80 Days Rolls On (Thank God) The Alley Theatre in Houston, TX recently closed its amazingly successful run of my play Around the World in 80 Days. (Directed by my dear friend Mark Shanahan. He likes it when I mention him). It's always sad to see a run come to an end. Fortunately I have more productions this month. Long Beach Playhouse Port Gamble Theatre Company in Port Gamble, WA is producing Around the World in 80 Days April 1 [...]
Take the Tom Jones Song Poll, Please So Paul Mirkovich are a little over halfway with recording demos for our new show Tom Jones the Musical. Paul has gone back to work on The Voice so it'll be awhile before we can sit down again in the studio. In the meantime, in order to help me out with which songs I should put on the Dramatic Publishing website, could you please take this poll? Thanks so much for helping me [...]
The Making of Tom Jones [embedplusvideo height="360" width="669" editlink="http://bit.ly/1Xovyvk" standard="http://www.youtube.com/v/puUnDk8P2P8?fs=1" vars="ytid=puUnDk8P2P8&width=669&height=360&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=" id="ep8316" /] My good friend Paul Mirkovich and I are in the midst of recording songs for our new musical Tom Jones, based on the novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding. Not based on Tom Jones the Welsh singer. Writing songs always scares me. It's a bit out of my comfort zone. I never know if they're good or plain old crap. I felt [...]
Tom Jones - The Musical The other day I wrote about how my friend Paul Mirkovich and I are recording mock-up demos for our musical Tom Jones. It's been a long time in the making and I'm excited to finally record the songs. The plan is to do these mock-ups so Paul's band can hear them and then we'll record with the band. The idea we've come up with is to keep the story in the 1600s but with modern [...]
Tom Jones the Musical I was commissioned to adapt the novel Tom Jones into a musical. Many years ago. Many. Years. It's not that I've been dragging my feet. It's that I've been waiting on my friend Paul Mirkovich. See, he and I wrote China the Whole Enchilada. I wrote the book, lyrics, and basic melodies. Paul then made the songs much better. Much. better. The show ended up receiving Outstanding Musical at the New York City Fringe Festival. Go [...]
The one thing I like more than food is free food and that makes this week a good one. Free Yogurtland To celebrate National Frozen Yogurt Day (I don't know why we kids have school that day. It's a war on Frozen Yogurt) on Monday February 8th from 4 - 7 pm Yogurtland will be giving away free yogurt and toppings. Hello dinner. Free Bagel and Shmear Not to be outdone by frozen yogurt, Tuesday is National Bagel Day. On Tuesday February [...]
So there I am in St. Thomas, as one is want to do in January, leafing through a tourist guide book. I'm reading about the best places to get a Rolex, a brief history of the Virgin Islands, and then I get to the calendar of events. And here's what I see. December 18 - 20 Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge. What!? I don't know if I'm more excited to have a production in St. Thomas or that I made it [...]
Best Christmas Songs - Lonely This Christmas I'm terribly behind on my 25 Days of Christmas Songs list. Today is "Lonely This Christmas" by Lucky Soul. Lonely This Christmas - Lucky Soul "Lonely This Christmas" is by Mud, an English Glam Rock band from the 1960's-70's. The songs came out in 1974 and reached the number one spot in the UK's Christmas Chart. The version by MUD sounds like a bad Elvis impersonator. I much prefer Lucky Soul's cover. Although I [...]
Best Christmas Songs - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)" by The Ramones is definitely on my 25 Days of Christmas Songs list. Sure, Burl Ives has his place in any Christmas song playlist but a Christmas playlist is not complete without a punk band on it. And what says Christmas better than a song that basically says, "Can we just make it through the holidays without killing each other?" Merry Christmas [...]
Best Christmas Songs - Christmas is Cancelled "Christmas is Cancelled" by The Long Blondes is my lucky 13th song of my 25 Days of Christmas song list. Christmas is Cancelled - The Long Blondes The Long Blondes formed in Sheffield, United Kingdom in 2003. Things were going really well for them until 2008 when songwriter and lead guitarist Dorian Cox suffered a massive stroke. He was 27, that weird age when a lot of musicians have passed on. Brian Jones, Jimi [...]
