Gordon Leary

160 posts

The Magnificent Seven Demos!

The Magnificent Seven

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!

San Diego, part 2

Production The Loneliest Girl in the World

Our week in San Diego came to a close with a reading of the show on Saturday afternoon. It was so wonderful to get to hear the new draft (with four new songs and a bunch of new pages) and to get to know the wonderful people of Diversionary!

Thanks to our cast (L-R in the photo) Lauren King Thompson, Susan Hammons, Allison Spratt Pearce, Sam Heldt, Chase Hauser, and Adam Cuppy; thanks to music director Patrick Marion, who guided these six wonderful actors through more than 20 songs in about that many hours; thanks to stage manager Kira Vine for keeping us together; thanks to the whole staff at Diversionary (Jenny, Sebastian, Skyler, David, and Anthony) for welcoming us and making us feel at home; and big thanks to Artistic Director Matt Morrow for bringing us out and guiding the show towards the spring. We can’t wait to head back and start rehearsals in six short months!

San Diego, part 1

Production The Loneliest Girl in the World

After almost a year of planning, we have finally arrived in San Diego to workshop The Loneliest Girl in the World with Diversionary Theatre!

Julia and I are spending the week here to hear the show, meet the team, and get the lay of the land before our production in the spring. Diversionary has put together such a great group for our week here, with Artistic Director Matt Morrow at the helm with music director Patrick Marion. Perennial favorite (and perennial Tommy) Sam Heldt has made the journey with us to join a cast that includes San Diegans Allison Spratt Pearce, Adam Cuppy, Susan Hammons, Chase Hauser, and Lauren King Thompson.

I’m so excited to spend the week putting the pieces together with these wonderful folks (and the palm trees, sunshine, and hummingbirds)!

Back to the factory!

The Magnificent Seven Writers Group

Julia and I are happy to be back with the Musical Theatre Factory for a second year of their writers group. After a successful year last year finishing our first draft of REB+VoDKa+ME (which we can’t wait to share at NYU in November, see below!) we’re excited to devote this year to getting a full draft of The Magnificent Seven written! Our group includes writer friends old and new, run by the wonderful folks at Beehive Dramaturgy Studio. We can’t wait to journey back to 1996 Atlanta!

Choreomania goes uptown

Choreomania

About 5 years after writing our first song for it, Julia and I are finally going to get to work on Choreomania!

We’re joining the inaugural class of The Collective, a new program in the 92nd Street Y’s Harkness Dance Center Music Theatre Development Lab. The Collective brings together performance makers from across the spectrum – writers, composers, directors, choreographers, and hyphenates of the above – to explore new works of music theatre and dance. After spending so many years primarily behind music stands, we’re thrilled to get to begin to imagine a work in an environment that encourages us to consider movement as an integral part of the storytelling process. It’ll challenge us in the most exciting way!

Choreomania will explore the Dancing Plague of 1518, in which hundreds of people spent the summer dancing uncontrollably and inexplicably in the streets of France. The event is now understood to be the earliest recorded instance of mass hysteria (thanks to the invention of the printing press.) It’s about the search of explanations to the unexplainable, the fear and allure of the unknown, and the power of a crowd.

Give our first song, “I’m Moving” – sung by Frau Troffea, the dancing plague’s originator – a listen while we get ready to dive into the 16th century!