I Wrote That? I've been working on a one-act version of "Around the World in 80 Days." With most theatres only streaming productions, I feel shorter plays (no intermission) are going to be more popular. And for years my friend David Emmes has been pushing me to do a one-act version. I'm changing it up a bit from the two-act version, so I went back to the book to look up a few things. I came across this passage from [...]
My Lists of Synonyms. Today It's Vomit. Some people collect stamps. I collect lists of synonyms. I was working on a script and one of the characters had to say that he was going to throw up. But I thought saying, "I'm going to throw up" didn't fit the character. I needed him to say it another way. Puke, barf, and vomit immediately came to mind but none of them worked for the character. Thesaurus.com helped but I still wanted [...]
Last month we debuted some more songs from my show Tom Jones the Musical. This was our second time being part of Musi-Cal at the Rockwell Table and Stage. It was a totally raucous set. The videos are slowly coming out. Wilkie Ferguson kicked off the night with "The Whole World has Evil." I think he channeled Screamin' Jay Hawkins for part of it. [embedplusvideo height="360" width="640" editlink="http://bit.ly/2NDeNRI" standard="http://www.youtube.com/v/M9QUlsVVD5I?fs=1" vars="ytid=M9QUlsVVD5I&width=640&height=360&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=" id="ep7942" /] Special thanks to the American Foundation for [...]
Tom Jones the Musical Live Our set of songs from Tom Jones the Musical at the Rockwell Table and Stage was rollicking! It was a great audience and the cast tore it up. When we perform at the Rockwell in September, it went really well. But this performance was wild. It was truly a magical evening. Eric dancing up a storm during Fox Hunting. Wilkie and Jennifer killing it. As my daughter said, "Miatta slayed!" And then there's me. I'm [...]
Valentines Day Cards 2015 It's always hard for me to find a good Valentines Day card. I hate the sappy, lace-covered cards with some soppy message written in a romance novel font. And a lot of the "humorous" cards don't live up to the humorous part. What's a pseudo-romantic-odd-sense-of-humor guy to do? Cue the band. These cards are perfect. Historical Cards That Say I Love You For those of you who love history and dictators, these are for you. Happy Valentines Day. [...]
Playwright's Notes For Around the World in 80 Days Years ago I was asked to write playwright's notes for the playbill for the Colony Theatre's production of Around the World in 80 Days. I wrote my notes and gave them to my wife to read. She read about 3/4 of the way and thought "My husband has lost it. He's rambling. He's all over the place." And then she got to the last paragraph and said to me "I can't [...]
From Idea to Finished Song Anyone who knows me knows I'm not the best singer in the world. Nor am I the best guitar player in the world. I took guitar lessons from a guy with huge ears at a dinky music store when I was in 7th grade and I haven't gotten any better. Seriously. But what I can do, as my friend Paul Mirkovich says, is write a song. And right now I've written a bunch of songs for [...]
New Bern Civic Theatre Heading Around the World New Bern Civic Theatre in New Bern, NC is producing my play Around the World in 80 Days, Sept 8 -17. That makes two productions opening in the same week (Servant Stage is the other production). Pay no attention to the helicopter. It didn't exist in 1872, but would have made the trip a whole lot easier. New Bern, NC, along the mighty Neuse River is the birthplace of Pepsi-Cola. Seriously. I hear [...]
Servant Stage Company Going Around the World in 80 Days Servant Stage Company in Lancaster, PA will be producing my play Around the World in 80 Days, Sept 7 - 17. (I have another production opening the same week at New Bern Civic Theatre.) I've seen some pictures of the Servant Stage production and the costumes and set look gorgeous. Cast The production stars: Dan Deal, Andrew Zahn, Kristen Brewer, Jacob Daniel Cummings and Brian McCreary. Tickets All tickets are pay what you want! Let's hope [...]
Tom Jones the Musical Demo Sessions This is the second installment about the recording session we did in NYC for my musical Tom Jones the Musical. Yesterday I wrote about the first song we recorded: "About You," sung by the incredibly talented Kerry Butler and Dan DeLuca. Digging a Hole in the Ground After we recorded Kerry, we moved onto "Digging a Hole in the Ground." This song takes place in the second act. Tom and Sophie come face to face for [...]
