Production Week

Cast is here.  Director is here.  Production Manager is here.

Read thru Friday night.  Orchestra rehearsals.  Cast rehearsals.  

You get the picture.  

We're on our way to bringing this show to life this week.  More soon after we sleep a little bit....

And Now a Word From Our Sponsor...

Waiting.  

Do you realize how much time we all invest in waiting?  We wait for the stoplight to change, for the bus to arrive, for the mail to be delivered.  We wait for the relationship to gel, for the marriage to work, for the employer to realize our talents.  We wait for our pain to stop, the medicine to work, for our bodies to heal.  We wait for the check to arrive, to receive the call, for the job to be offered.  We wait for the text message, the Facebook posting, or the tweet to come.

Life is filled with waiting.

Come see the musical, Waiting.... where EVERY character is waiting for something – just like you and me.

Bob Ballance, Co-Producer of Waiting...

We just met our $1000 Kickstarter goal!

We just met our Kickstarter.com $1000 goal - which means we get the moolah!  Thanks to all our backers!

Our Show Poster

Spanking New Script

It can be done.  

A creative team can work on a show in different cities and bring it all together into one coherent script. 

What did we ever do before Skype and email?  

After the informal reading with Lillie and her NYC actor friends, Lillie and I finally sat down for a 90 minute phone conversation to tweak our show.  So we are quite excited to send out this new version to the actors (very) late tonight so they can start memorizing and asking all the questions actors wanna know.

Looking forward to Ryan's return on Tuesday from his conference.  He and I will start working on the Transition music - which is a big part of the show.  Rather than just scene change music, we opted to use these Transitions to further tell the characters' stories with stylized staging all told with Ryan's music.

The process continues....

Musical Tetris

Funny... 

As a show is being written, it starts to take on a life of it's own, like that of a human being. It starts to tell you what it needs. It talks to you the way it can only do.

Lillie wrote some awesome dialogue (between GG and Izzy) for a scene near the end of the show. I had a song already written a song for GG that follows the dialogue.  But after re-reading the script, I realized the show didn't need that song there because the scene was calling for something else.  So we moved it to another part of the show where it works great now. It found it's new home and fits quite well with some other awesome text that Lillie wrote.  In it's place in that first scene I mentioned, I was inspired to write a new song that better fits the scene and the plot. 

Sometimes magic happens within all the chaos. 

I'm loving this discovery process now that the show is taking on a personality of its own.

Working It Out

In Waiting... mom and son, Grace and GG, do not see eye to eye.  They haven't for a long time.  They've had a rocky relationship ever since their family broke apart years ago.   Because of GG's current arrest charges for vandalizing (graffiti), the court has ordered therapy for him and his mother reluctantly joins him. 

When I envisioned this scene, I heard it as through-composed - sort of a Barcelona from Company vibe going on, if you will.  There are a few different quirky motifs going on that counterpoint around and 4 different sections that take us on a musical journey with what happens between GG and Grace.  There is a lush, emotional section where the characters add their heartfelt insight.  

There is no therapist, well at least you can't see him or her.  GG and Grace address the audience as they are talking to their mystery listener.  Son and mother start out in individual sessions, and by the end of the scene/song we have a very awkward moment that builds to a climax neither of them saw coming.

Oh, sidenote - Grace is a therapist herself, which makes this song, Working It Out, even juicer. Ever been to therapy with a therapist?  Needless to say, things get interesting.