Seven years after we wrote the first song for it, Something Blue is having its first public reading as part of the 2019 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival, produced by Underscore Theatre Company. I’m so thrilled to get the chance to hear it fully and so excited to get to spend a week working in Chicago!
More information is coming soon, but you can reserve your (free) tickets if you will be in Chicago on Presidents’ Day, Monday, February 18!
We have a full draft!
And Julia and I gathered a wonderful group of friends and collaborators together to hear the entirety of The Magnificent Seven for the first time.
Thanks to Shaleah Adkisson, Renee Albulario, Delaney Amatrudo, Ian Axness, Ally Bonino, David Friedlander, Holly Gould, Brandon Michael Lowden, Ellen Macy, Lynne Marie Rosenberg, Keith Rubin, and Hana Slevin for a great read and a great discussion.
I’m so excited to get down to work based on the wonderful feedback I already did some rewriting… (And USA Gymnastics is certainly trying hard to keep the sport in the collective consciousness.)
For now, though, it was the perfect way to cap off a creative summer!
After a little over five years of off-and-on writing, we now have a first full draft of Something Blue! And we had the honor of hearing it outloud for the first time with some wonderful new friends – director Sash Bischoff and actors Robbie Collier Sublett, Rachel Flynn, and Ryan Everett Wood.
What started as a challenge to write the smallest show we could imagine became a three-person, hushed, complicated, human musical.
We’re already on to rewrites for the next draft, and we’re looking forward to sharing the show sometime very soon!
We’ve got an amazing group of singers joining us to share the first material from REB + VoDKa + ME!
Come on up/down/over** on Friday, May 20 to see Ally Bonino, Hanako Greensmith, Sam Heldt, Kelsey Lake, Evan Maltby, Lauren Marcus, Elexis Morton, Matthew Oster, Allison Posner, Libby Servais, Rich Silverstein, and Emily Walton! (It means a lot to have all these people, from all along our writing journey, back with us to try out something new. And we’re thrilled to work with a few new folks at the same time!)
And if you can’t make it next Friday, fear not! This whole crew will head into the studio to record the new material, so be on the lookout for a link soon.
**Don’t be afraid of the waitlist! Once you’re confirmed, it’s first-come, first-served at the door.
Ben, Julia, and I are so excited to have our first chance to share material from our new show, REB + VoDKa + ME in The Civilians’ Findings Series. On Friday, May 20 at 7pm, we’ll share a dozen or so songs with a glorious, almost-finalized cast of 13! Read all about the other shows from the R&D Group and reserve your seats now.
More info coming soon!