Oedipus For Kids!

Oedipus for Kids is being published!

2008-08-06T11:53:00.003-04:00

http://www.samuelfrench.com/store/new_acquisitions.php

2 productions coming this fall/winter. More information to follow when it's available.

Oedipus for Kids is not dead!

2008-05-21T16:17:00.000-04:00

Some great new news will be coming soon...

What Next

2007-07-07T18:48:00.000-04:00

A letter in the e-mail recently:

Hey whoever

I found the Oedipus For Kids site during last year's run, laughed much,
downloaded the three available songs, laughed some more, told all my
Classics geek friends, kept reading your blog, and finally forgot about
you for several months.

Now I've remembered you, yet there is no indication on the site of What
Happened Next. I'm sure the webmaster must have a life, but it'd be nice
to read a follow-up.

So here are some vague questions in no particular order:
- Any plans for another season?
- Any plans for further workshops?
- Any plans to make the cast recordings/demos available?

Umm, I think that's about all.

Many thanks for the laughs

Hi [name withheld],

Sorry for the very slow response. In honor of your e-mail and the fact that you're right, we haven't done a "What happened next", I've taken your e-mail and replied to it on the blog. In fact, this is on the blog right now, even though you are reading it in your e-mail. Everybody else is reading it on the blog. Perhaps you should go to the blog to read it. Except for you, the rest of the world. Rest of the world, you're already on the blog and therefore cannot go elsewhere to read it.

So, to answer your questions...
We do have plans for another "season" but they're tentative. Musicals are slow, slow beasts. The NYMF production was our first run, and we've taken the time since to do rewrites, changes, streamlining, removing an intermission, and even brought back a favorite song of mine that was cut during rehearsals.
Right now we're in the middle of the "what's next" chapter. There are some people who have read the script and while I don't have anything I can officially report quite yet, I can say that there will be another production of Oedipus for Kids. When and where is another question. But if any producers out there are interested, please let us know!

As far as the recordings, we did recording more demo songs for the purpose of sending out to producers; we may offer these online at some point. If so, I'll post info about that here (on the blog, not the e-mail, assuming you're reading the blog).

Thanks for asking!

Cheers!
- Gil

Beanz! Coffee for Kids

2006-10-09T16:50:00.000-04:00

A little blurb that Kim found [Hy on Theatre]:

Going into its third year, NYMF really deserved a look—and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the eight shows seen (out of 34). Favorites include Journey to the West, Desperate Measures, The Children, and Oedipus for Kids.

Some memorable moments of the festival:

One of the running gags in Oedipus for Kids is that the show is sponsored by Beanz, "the coffee for kids!" The product placements throughout the production are quite fun; but truly inspired is that the crew serve the audience Beanz Coffee during intermission. I was foolish enough to drink some—and discovered it was a hideous mix of actual coffee and Cherry Kool-Aid.

I forgot to even mention this. For some of the performances, we did in fact serve Beanz coffee to the audience. It was made with as much black coffee as you'd usually use water when mixing it with sweetened cherry kool-aid, and the effect was exactly as desired. You drink it and say, "I usually like these two flavors, what the heck is going on?"

We stopped serving it when it hit our 11PM show; we figured that during the Midnight intermission, people who want real coffee would be angry to have such strange bad coffee.

A real post!

2006-09-27T15:01:00.000-04:00

Oedipus is over. Or at least this run is. Sad.

But not bad. We had an amazing cast and crew, 8 sold-out performances, and a lot of fun. Tons of important people came, like my grandmother (don't ask how I convinced her to come), some people from high school that I'd lost touch with, and 4 of the six cast members of [title of show] (which you must catch before it ends its Vinyard run on Sunday). All of which made me very happy. But now, the run is done.

However, this is NOT the end. How do I know? Here's how I know.

Last night I personally had a special meeting with Margo Lion, Kevin McCollum, Robyn Goodman, Jeffrey Seller, Marc and Jon B. Platt, David Stone, Gerald Schoenfeld, Barbara Freitag, Barry & Fran Weissler, The (entire) Araca Group, Gerard Alessandrini, Robin Williams, Stephen Sondheim, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and a Zebra in a Fez eating Pez. They all decided together to kick Phantom of the Opera out of the huge Majestic and put Oe4K there, adding a chorus of 50 real blind men for the act 2 number. After they all agreed, we had an awesome beach-slash-sake party at Taven on the Green to celebrate. Except for it looked less like Tavern on the Green and more like a cross between Vienna and a Wet Dog. And when I woke up, MY PILLOW WAS REPLACED BY A BOWL OF GRAPE NUTS!

