Gordon Leary

153 posts

2016.

What a year this has been! Two new musicals are well underway, while another had new life breathed into it. Three writers groups, a few writing retreats, some new songs… And a whole lot of wonderful people and collaborators who made this year possible:

Shaleah Adkisson, Delaney Amatrudo, Robert Ariza, Collin Batten, Michael Berresse, Ally Bonino, Jen Brissman, Michael Bush, Nikki DiLoreto, Hanako Greensmith, Sam Heldt, Ciera Iveson, Benjamin Kamine, Kelsey Lake, Amy Linden, Ellen Macy, Evan Maltby, Lauren Marcus, Megan McClain, Eric William Morris, Elexis Morton, Gillian Munsayac, Brynn O’Malley, Matthew Oster, Andrew Neisler, Allison Posner, Alex Ratner, Ned Riseley, Lynne Marie Rosenberg, Keith Rubin, Sara Sahin, Jaclyn Scoville, Libby Servais, Johnny Shea, Rich Silverstein, Adam Stasiw, Dana Steingold, Dustin Sullivan, Pearl Sun, Nikola Tomic, Elinor Vanderburg, Emily Walton, Jeremy Yaddaw, and Andrew Zinsmeister… I’m so grateful to you all!!

And of course, I’m so grateful that I got to go through everything this year with my collaborator extraordinaire, Julia Meinwald.

I can’t wait to see what 2017 holds!

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!))

Sparkle like your leotard.

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

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!