I’m pleased to announce that my new comedy, The Spectre of Death, will be performed by the Crowded Kitchen Players at Between the Lines Studio Theatre in Allentown, Pennsylvania from September 22 through October 1. It’s a play about a fading ’80s metal-band star and his unexpected daughter. Though it’s not a musical, I did have to write one song for the performance: the fictional mega-hit “We Are Going to Rock You…to Death!” I can’t wait to see what this talented troupe does with the script.
Here is the cast list from last Sunday’s ( Feb 25th) table reading of Breseis.
What a wonderful table full of talent. Breseis is set in a small upstate New York college and features “Bree” who cannot be seen or heard by her awful professor.
I started with the character, Breseis from Homer’s Iliad and somehow ended up with a present day play set in a college. how? I don’t know. Catie Carlisle did a terrific job of being a young student and a magical creature from another time all at once.
Christina Masoni- Valerie Rigbee
Bre – Catie Carlisle
Harrison Robb – Brian MacDonald
Calvin Robb- Brian Lyons-Burke
Richard Geissen – Rich Follett
Lukas- Fletcher Lowe-
Hamilton – Colton Chaney
Tara – Alexandra Sage
James- Gabriel Alejandro
Cameron – Sarah Cushman
Yvonne- Stephanie Elza Yee
Tricia Katie Ganem
Folksinger- Charlie B.
I may have have finally found a place to put my smattering of knowledge of Greek myth. There is a minor character in Homer’s Iliad named Breseis. You might remember her as the war prize of Achilles. She was later seized by Agamemnon, which led to Achilles sulking in his tent and allowing the Trojans to start winning the battle of Troy. Breseis is a pivotal character in the Iliad, but she does not utter a single word, and that struck me. I’m in the middle of writing a new play about her. I’m setting it at a college in upstate New York, and I’m giving her plenty to say.
I’ve written a new comedy called The Spectre Of Death. [Sic.] It’s about a 60-year-old heavy-metal rocker living off the royalties from his one big hit who receives a letter from a 20-year-old woman claiming to be his daughter. Hijinks ensue. I’m pleased to say that Ara Barlieb, the artistic director of The Crowded Kitchen Players in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has committed to giving this show a three-week run this summer. I know they’ll do a great job with it. The same company premiered my comedy Him and Jim several years ago.
My new-ish musical True North will have a staged reading at Catholic University in Washington, DC, on February 18 at 8 pm. The show, which is about two brothers who stumble upon an enchanted valley in Tennessee, will mostly be performed by singers who are new to me, but I’m pleased to be working with a few familiar faces, including the wonderful singer Alan Naylor, talented music director Josh Cleveland, and two admired colleagues I met through my women’s rights musical, 19: The Musical: singer/actor Meredith Eib and stage manager Elizabeth Dix. Catholic University dean Jay Brock will direct. The reading is open to the public, and I’d love to see you there. You should be able to find details closer to the date on my website or on Catholic’s events calendar.
My jazz band, Chaise Lounge, may be on permanent hiatus, but our music is having an afterlife—especially around the holidays. In years past, our numbers have been featured in made-for-cable holiday movies, and recently, Etsy used an instrumental version of our song “Trimmin’ the Tree” in one of their TV spots. (I also had an instrumental of my own picked up by Brach’s Candies for a holiday ad.) So if your ears perked up last month when a familiar tune came on the TV, it might have been one of ours.
Playbill’s notice re: When We Get There
In December, after working together online for nearly two years, I finally met one of my two collaborators on the musical When We Get There, which tells the story of a road trip to the fateful 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. Richard Lasser of Seattle, who wrote the book for the show along with Robert P. Young of Detroit, joined me in New York to meet with two of our production partners. As I’ve mentioned before, this show will have its first reading in New York, with sponsorship from the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning in Queens. Richard and I had dinner with the show’s director, Pat Golden, and our producing partner, Leonard Jacobs. After all this time of working remotely, to meet with these partners face to face gave our show a new sense of reality. Since then, we’ve all been hard at work arranging for a venue and starting to cast this reading, which as of now is most likely to happen in April. Stay tuned for more.
The String Queens, a Washington, DC, trio, are on the rise. Since playing at the Biden inauguration last year, the three musicians seem to be everywhere. I was honored to be asked to arrange the orchestral music for their debut concert with the Capital City Symphony in December. Trying to add energy to their already incredibly energetic stage show was challenging, but about as much fun as an arranger can have.
My bucket list of film projects just got smaller: I finally had the chance to score a real detective film noir. Private is a black-and-white two-hander starring its director, Steve Blackwood, and one of my favorite actors, Sandy Bainum. During the course of the scoring, Steve referenced the immortal Bernard Herrmann’s work for Alfred Hitchcock. After being completely intimidated, I found it invigorating to try and find an emotional equivalent to Herrmann’s work in several scenes. Private will be out in festivals later this year.