(The exclamations, once more, are mine. It has occurred to me that the show should maybe be re-titled Oedipus for Kids?!?! instead of the current Oedipus for Kids! Might actually cause less confusion.)

So the one thing I do have to post about. It all begins with our Friday Night 11 PM performance, performance #6 of 8. We knew when the date was added that it would be a slightly different performance; how can it not be at 11 PM? What we didn't realize until the day-of was that Laura Jordan would break her foot that morning.

What's important was that she was fine. And not only was she fine, but she was willing to go on anyway. So we did a little creative thinking and after a little speech before the show, we had Laura go onstage in an office chair which she sat on during the majority of the play. A few set and costume pieces were excised, and we were off.

Now Friday night was a weird night in a few ways. Besides the stupid disco ball being rewired into the wrong port or something (I don't know lighting, but it was going off in random scenes), and besides the entire lightboard dying causing every single light to go off in the middle of the Sphinx scene (Reed's comment: "wow, a whole day just went by!")...

Ah, runon. So Laura comes on and they do their best with Laura sitting the entire show. Sure, not as much choreography, but we figured the audience would understand. And I gotta say, not only did it barely make a difference, it even provided an additional 2 or 3 more laughs than we normally get. There's a moment where Oedipus tells Mommy that his ankles hurt and says "carry me!" On Friday night, when Reed said that line, the entire audience suddenly realized that something wasn't going to work. And in that wonderful moment of tenseness, Laura waits the exact perfect amount of comedic-timing seconds and then tells Reed, "NO."

And then, quite the trouper, she went through the entire show rolling around onstage in an office chair. I couldn't make this stuff up. What was amazing was that after the first ten minutes or so, with her own improvised comedy and even doing all of Husband/Lover/Son, her 9:45 PM number, I stopped noticing she was in a chair. And it seemed to almost make sense that her character would be sitting in a chair with her leg in a cast. That's what you get from a performer with that much talent, dedication, and a staunch belief that the show must go on.

[oh right of course gavin and reed you guys are good too]

Some answers to some frequently asked questions:
Q: Where can I get the cast album?
A: You can't, at least yet. Actors equity states that unless we're filthy rich, we can't record the cast album with the original performers for the next 6 months. Oddly enough, we can ignore our original cast and go get some other actors to create a demo album, but if we want to showcase it with our original actors we can't. That's why the 3 tracks we have uploaded were all sung by other people.
Q: Did you get to meet Barret Foa?
A: Yes I did; he totally came to the show for one of the performances.
Q: Wasn't that awesome?
A: Yes, but I like him for his talent, not in the way that you and half of BroadwayWorld.com faun over him.

OK, I think I had some joke I was going with for this FAQ thing but I've forgotten it.

I'm sure I'll post more. But with our NYMF run done, just remember that one thing made it all possible: mother fucking.

Ah!

Broadway.com Review

2006-09-27T14:48:00.000-04:00

Really, I promise a real post very very soon, but first, some recent reviews:

Charles Isherwood of the New York Times says "A cute spoof of children's theater, with some truly funny songs and endearingly loopy performances from a cast of just three." His only complaint is that it should be 90 minutes. A better a review than the others recieved, plus our color picture led the article in print. I do appreciate his comment that these are first runs of shows without workshops. Some people don't seem to understand what happens after a workshop.

This Broadway.com rave is ridiculous. I now bring you to a magical land called Quote City. Come with us:

"This twisted treat lives up to its outrageous title admirably, thanks to the wicked wit of the creative team and a flawless, fearless cast!"
"Patterson and Varod's book captures a Christopher Durang-like sensibility that is infectiously entertaining!"
"Varod and Saferstein's score is a total treat!"
"Highlights include the relentlessly catchy Fuzzy Duck anthem 'You Can Do It All' (which I've been humming more than a few times), Oedipus' naughty, witty lament 'A Little Complex' and Jocasta's showstopping Latin rhythm-tinged 'My Husband is My Lover is My Son'!"
"The cast bringing the surreal world to life is uniformly terrific!"
"Gavin Lewis brings a delirious manic energy to his roles!"
"Laura Jordan matches Lewis beat for beat with her edgy, hilarious work!"
"Reed Prescott nearly steals the whole show!"
"Directed with a sure hand by Dan Fields!"
"In the capable hands of these young comic minds, it can be just as horrifyingly fun as it sounds!"

