Musicals Archives - Gordon Leary

These Familiar Spirits demo release

To celebrate the spooky season, Julia and I are releasing a song a day from our newly completed demo for These Familiar Spirits! Follow along on our Instagram (@gordonandjuliamusicals) for daily videos.

(Many of the videos feature the artwork of Odilon Redon – including the cover image to the left… His spooky and beautifully otherworldly artwork is a big inspiration to us!)

Thanks to our phenomenal singers for their work bringing this brand new score to life over the past several months (and beyond!) – Shaleah Adkisson, Delaney Amatrudo, Kim Blanck, Ally Bonino, Carina Gravante, Victoria Huston-Elem, Amy Linden, MinJi Kim, Alllison Lian, Elexis Morton, Allison Posner, Hana Slevin, Gabrielle Stravelli & Tatiana Wechsler. And thanks, as always, to the wonderful music director Rich Silverstein and engineer Andrew Zinsmeister for making it all sound so good!

(Want to hear the whole thing at once in story order? Head on over to Soundcloud…)

RVM@MSM

Readings REB+VoDKa+ME

This past weekend we got to return to the world of REB+VoDKa+ME after far too long for a quick two day workshop in the Manhattan School of Music Musical Theatre Lab Series with a few new songs and brand new group of amazing actors!

The workshop featured Lucy Ames, Hallie August, Timothy Bevens, Cory Brooks, Maithili Ginde, Carina Gravante, Callie Anna Henrysen, Ayla Gittelman Ipek, Gigi Mechetti, Teyla McAdoo, Sammi Pillow, Kenneth Sweeney, and Yoyo Zhou, directed by the wonderful Madsie Flynn with music direction, as always, by Rich Silverstein.

Thanks to Aaron Riccardi and Liza Gennaro for this opportunity to revisit this project. I’m hopeful that we’ll be back in this world again soon!

First read/sing of the first act!

Readings These Familiar Spirits

There are few things as exciting as hearing the songs you’ve written sung for the first time, especially when they are sung by some of your most trusted (and talented) collaborators.

Julia and I were thrilled to have a table reading of the complete (and sprawling) first act of These Familiar Spirits – all 90 minutes and 16 songs of it!

Thanks to our readers and singers – Shaleah Adkisson, Liz Carbonell, MinJi Kim, Lauren Marcus, Allison Posner, Hana Slevin, Rebecca Spiro, and Colette Robert – and music director extraordinaire Rich Silverstein for tackling a lot of material in a short amount of time and letting us hear this new project for the very first time! What could be better than an afternoon with generous, talented, and insightful artists??

On to Act II and Michigan later this year!

Florida Festival of New Musicals

Cheer Wars Readings

Karlan and I had a wonderful time at the Florida Festival of New Musicals seeing a reading of the first act of Cheer Wars. Over the last 15 years we’ve had some amazing opportunities with the show, and it was great to expand the squad of artists who have been a part of the journey!

Thank you to director Desiree Montes, music director Harrison Light, stage manager Hillary Humphries, and our wonderful cast: Jake Aboyoun, Lizzie Black, Lindsay Diaz, Mahalia Gronigan, Victoria Highsmith, Rachel Hope Ihasz, Brandon Roberts, Carly Simpson, Vanessa Sotomayer, Avianna Tato, Addison Ward, Kelly Wells, and Chase Williams. Thanks always to the wonderful staff at the Winter Park Playhouse – Roy Alan, Heather Alexander, Lisa Milello, Todd Allen Long, and festival coordinator Conny Williamson – for welcoming us to Florida and putting on such a wonderful event.

I’m hopeful that there will be more cheer in the future!

Cheer Wars returns!

Cheer Wars Readings

Cheer Wars will be featured in this summer’s Florida Festival of New Musicals at the Winter Park Playhouse in Winter Park, Florida!

The festival will feature six musicals by writers across the country over the course of four days, June 20-23, 2024.

The time has never felt more right to stake a claim for joy, and I’m excited to revisit this project with Karlan almost 17 years (gulp!) after we started writing it!