage and worked with me on a plan of attack. I agreed with a lot of his thoughts, disagreed with others, and started rewriting. He helped me accept that the show has to focus on the protagonist's personal motivations, actions, and reactions, and the show is already stronger for it.

As for Rowan, I cannot think of a better-suited collaborator. I met them in the Musical Writers Festival in Frisco, TX, this summer. There, at a feedback session, Rowan brought to life the character of Tru, begging her character, Penelope, to return to her.

They lobbied to perform the song because in addition to their theatre skills, they're also a self-proclaimed classics nerd.

And here's where this snake eats its own tail a little. In addition to all that, Rowan was also the understudy for the role of Penelope in the recent Fort Worth production of Penelope. This last bit is perhaps the most perfect oddly specific experience imaginable, since the part they sang from Dream is an understudy fighting to take back the lead role of Penelope.

Here they are singing "The Woman I'll Become."

I am so looking forward to working further with them to fine-tune the show and ready it for production!

Bits and pieces from the week...

• Saturday was Song Salon day. Song Salon is a soul-restoring hangout for musical theatre songwriters, where they trot out their work, and discuss their wins, their process, or anything else. I snuck in at the last minute and, as always, was glad I made it!

  
  

• I worked on my next reading by an amazing New York-based group of playwrights and actors run by @Donald Loftus, called P.A.G.E.S. Many of the actors are pros with Broadway credits, and they're helping with monthly reads of 10-minute chunks of Dream. Though they don't sing in the call, these mini-table reads have been a huge help in judging the clarity of dialogue and the dialogue-to-song flow.

  
  

• And yes, I have been continuing the grand personalization of the script per my original meetings with Trent. I'm still in the puttering stages of a new montage song called "Eighteen Days," with music to come.

  
  

Keep an eye on the blog to see the madness behind the scenes, and please feel free to hit the "Let's Talk After" button with any thoughts you have on forward motion! We'd love to hear from you!