.... yes, I added the exclamation marks. Shameless of me.

Rejected Broadway.com Questionnaire

2006-09-26T12:23:00.000-04:00

Sorry for not updating this during the run. I owe a real blog post later, but in the meanwhile, I wanted to post the Broadway.com Questionnaire that our fantastic actors filled out. Unfortunately Broadway.com never used it, and since we closed last night I assume they have no intention of it. So I figured, why let it go to waste? I bring you the rejected Broadway.com Oe4K Questionnaire, as done by the trio before the show began.

1. Describe your show (and its appeal) in 20 words or less.
LAURA JORDAN (Jocasta,Oracle,"Mommy"): A wacky, farcical romp that is all Avenue Q wishes it could be…suck on that!
GAVIN LEWIS (Tedipus,Laius,Sphinxy,Teiresias ): Sex, death and children's theatre.
REED PRESCOTT (Oedipus): Well, I don't know more than 20 words, so this shouldn't be too hard.

2. What are your source materials for this piece, and what, in your eyes makes them sing? Why is this a musical?
LAURA: If a Greek tragedy doesn't make you want to sing then the art form itself has serious issues
GAVIN: Look, I do what I'm told.
REED: Um, well, my eyes don't sing. My mouth does. And besides, I poke my eyes out at the end anyway.

3. What are your inspirations?
LAURA: Frankly, I am my own inspiration…but if pressed for influences, I guess…US Weekly.
GAVIN: Klaus Kinski, PS2, death metal and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
REED: Um, I'm not sure what makes me inspirate, but I now use a heavy-duty deodorant to fix that problem.

4. What was the first musical you ever saw?
LAURA: Oliver, thus learning right away that children have appropriate places in life and one of them is NOT the legitimate stage…but workhouses and a pickpocket's den are fine.
GAVIN: Emmit Otter's Jugband Christmas.
REED: Mrs. Mendelbaum's 4th Grade Multi-Cultural Holiday Extravaganza". I was supposed to be Candle Number Seven, but I got the chicken pox and couldn't make it to rehearsals. The following year I got to be in Mr. O'Shanahan's Arbor Day Gala where I played the antagonist, the Asian Longhorn Beetle.

5. If you could have anyone in New York see your show, who would it be and why?
LAURA: Duh – Don Buchwald, Super Agent!
GAVIN: Jesus Christ because he could definitely get me a job and he needs to get out more.
REED: The great acting teacher and Science-ologist, Claudio Mento.

6. What is the best musical ever written?
LAURA: In My Life.
GAVIN: The one that gives me a paycheck. Just kidding! Cop Rock, episode 1.
REED: The Vibrations. Because calling it Good Vibrations is an overstatement.

NY Musical Festival gets a little complex

2006-09-15T11:22:00.000-04:00

A great interview is up with Kim (book for Oe4K) over at The Villager.

It's the day before the weekend storm. Two performances on Saturday, and one on Sunday, some of which have tickets that go onsale 7 PM the night before.

I know you're tired of hearing me ramble. Since we'll be living in the Sage Theatre the entire day Saturday and part of Sunday, I'm going to try to force at least 2 people to write blog entries of their own.

MORE TIX AVAILABLE!

2006-09-14T21:12:00.000-04:00

I was wrong. Some of the tickets that NYMF was going to hold till night-before are now available for some performances. Take a look!

The L Magazine

2006-09-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

OK, so let's do a little bit of advertising fun, shall we?

Here's how the most recent issue of The L Magazine looks under the eye of advertisements:

"A Bloody Riot!"
- Raven Snook, The L Magazine

And here's what she really said:

The third annual New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Here's my completely biased, mostly rumor-based roundup of the shows you want to see.

Oedipus For Kids! No, this show isn't appropriate for tots and yes, titles with exclamation points are really tired. But this musical about a children’s troupe that ill-advisedly attempts to musicalize Sophocles' masterpiece with numbers like 'Be Kind to the Blind' and 'My Lover is My Husband is My Son' sounds like a bloody riot.

