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.

Quiz Bowl: The Musical - January Zoom Reading

Happy New Year!

Many moons ago, a show I wrote the music for was brought to life at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). That show was ‘Academia Nuts’, and while NYMF is sadly no longer with us the show lives on under a new moniker.

‘Quiz Bowl: The Musical’ is essentially everything Academia Nuts was, but with a new finale and some tweakages to reflect changing times. The wonderful students at the New York Film Academy are currently in rehearsals ready for a Zoom presentation of the show on January 23rd.

Thanks to the hardworking team at NYFA for overcoming the logistical nightmare that is prepping a musical for the world of online presentation!

If you don’t know the show take a peak at the video below!

Seasonal Things!

Well, we’ve nearly made it through this clusterf**k of a year… And so it’s time to celebrate with seasonal offerings!

• First up, I’m very excited to have a song in the Next Stage Co holiday cabaret ‘New Sounds Of The Season’. Written with wifey, the song is a celebration of that Christmas Classic, Star Wars, will be performed by Broadway’s Ryann Redmond.

• Secondly, a reminder that my holiday musical ‘Snow Way Out’ is available to listen to in full, right here.

• Finally, what would the holidays be without a seasonal music video from my trusted assistant, Parsley?

Goodspeed's Festival Of New Musicals

The Peculiar Tale Of The Prince Of Bohemia And The Society Of Desperate Victorians will kick off The 14th Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals in January 2019.

With book and lyrics by Becca Anderson and Dan Marshall and music by Julian Blackmore, the show is based on a series of short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson.

When Prince Florizel learns that his father the King of Bohemia is dead, he seeks to escape the throne. He and his chaperone Colonel Geraldine are invited to join a secret society - The Suicide Club. Club members play a deadly card game nightly with higher stakes than the Prince has ever known. Realizing the deck is stacked against them, the Prince and Geraldine become inextricably linked to the club's members in this darkly hilarious new musical.

For more information about the festival and the show, CLICK HERE.

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!

Christmas in July(ish)

Last week saw an unseasonal reading of a new draft of my holiday show 'Snow Way Out', featuring the wonderful talents of Maya Maniar, Colin Miyamoto, Jason Eno, Sarah Pesek, and Robert Johnson. 

The reading was presented in the beautiful Mary Rodgers Room at the Dramatists Guild as part of the Friday Night Footlights series. We had a full house, a lot of laughs, and walked away with some great insights into the piece. Thanks to everyone who came!

Playing on one of Richard Rodgers' old piannahs!

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.