2016 - Gordon Leary

Twan in The Times!

To round out 2016, Pregnancy Pact got a shout-out in The New York Times!

Margo & Twan, second and third from the left, in the Weston production.

Twan Baker, the baby-prop-performer extraordinaire, is currently co-starring with Margo Seibert in the Broadway production of In Transit. The two first met in our 2012 world premiere of Pregnancy Pact at the Weston Playhouse, and they’re back together as mother and child once again. I can’t wait to see them both in the show!

(The Times first referred to the show as Pregnancy Pact: The Musical, but graciously corrected the title after a quick email request.)

((Also, how fun to have worked with so many of the other wonderful people mentioned in this article!))

Pregnancy Pact

Sparkle like your leotard.

The Magnificent Seven

L-R: Amy Linden, Ally Bonino, Gillian Munsayac, Ellen Macy, Emily Walton, Dana Steingold, Shaleah Adkisson, Ned Risely, Lynne Marie Rosenberg, Keith Rubin

I’m so in awe of what we were able to share on Monday at Cloud City in the Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Festival. And it was only possible because of our director, Nikki DiLoreto, MD Rich Silverstein, and the ten wonderful people in the picture above who jumped (vaulted? Yurchenko’d?) into this fast and furious process and made my 17-year-old dream come true!

I can’t wait to share The Magnificent Seven with more than the 30 or so people that were in that tiny space at some point in 2017. Demos will be coming soon, and hopefully more!

It also wouldn’t have been possible without the encouragement, input, and excitement of Andrew, Jaclyn, Ellie, and our whole cohort in the Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Playgroup. It’s hard to believe our year is up with them already!

The 46th Minute

In Concert

The NAMT experience of condensing a musical into 45 minutes can be stressful for lots of reasons, not the least of which is not being able to share everything you love from your show. Which is why it’s so great that NAMT hosts a concert the night before the festival begins to feature songs that won’t be in the presentations! This year we were lucky enough to get to share two songs – one from The Loneliest Girl in the World, and a bonus from Pregnancy Pact (since this concert wasn’t around during the 2011 festival!)

The always wonderful Brynn O’Malley and Sam Heldt sang “All I See Is You” from The Loneliest Girl in the World and our new friends Delaney Amatrudo and Johnny Shea sang “Secrets” from Pregnancy Pact. Enjoy!

The Magnificent Seven @ Cloud City

The Magnificent Seven

It’s hard to believe that our time in Fresh Ground Pepper’s Playground Playgroup is nearing a close… It’s been a great nine months of making new friends and hearing their really wonderful work as Julia and I vaulted into our dream musical (pun intended.) And now, to celebrate, we’re sharing a little more of The Magnificent Seven with the world!

On Monday, December 12 at 7pm at Cloud City, we’ll be doing an hour-ish-long version of what we have so far (which includes 13 songs!) We have an amazing cast, most of whom were with us at Dixon Place: Shaleah Adkisson, Ally Bonino, Ellen Condon Macy, Amy Linden, Gillian Munsayac, Ned Risely, Lynne Marie Rosenberg, Keith Rubin, Dana Steingold, and Emily Walton. Nikki DiLoreto is directing again, and Rich Silverstein is on board to music direct.

All in all, it’s going to be a really fun way to kick off the sharings of each of the projects that have been developed in FGP this year!

Tickets are free at the door, so take the L train (while you still can) and come check it out!

NAMT Thanks.

Musings The Loneliest Girl in the World

I am still walking on air, more than two weeks later, after the wonderful experience that was the 2016 NAMT Festival of New Musicals. I could not have imagined a better way to share our show with so many people, and there are a bunch of wonderful people to thank:

Director Michael Berresse, always the calm in the many storms we encountered.
Music Director Rich Silverstein, who knows Julia and my art better than we do, at this point.
Our phenomenal cast – Robert Ariza, Sam Heldt, Eric William Morris, Brynn O’Malley, Dana Steingold, and Pearl Sun – for taking everything we threw their way (or, more appropriately, trimmed after they’d already learned it) in perfect stride. (That goes for our band, too – Jeremy Yaddaw and Nikola Tomic!)
Stage manager extraordinaire Sara Sahin, GM/constant resource Frankie Dailey, consultants Steve Stettler & Donna Lynn Hilton, Branden Huldeen, NAMT staff members Betsy King Militello, Adam Grosswirth, and Karin Nilo…
Ciera Iveson, for leading her first festival so unflappably.
And all of the other artists for all the other shows for building such a supportive pop-up community!

With all there has been to contend with in the world in the weeks after the festival, I’m so happy to be able to carry the joy of this experience with me right now. And I can only hope that NAMT will give us the chance to take our story out into a world that might find it a comfort or a conversation starter!