I saw another "sold out" NYMF show yesterday. The seat next to me was empty because of more unused press/VIP seats that went onsale, even though nobody knew about it.
As nice as it is to brag that a show is sold out, there's a level of ingenuinenessness when you show up to a sold out performance to find that you can put your smuggled-in puppy onto the empty seat next to you.

Our extension dates are now entirely sold out. The only way to see the show now is getting tickets 7PM the night before any performance, or at the show a half an hour before.

Well, that's not the only way to see the show. I also accept favors.

The day after opening night

2006-09-13T11:45:00.000-04:00

"Oedipus for Kids!" opened last night. And let me say, it went pheomenally.

When you're that close to the show, especially a comedy, you forget what it looks like with your fresh glasses on. You wonder, "People laughed at the Icarus joke? People know that Icarus flew into the sun and died?" Or you're afraid that some of it the audience won't "get", or it might just go over their heads. But it works.

After walking out of the show, I think we all felt like the audience "got" it. The humor hit right, the audience laughed in all the right places (and in some I never imagined them laughing). The show together works as one coherent piece, and it moves well. And by the ending...

Our cast is hysterical. There's no other way to put it. Whether it's Reed as an idiot, Gavin as a blindman, or Laura as the Oracle (it's so nice when a scene that's not a musical number gets its own applause at the end), they kept the show on its toes.

I don't know what else to say. Last night was great. My brain is still decompressing from it (being tired isn't helping much either, I suppose). I want to congratulate all of the creatives, cast, and crew for the phenomenal work they've done on this. A special thank you to Dan Fields, who I'm glad we bumped into. And a thank you to last night's audience, for being such a fantastic audience.

There's still one performance left that isn't sold out, and that's Friday, 9/22 at 11 PM [tickets].

NYMF also isn't very good at publicizing this, so I'll try to make it clear for the other seven "sold out" shows. A big handful of tickets for all NYMF shows are held for industry/press/insiders/VIPs and those that aren't used are released at 7 PM the night before the show. So either come to this webpage the night before, or alternatively you can just show up at the theatre the night you want to go.

I'll try to write some more meaningful comments at some future point. I'm still decompressing. Soon, though.

Article in New Jersey's Asbury Park Press, and more

2006-09-11T23:23:00.000-04:00

Local graduate turns "Oedipus" into a musical comedy

This is listed under the Asbury Park Press's "TOAST OF THE TOWN". That's possibly the funniest name for a section I've ever heard of.

Also, I think I never linked to this: Sophocles and Plato Review Oedipus for Kids

The show starts tomorrow. For those of you who haven't been involved in an NYMF show, here's how your schedule works day-of:

8 AM: Load into the space. We already pretty much have all our stuff here because we've been rehearsing at the performance venue from the beginning. But that's when we load into the actual theatre; we've rarely rehearsed in the theatre itself and usually use the back room.
12:30ish: The Actors show up because by Equity, they can't be around for that long and by sanity, they probably shouldn't show up earlier if we want them to be good.
6PM: Actors are done standing around as we change lighting on them over and over again.
8PM: Opening night. Insanity.

And by the way,
a) For anybody who keeps asking, I did not create the Oedipus for Kids! Wikipedia page. If I did, I would have filled it in with some detail. The cast/creatives also say they didn't do it. Although I must say, 95% of the research for this play was done via Wikipedia.

b) The New York Sun hasn't seen the show but described my lyrics as discomfiting. Says dictionary.com:
dis·com·fit v.
1. To make uneasy or perplexed; disconcert.
2. To thwart the plans of; frustrate.
3. Archaic. To defeat in battle; vanquish.

c) Another Broadwayworld.com picture, this time from the NYMF launch party. I look smug as always.

Top Row: Cornell Christianson (last year's NYMF, It Came From Beyond),
Gregory Brown (Oedipus for Kids, Musical Director)
Middle Row: Kimberely Patterson (Oedipus for Kids, Book), Elizabeth Lucas,
Jinay Reitze (Oedipus for Kids, Stage Manager)
Bottom Row: Jessica Redish (NYMF, Oedipus for Kids),
Gil Varod (NYMF, Oedipus for Kids, Book/Lyrics)
and Reed Prescott (NYMF, Oedipus for Kids)

The backside of Oedipus

2006-09-11T11:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it seems that Reed, Gavin and Laura seem to have endless energy. I suppose you have to. This show is like Noises Off in that it's exhausting and you're constantly onstage hammin' it up. The only difference is that Noises Off doesn't also have singing and dancing.

