My wonderful collaborator Julia Meinwald teamed up with our wonderful friend Shoshana Greenberg to present “Everybody Says Not To Be This Way” at The Duplex on May 1! It was a chance to share a number of our songs for the first time in NYC (or for the first time anywhere!) and I’m excited to share a few highlights!
Thanks to the illustrious Rich Silverstein for his always incredible music direction, and thanks to Julia and Shoshana for putting together a great night!
Julia and I were thrilled to be invited by Tommy Ranieri to write a song imagining a musical version of our favorite cult classic movie…
And if you know us, it’s no surprise that we chose to write a song for The Virgin Suicides. The song, “Words,” is imagined as a diary entry discovered by the neighborhood boys, sung by the sisters.
We were lucky enough to write it for our friend and treasured collaborator Kylie Lavrenchik to sing (and boy did she ever sing it, backed up by the wonderful Sunday Dinner.)
It was a fun night at the Jane Ballroom with songs by fellow GMTWP alums and friends.
It was especially meaningful to have a song performed in the same building Hedwig and the Angry Inch started in AND where I saw the musical version of Debbie Does Dallas (and was literally rolling in the aisle laughing) in 2003 that changed the way I thought about musicals just as I was realizing that I wanted to write them.
It had been 17 months and 1 day since the last time we had our work performed in person for an audience, but being back onstage at Don’t Tell Mama on July 23 felt like no time had passed at all!
It had all the elements of live performances that I’d been missing (and some that I’d happily forgotten) – the joy of the rehearsal process, the thrill of hearing new material, the stress of a time crunch, the warmth of a great audience, and the bonds of collaboration. We became a momentarily magnificent six as Jeanna wasn’t able to perform with us, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing!
Thanks to the crew of our favorites – Alex, Allison, Ally, Amy, Ellen, Jeanna, Lynne, MinJi, Roslyn, Sam & Tori – for donning the warmup jackets and bringing it all back to life.
Thanks to all who watched – both in person and online (especially those that braved the technical difficulties!) If you didn’t get to see it, or if you want to watch it again, check out the video below. (And read a nice little write up about the concert on BroadwayWorld here!)
As New York City continues to open back up, we are beyond thrilled to have the chance to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the US Women’s Olympic Gymnastics Team’s gold medal win with a concert of songs from The Magnificent Seven!
On Friday, July 23, we’ll get together with some familiar faces and some brand new faces to share selections from the musical, including two brand new songs! If you’re in NYC and want to see it in person at Don’t Tell Mama, make a reservation at donttellmamanyc.com. If you’re not in NYC, be on the lookout for more information about a livestream of the show.
We can’t wait to have a joyous celebration of both our love for those seven women and our first live performance in over a year!
Julia and I were thrilled to be featured in A Little New Music‘s Spotlight Series! We’ve been fans of the Los Angeles-based A Little New Music concert series for years, which have featured our songs and songs by some of our favorite writer-friends. It was a joy to get to chat with them about our work, look back on their performances of our work (featuring Lisa Musser, Laura Nicole Harrison & Kim Dalton), and share a brand new song from a brand new project we’ve been working on for the last year or so.
Thanks to the wonderful Tatiana Wechsler, Ally Bonino & Hana Slevin for their amazing video performance, and thanks to amy francis schott, Luke Klipp, Kila Packett, and everyone at A Little New Music for having us!
Check out the performance of the new song (“Scar” from These Familiar Spirits) in the recording of the livestream interview below!