This is Tom Jones is Smashing! - Mark Brown

“This is Tom Jones! is a hilarious show!”

I have waited a long time for my musical This is Tom Jones! to be produced. The show is finally getting its world premiere at The Human Race Theatre and the reviews have been sensational.

“Brown’s new musical should spread like wildfire across the country, with its feel-good message, accessible lyrics, and continuous laughs.” ~League of Cincinnati Theatres

“This is Tom Jones!… is a wildly entertaining, pleasantly surprising and musically inviting experience not to be missed.” ~Dayton.com

“Mark Brown has written a hilarious show, with bawdy double entendre, clever references, and side-splitting characters.” ~The Sappy Critic

“This is Tom Jones! is a hilarious, groovy, entertaining show and the Human Race Theatre knocks it out of the park!” ~League of Cincy Theatres

I can’t begin to tell you how happy this makes me. And how relieved I am. I was starting to think no one was going to produce it. But Emily Wells at the Human Race Theatre in Dayton, OH loved the music from the second she heard it. She read the script and thought it was very funny. Several months later I was in Dayton at rehearsals. Rewriting. Cutting songs. And just overall honing the show. I’m really happy with where the script is right now.

The audiences have been loving it. Standing ovations every night. People leaving the theatre saying they haven’t laughed that much in a very long time. And attendance from opening night until the final week has gone up by about 30%.

I started this projected years ago with my friend Paul Mirkovich. So long ago that Paul hadn’t even started his job as the musical director for the TV show The Voice. He has shot 27 seasons! It’s been that long since I started writing this script.

I always felt I had written a fun script with catchy music. But certainly not your usual musical. So I was only sightly terrified when we went into rehearsals in August. What if I was wrong and the show was actually crap? Maybe all those other theatres passed on the show because it wasn’t a very good script.

But this world premiere run has proven that I was right. I have written a good script with fun music. I sometimes feel like a jerk for saying that something I created is good. But I think one can take pride in what they do and be able to say, “Yeah, what I did is good.”