A friend pointed out that in the bottom-left corner of that photo, I'm stroking my chin for some unknown reason. Bobby is smiling. He has the correct response. I will try to keep this in mind.

We're listed in this weekend's New York Times listings, and there's an article in the Post that features us:

By the time the curtain falls on Oct. 1, a total of 34 new musicals - amid 84 seminars, concerts, dance pieces and related events - will have played New York, and none are likely to be confused with "Fiddler on the Roof."
Bedlam on the Hoof is more like it. How else to explain a little tuner called "Oedipus for Kids," with songs like "A Little Complex" and "My Lover Is My Husband Is My Son"? (As you may have guessed, the show - about a kiddie troupe's version of a Greek tragedy gone horribly wrong - is not for kids.)
But if you think we're edging into Fringe territory - and with shows with titles like "The Tragic and Horrible Life of The Singing Nun" and "Gutenberg! The Musical!," who'd blame you? - the festival's organizers disagree.
"Sure, there are satires, like 'Oedipus for Kids,' but far fewer of our shows are in that bizarro place," says executive producer Isaac Hurwitz.

The majority of the article highlights The Screams of Kitty Genovese, and pretty much only talks about either of our shows because of sensationalism...

Pretty typical New York Post mentality. Exactly what you'd expect from a newspaper whose cover featured a blowup of Zarqawi's face, bruised and puffy, with a cartoon bubble from the dead terrorist's mouth uttering the command "Warm up the virgins".

Three days left

2006-09-09T23:11:00.000-04:00

As I write this blog entry, I'm on the way back to Hoboken in a bus. Have you even taken a bus to Hoboken? It's like a city bus, with an exit in the back, and you always feel like the bus is going to stop, open up its back exit, and let people off at the halfway mark inside of the Lincoln Tunnel.

Rehearsal today went great. We at first intended a run-through, but when we realized how much musical underscoring needed detailing we decided to do a walk-through. Got to see some of the stuff that I'd just never seen before... a Greek Dance Break where they get drunk and begin to brawl, the end of "My Lover is my Husband is my Son", and the very end of the play which just seems to get funnier every time we up the ante. By the time the show goes up on its feet, I'm going to have to repent for a nice chunk of sins.

What else is there to say? We open up in three days. There's still things to clean, dancing that needs tightening, possibly a line to cut here and there, maybe places that could use underscoring that never occurred to us, and possibly some edits in comedic timing. It's hard to remember that this is why it's only NYMF. And yet you want to treat it like it's a full opening of a show that has a run, because when you rehearse and spend that much time in it, you really want everything to be perfect.

But honestly, how often in theatre do you say to yourself, "yes, we've had too much time to rehearse. Let's go on vacation and come back opening night".

Everybody's working incredibly hard, and just for the joy of theatre. It's good that even with three days left, even on no sleep and getting sick one by one, we're still laughing. We're still having fun with the piece, we're still finding new moments and new places and God, does this cast make me laugh. Each time I see them go through it, they find a new way to make me laugh. They've really taken the text and songs and brought these characters to life, and make them frickin' hilarious. I don't imagine we could have a better group for a show like this. The egos pretty much left on day one. I haven't seen this much teamwork in awhile, and its refreshing.

I want to give a special shout-out to Jinay Reitze, our superb stage manager and a great friend, without whom this show would have never gotten up and running. The work she does is well beyond the job of stage manager, and I've never seen anybody work harder than Jinay does.

Only three days left. And once everybody comes, this may be the most hysterical thing, or this may fall flat on its face. But I think I can speak for everybody by saying that we're proud of what we're putting out there. And I can at least speak for myself when I say that I hope you like it.

Pictures from Virgin Megastore...

2006-09-08T17:35:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, NYMF held its first Virgin Megastore concert at Times Square. The audience was staggering... pretty much consisting of people involved with each of the shows that were performing. That is until each show performed, at which that show's group seemed to rush out of there ASAP. But here's BroadwayWorld's pictures...

The entire cast of "Oedipus for Kids!"

