Over the last few weeks, I had the honor of participating in a beautiful experience - the NEXT Festival, sponsored by Theater Latté Da, located in Minneapolis, MN. The point of the festival is to give creators of new work a cast, an audience and time to workshop their new piece. At the end of the two week workshop, there are opportunities for the cast to present the piece to audiences, who are encouraged to answer questions posed by the creators, in order to improve the work. It’s a wonderful opportunity at a marvelous space, and my co-writer, Candrice Jones, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That’s the context.
Creating something like the musical we are still tweaking is a rather chaotic process - we live in different time zones and have a variety of other projects and work swirling around in our heads daily. Candrice just had a show open in New York, to much acclaim. So actively creating has been a measured process. But we’ve made it work. Composing for something that is already existing, like the documentary, Love Them First we are adapting, has proven more challenging than I thought it would be. So we approached the NEXT Festival process with joy, realizing that the focus provided by the format and residency would be tremendous for us and for this project. Needless to say, it exceeded expectations.
Of course, I’d forgotten the feeling of being in a room with people who see a vision, buy into it and make the vision more beautiful than it had been conceived to be. In all my stressing out, agonizing and struggling to make the 27 songs I wrote for this, I’d forgotten the wonder of hearing the music sung - be given life - by complete strangers who found it beautiful. I found this again in Minneapolis.
Without this cast - this amazing cast - who learned the songs in less than a fortnight, read the script, brought life and joy to these characters on a page - it wouldn’t have been possible. And to many, it’s a simple realization. To me it’s something out of legend. Like the motley crew of a fantasy story, each person bringing their skill set, and finding a place for their talents. I will always thank the producers of this show, and I have a forever debt to Candrice Jones, Kelli Foster - Warder, Mark G. Meadows, and Adam Dorfmann. But this is for the cast, the people who came to the theater and gave this rather crude musical life and personality and heart. Thank you, Aimee, Nora, Ronnie, Dwight, Alejandro, Audrey, Idman, Julia, Jordan, Britta, Will and Erin. You all are the best. Thank you.