Best New Song: 10 Years Later

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Around 10 years ago I was holed up in a room on Broadway busy writing a new musical. It wasn’t THE Broadway, but rather a practice room at NYU - alums get some privileges for forking out the exorbitant tuition fees after all.

The new tunes were to be part of an 80s inspired musical ‘Spandex’. It found it’s way to an Off-Broadway theatre a few months later. Actually, the theatre was already booked at this point, and I had to get the songs written, and the score complete in time for rehearsals to begin in March

After the run closed the musical sat around for a few years, did some workshopping and resurfaced for a short run in Minneapolis. When the pandemic hit in 2020 it got turned into an audio-musical to be savored from the comfort of your favorite chair.

Which brings us to today… Director Liz Piccoli and the show’s originator Daniel F. Levin decided to create a tongue-in-cheek music video for one of the songs from the show, and the resulting cinematic frolic is doing the rounds at festivals.

The World Premiere of the full video is showing at the New York Indie Theater Film Festival later this month, but in the meantime the song has just won Best Original Song at the Paris Film Awards. Hence my tooting of horn.

I’ll let you get back to your regularly scheduled programming of dog videos now.

The Peculiar Tale....

Sometimes things just need a change, and when my collaborators and I were asked by a prominent theatre if we’d mind changing the title of our show we were all for it. Cue a spreadsheet of brainstorming alternate titles for the musical formerly known as ‘The Suicide Club’.

After much discussion we settled on this natty little number:

“THE PECULIAR TALE OF THE PRINCE OF BOHEMIA AND THE SOCIETY OF DESPERATE VICTORIANS”

As of now we’re referring to it as simply ‘Peculiar Tale’, or sometimes just ‘PT’ if we’re feeling lazy.

As to the why’s and the who’s behind the change, look out for a big announcement in the New Year!

The Suicide Club update

Poster design by Hudson Meredith

After a few years on the back burner I'm very excited to dive back in to working on 'The Suicide Club' - a steam-punk musical comedy set in Victorian London.

Currently it's a lot of reformatting work as I move the project files from Sibelius over to Finale, with the addition of a few new songs and several tweaks (including a new character, so the sextet will now have to be re-worked as a septet...).

And there's nothing like a deadline, so we've set an early March deadline to finish everything off, ready for an informal table read of the latest draft in mid-March.

A new director with an exciting immersive vision for the show is on-board, and we're all hoping to move the show forward this year. Stay tuned!

New Show, New Demos

After a couple of years of mulling ideas over my writing partners and I have finally dived in to the first draft of a new show! 'Heist' is based on the true story of the 1972 New York hotel robbery that was the largest jewelry heist in history. Who was Bobby Comfort, and why did he do it? Find out why just as soon as we've finished writing the show.

In the meantime check out a few songs from the show below.

Embracing the inner geek

Academia Nuts got a very generous name check by the lovely folks at Hypable.com in a recent article about how geek culture is driving current theatre trends. 

My favorite part of the article:

"The Cursed Child announcement certainly linked the worlds of page and stage forever. But a more perfect harbinger of things to come was a little show that debuted at the New York Musical Festival in 2014 called Academia Nuts."

Thanks, Hypable! Read the full article here.

Whatever Happened....?

Proud to announce that after completing phase one of Apples and Oranges' THEatre ACCELERATOR program in February with 'Spandex', music from the show was featured in a showcase held at Irvine's Barclay Theatre in August. 'Whatever Happened To Caring', the rousing Act 1 closer from the stretchy musical, was performed by an incredible cast and band, and the audience even got to join in by waving LED lighters provided by the producers. Check out the video below!

More info on the concert can be found here.

Tell me whatever happened to caring 🎶 (you're missed team @spandexmusical but we lit it up for you). pic.twitter.com/3kTrw7URfF

— A&O Arts (@ano_arts) August 27, 2017

Opening Night

Tonight is opening night for a brand new production of 'Spandex' at the Minnsky Theatre in Minneapolis. While I sadly can't be there as I am traveling I want to say a big thank you to all the cast, crew, and creatives for all their hard work in putting this production together. Break a leg and stretch it out!

Anyone interested in seeing the show, which runs to June 10, can get tickets here.

The cast of 'Spandex' in the original 2013 production.

Photo by Becca Anderson

'Snow Way Out': First Public Performance

I’m thrilled to be able to announce a reading of the new holiday musical ‘Snow Way Out’, which I've been I've been working on with collaborators Becca Anderson and Dan Marshall.

The 90 minute 4-actor show will be presented as part of the York Theatre's Developmental Reading Series on Monday December 19th at 2pm, here in NYC.

We have a fantastic cast lined up, including Olivier Award-Winner Lesli Margherita(Matilda, Dames At Sea). The reading will be directed by the amazing Thomas Caruso(Southern Comfort, Brave New World), with musical direction by Kevin David Thomas.

Tickets are available here, and you can read more about the show and its cast in the press release here.