Sorry BroadwayWorld, it's not "Oediups for Kids" no matter how much you want it to be.

The cast, crew, and creative team.... somehow this is pretty much every single person involved except for me.
Back: Robert J Saferstein (Composer), Kimberly Patterson (Book), Rick L Stevens (General Manager), Gavin Lewis (Tedipus Et. Al), Reed Prescott (Oedipus), Dan Fields (Director and forgot-my-shirt-at-home-r), Jinay Reitze (Stage Manager), and Scot Sexton (Percussion).
Front: Laura Jordan (fancy enough to have her own BroadwayWorld.com linking), Jesse Kissel (Keyboards), Jessica Redish (Choreography), and Genevieve Wiley (Asst. Director)

Reed Prescott sings "Be Kind to the Blind"

Blindman Gavin Lewis. Sorry BroadwayWorld, Gavin Lews didn't accept the part.

Reed protests to Gavin that there's nothing worth learning from Blind People.

Onto final run-throughs!

Extension dates now available!

2006-09-07T19:52:00.000-04:00

Finally:

Saturday 9/16 @ 4:30
Friday 9/22 @ 11

Time Out New York, and about the Extended Dates...

2006-09-07T12:27:00.000-04:00

First off, if you're having trouble getting to the extended performances, try again later. Not worth going into the details, but the new performances should be available for purchase today or tomorrow.

Second off, a little writeup in this week's Time Out New York:

NYMF errant
The New York Musical Theatre Festival goes in strange directions.
By Adam Feldman

Musicals just ain't what they used to be--and the 30 shows featured in this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) testify to the expanding range of the genre. Many do hew to the tried and true: a Shakespeare adaptation, a teenybopper romance. But others tackle subjects that defy expectations in potentially funny ways, hopefully demonstrating that musicals needn't just be what they were.

Keeping an eye out
Children are the victims, not the predators, in Oedipus for Kids!, which twistedly imagines a children's-theater troupe's misguided efforts to foist Sophocles' incest tragedy on unsuspecting tykes. (Among the company's previous efforts: Titus Andronicus Bakes a Cake.) "What you're watching is a real-time presentation," says librettist Gil Varod, who co-wrote the book with Kimberly Patterson (to music by Robert J. Saferstein). "The conceit is that the audience members are the kids and their mommies and daddies." But when the actors rebel against their artistic director's vision, things get blindingly ugly. "The play goes down a Charybdis-like whirlpool of suck," Varod notes. "It gets to the point where it's just tasteless--which you don't find in enough musicals these days."

Oe4K Extended!

2006-09-07T10:55:00.000-04:00

Our new added dates:

Saturday 9/16 @ 4:30
Friday 9/22 @ 11

Don't bring grandma.

(My own grandmother is coming. Should I be worried?)

A Post by Reed Prescott, our "Oedipus"

2006-09-07T10:46:00.000-04:00

Wow!!! VISIBLE AREOLA: THE MUSICAL!!! I can't wait to start rehearsals on that one. (Although, my areola's are pretty visible already. Well, that's typecasting for ya!!) I just hope that VA:TM has an ensemble to back me up!! Cuz man, I am exhausted!!!

But it’s a good exhaustion. Overall, I am having a blast with Oe4K. But I don’t think I have worked this hard in my life. There's just the three of us (Gavin, Laura and myself) doing the work of what feels like thousands up there on that stage. There are times I'd trade one of my more treasured body parts for a "Dream Oeddy."

I have been trying to think of the last time I have been involved in the creation of a musical from the ground up; and that was almost 6 years ago with BARE in Los Angeles (technically it was 8 years ago since the initial concept recording of that show). But BARE had a cast of 18, and it's not a comedy -- so the structure seemed to be pretty solid. And BARE was almost entirely sung thru, so there wasn't a lot of rewriting jokes, one-liners, and just plain ol' conversations to keep a steady flow going. The music did that job.

But back to the show at hand... Gil has asked each of us to participate in a blog entry. And I can't think of a better time to actually write one than, oh, say, a week before we open – when all of us are exhausted, worn-down, frustrated (at times), doing our best to stay healthy, and trying to put the finesse into the vocals, choreography and the jokes.

