Musicals

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A Magnificent Anniversary

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!

REB+VoDKa+ZOOM

We were lucky enough to spend the fall working on REB+VoDKa+ME with the senior class of Penn State’s Musical Theatre program over Zoom. Led by director John Simpkins and music director Jennifer Peacock, it was an exciting chance to dive deep into the show. It was lovely to hear the songs sung again, but it was also an amazing opportunity to talk through the story and the characters as we approach some new rewrites, especially without the pressure of polishing the work for a presentation. It’s so rare to get to listen and think and talk in these settings (29 hours doesn’t allow for much more than music learning on musicals) and it was such a gift to have the chance to do so with actors Aidan Cole, Amanda Drewes, Jasmine Forsberg, Elexa Hanner, Will Jewett, Jake Pedersen, Caitlin Stebelman, Becca Suskauer, and Kate Wild. I’m hopeful that someday we’ll get to be in the same room as all of these folks!

REB+VoDKa+VIDEOS

Over the summer, Julia and I had the chance to bring REB+VoDKa+ME online and make a series of videos of songs from the show! It felt like the perfect work to be doing at a time when we’re all longing for connection and (mostly) having to find it through a screen. You can see the videos and find out more about the show at www.rebvodka.me!

We were thrilled to collaborate with director Annie Tippe, video editor Ryan Mazer, audio engineer Andrew Zinsmeister, and performers Ally Bonino, Sam Heldt, MinJi Kim, Adam Lawrence, David Merino, Elexis Morton, Jeanna Phillips, Emily Walton, and Tatiana Wechsler to imagine our work in an online space (which thankfully is the setting of the show!) and bring our vision of this corner of the internet to life.

Special thanks to Iris Dart, Janis Purins, and the Dramatists Guild Foundation for awarding Julia with the 2020 Thom Thomas Award and funding this project!

Here’s to a magnificent 2021!

As we expected, both of our scheduled productions of The Magnificent Seven have been postponed to next year. We are so looking forward to following through on all of the planning that we’ve done, and grateful for a moment to step back into our role as writers to tackle some refining and rewriting. It’s also exciting to be coinciding not only with the (now) 2021 Olympics but also celebrate the 25th anniversary of the team’s gold medal win!

There will be more information about our productions at Flint Rep and The Players Theatre, and we’ll share it with you when it’s available!