If you didn’t get to see the NYU workshop of REB+VoDKa+ME in person, take a look at the wonderful production photos by Sub/Urban Photography.
Gordon Leary
159 posts
This year brought two back-to-back bicoastal workshops, an international production, a bunch of table readings, a few concerts (big and small), a new look at an old idea, an ultra-productive writing retreat (RIP YIMT), and a wonderful new agent. Best of all, it gave me the chance to work with so many artists I love and respect, including…
Delaney Amatrudo, Robert Ariza, Sash Bischoff, Ally Bonino, Jack Brinsmaid, Liz Lark Brown, Sojourner Brown, Liz Carbonell, Max Chernin, Jackie Colquitt, Adam Cuppy, Jessica Fisher, Tara Forseth, Chris Gilroy, Holly Gould, Lux Haac, Molly Hager, Sean Hagerty, Susan Hammons, Chase Hauser, Sam Heldt, BP Houle, Emily Jenda, Benjamin Kamine, Angelina Kelly, Lauren King Thompson, Tara King, Caitlin Kinnunen, Lindsay Kipnis, Marina Kondo, Kelsey Lake, Adam Lawrence, Lily Lester, Allison Lian, Carl Limbacher, Amy Linden, Ellen Macy, Evan Maltby, Lauren Marcus, Patrick Marion, Megan McClain, Eric William Morris, Matt Morrow, Elexis Morton, Sam Paley, Angela Pardini-Gomez, Allison Posner, Katie Rodgers, Lynne Marie Rosenberg, Keith Rubin, Allie Sandler, Danny Saulle, Geremy Schulick, Charlotte Seelig, Libby Servais, Johnny Shea, Rich Silverstein, Allison Spratt Pearce, Phoebe Strole, Nicole Sumlin, Allie Trimm, Kira Vine, Emily Walton, Sally Wilfert, and Jeremy Yaddaw.
It also made me take a long, hard look at the work I do and be even more conscious of and conscientious about what I put into the world. More than anything, it forced me to re-up on my forever goal to be aggressively empathetic. In the midst of a difficult year culturally and politically, it was a thrilling year of creation.
Here’s to all the 2018 holds!
Julia and I went back into the studio with the cast of our REB+VoDKa+ME NYU workshop over the last few weeks to record the rest of the score! It was great to extend our time with these amazing students, and we’re so excited to have the whole score recorded. Thanks to Chris Gilroy and Mighty Toad Studios for having us back in Brooklyn. And thanks to Rich Silverstein for guiding us all through this epic score, as always. Be on the lookout for mixed tracks sometime in early 2018!
The workshop of REB+VoDKa+ME at NYU that performed this past weekend was one of the most intensely rewarding experiences I’ve had as a writer.
It’s been a little over 3 years since I sent Julia links to these two related articles and was like “Don’t think I’m a scary person but could this be our next musical?” and she basically said “You’re not scary and yes.” Two years ago, we started writing the show with director Ben Kamine in R&D Group, led by dramaturg-extraordinaire Megan McClain. A year-and-a-half ago Rich Silverstein came on board when we shared our first 16 songs from the show in public. And five months ago we finished a first draft of the script.
And this weekend the show was given a fully designed and produced workshop staging with a cast of amazing juniors and seniors from the New Studio on Broadway at NYU/Tisch. To call this opportunity a gift is an understatement – we wrote a show that doesn’t exist in a physical space and by not being bound by music stands we were able to learn more than we ever could have imagined about our work.
Much credit for that goes to our amazing creative and design team (partially pictured here) for helping us to develop our own world and our own physical language to make the 90-minutes of the show a complete thought.
And we could never have seen our work as fully as we were able to without the willingness, openness, depth, and hard work of the twelve students in the cast. They navigated this technically, musically, and emotionally complex piece with the kind of grace and heart we couldn’t have imagined when we first had the idea three years ago.
Immense thanks are due to Kent Gash, Sarah Schlesinger, and Brandon Anderson for inviting us into this collaborative process. Be on the lookout for some production photos in the near future!
I’m so happy to get to share all 13 of the songs we’ve written so far for The Magnificent Seven as we dive back into finishing a full draft of the show with MTF this year!
Thanks to our magnificent singers (Ally Bonino, Emily Jenda, Caitlin Kinnunen, Marina Kondo, Amy Linden, Ellen Macy, and Emily Walton), our magnificent special guests (Lynne Marie Rosenberg and Keith Rubin), our magnificent band (Geremy Schulick, Carl Limbacher, and Jeremy Yaddaw), our magnificent engineer Chris Gilroy, and our perfect ten MD/collaborator Rich Silverstein for making this all happen.
We can wait to write and record the next batch!