However, that being said, I think we are in pretty good shape. Last Saturday - a whole 10 days before we open - we were able to do a complete (yet rough) run-thru of the show. I can't think of the last time I was involved in a production of any musical where we were ready to do a run-thru that far in advance. This proved to be extremely helpful as we got to feel how much running around we really are doing. It also seemed to be helpful to the director and writers, as big chunks were cut after seeing it all in context and on its feet (which means slightly less running around, and the addition of my half-nakedness.)

This whole creative experience has been incredibly valuable. As per the request of our director, Dan Fields, I rented the movie MOON OVER BROADWAY which documents the creation of the comedy MOON OVER BUFFALO. Man, compared to that, we have it good!!!

So, tell all your friends to buy tickets to OEDIUPS FOR KIDS!... Huh?.. What did you say??... Oh yeah!!! You can't, cuz we're all sold out!!!! But there are rumors of adding additional shows. And if you miss those, well, you'll just have to see us when we run Off Broadway!!!

(Note to Big Theatre Producers: I'd really like to work at New World Stages.)

One Week To Go

2006-09-05T11:40:00.000-04:00

First off, I'd like preface this entry by telling people that yesterday, we sold out the last of the six performances to "Oedipus for Kids!", which is insane considering the tickets have only been onsale for four days. The buzz has apparently been that big. But for those who didn't get their tickets, you should hear something about our extension today or tomorrow. More info on those dates/times once it is officially announced.

Second, we have some more press. Bobby was interviewed for the Sun and that article should be coming out soon. I'm told that AM New York, that wonderful trusty commuter newspaper, picked us as one of their top 5 NYMF shows. I haven't seen this and can't find the online version, here's the PDF. It's by Playbill.com's/AMNY's Matt Windman, page 18 in today's paper under "The Little Theater Fest that Could", and we're "#4". Also, flavorpill called us "conceptually promising"! Woooooo! CONCEPTUALLY PROMISING! Oh, this is the quote I've waited my whole life for!

Business aside, today marks the one-week-left mark for the opening night of Oe4k. As per normal, one week before opening night is when that feeling of self-doubt seeps in. For the director, the composer, the two writers, the stage manager, choreographer, the three actors and the rest, we do think this play is going to be funny and that the audience will enjoy it. But seriously, who knows? It's comedy, and sometimes comedy just falls flat. It may be funny to the dozen or so of us, but there's every possibility that as soon as the audience comes in it will feel less like general comedy and more like private jokes that "you had to be there" for. Maybe the one-liners don't hit right. You never know. No matter how much faith you have in your projects, you have to be aware that it may not work out 100%.

Just yesterday, as I was leaving the theatre, we ran into a bunch of guys from one of the other big NYMF shows. I won't name names as I'm going to see this particular show and I'm very much looking forward to it. But it was from one of the NYMF shows that seemed like it has a big team behind it and a lot of support. I overheard the story that this large musical got into NYMF and they weren't anywhere near ready for a stage production, nor did they really have any idea how some of the songs could even be staged, so they really had to scramble to get it together. And I thought to myself, wow, even the shows that 2 months ago seemed so far ahead of us were scrambling.

I spoke to a friend of a friend who's in another NYMF musical, and as of Saturday they apparently weren't even ready for a runthrough.

And that's the New York Musical Theatre Festival for ya. Even more insane than Fringe. Everybody scrambling to get a musical together in one to two months. Script changes, rewrites, new ideas at the eleventh hour. And shows are selling out besides ours, and extensions are being doled out slowly, but at the end of the day...

At the end of the day, all that matters is that yesterday, in a quiet rehearsal room, there's one prize moment in the script where Reed Prescott takes off his shirt and it got the entire room cracking up. And it's moments like those you think, we're doing something right.

I promise I'll even out the score for us straight males, and for my two lesbian friends with my next show, Visible Areola: The Musical!

4 performances have sold out!

2006-09-02T09:35:00.000-04:00

Oddly enough, our performances have been selling out in order, one at a time. Right now, only the performances on the 24th and the 25th still have some seats left. The other four have sold out, and tickets only went onsale yesterday.

If you want to see the show, I highly suggest buying your tickets right now.

If you don't want to see this show... the fact that you're wasting time reading the blog is surprising to me.

Press! Press!

2006-08-31T12:33:00.000-04:00

First off, tickets don't go onsale until tomorrow and we've already sold out one of our performances.

While I'm at publicity stuff, here's all the places we've been featured:

We're on this week's Broadway Bullet. It's an MP3 podcast, and you can hear Kim (book), Robert (music) Dan (lyrics) and I (book/lyrics) discuss the show. I don't shut up, but aside from that I hope we give a good feel for how much fun we're having with this show.
This week's New York Magazine features us as one of 30 things to do in September.
An article from my hometown about getting into the festival.
An old article from Bobby's hometown about getting into the festival. You have to scroll down a bit.

More to come...

Tuesday evening

2006-08-30T12:20:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the last "evening" rehearsal; we've been having occasional night rehearsals so Kim and I can come over and contribute when our dayjobs are done. A lot of it was music rehearsals while Greg was in town (normally he's doing musical directing for Spelling Bee in Chicago, IL) but we did go through the ending and streamline it, cutting out some stuff to make the rhythm a bit faster, but also losing one joke that I can't find a place for, the lyric "And like that, Antigone's begun" when Jocasta kills herself.

When you're taking a myth like Sophocles's "Oedipus" and trying to make it child-friendly, really the only way to do it is to turn it some of the second half into a mystery. "Who killed the king? Let's search for CLUES!" Things like that. Eventually at the end the action has to prove that Oedipus killed his father and that Oedipus is Jocasta's son. It's at that point where it becomes (intentionally) absurd, because any moment where a character realizes "YOU ARE MY MOTHER?!?" can't be taken seriously. I haven't seen a real production yet of Oedipus Rex that it didn't seem like an absurd moment.

And as such, our production's key moment of realization centers around an inscribed Baklava pan that Laius gave Jocasta on their wedding day.

(But of course.)

And for the cast, who complain I don't put enough rehearsal pictures up: I go to maybe half of the rehearsals that you do; don't you have cameras? Jeez, I brought the 5 pound bag of gummi bears, isn't that enough for yas?

Quick Blog

2006-08-29T07:57:00.000-04:00

Don't have much time, but wanted to do a quick post about Saturday day and yesterday day.

Saturday:

Came in a little late. Watched them do the choreography for the Plague song. When I wrote the lyrics for it, my idea is that Sphinxy, Oedipus' puppet/best-friend has just died, and "What Is It Like When Ya Get The Plague?" is a song where Jocasta tries to explain what the plague is in a "fun!" way. It involves acting out the different symptoms of a plague (you eat some food that's full of mold / then your body shivers like you're really cold) along with hand motions. Sort of a cross between "who stole the cookie from the cookie jar" and... well, I don't know, The Chicken Dance or any Passover song?
Well, Dan and Jessica looked at it and said, "what if the Plague song was done before the Sphinx dies?" So now, the sphinx is on his deathbed, trying his best to do the hand motions with Oedipus and Jocasta.
Watched the Blind song's choeography finally. Apparently the humor of the dance never really fully came to me till I saw it. I think what I kept seeing was two people tap-dancing in perfect unison, but one of them facing the wrong way or something. Turns out it's not just that, but it's two guys with sunglasses, tap-dancing with a cane that they sometimes use to feel their way around the stage, and then alternate it to using the way you would in a tap dance. I can't explain it. But as I watched it, I knew I was going to hell.
The show's really coming together. It's fun to watch it on its feet, watching actors make choices, and see the humor come out often in different ways than I've intended.

Last night we went over "My Lover Is My Husband Is My Son", which is the "artistic" finale with Jocasta. In it, Jocasta/Laura uses a scarf to represent Oedipus. She gives birth to the scarf, nurses it, dances with it, proceeds to have sex with it and then hangs herself with the scarf. There's tango break in the middle and I'd ended it with a lyric filled with possible ways for her to kill herself. But one thing you don't realize when writing a new musical on paper/computer is how it changes once the dance comes in. We looked at it, realizing that the suicide list was difficult to dance to, kept running around with ideas about her just "talking", a la "Glitter and Be Gay", and then eventually just decided to cut the lyrics and have her only dancing.

Which is a lot closer to our original idea. Before we wrote Lover/Husband/Son, it was just going to be an "artistic" dance with a boombox. Funny how sometimes you revert back to your original ideas.

New Songs and Photos!

2006-08-25T15:51:00.000-04:00

We have some new song clips and production photos on the website. Click away.

More photos will be put up this weekend.