Summer of Theatre '09

July has been a very busy month for me! I've been lax on blogging, but I'm always updating my Twitter feed.

Over the weekend of July 17th, I had a great run at the 10th Annual Midtown International Theater Festival with my friend writer/actor Michael Hirstreet's short-solo play My Broken Brain. He got a great audience response and is looking into other venues to continue developing the script.

The show I created in 2006, White Noise, received it's first regional production in New Orleans this month. It was a huge production, with a $2.2 million dollar budget, and was well-received by the local critics. Their main paper, The Times-Picayune, called it "Powerful." The production closed yesterday and they'd still like to open it on Broadway.

Most of the drama in New Orleans was off-stage. As reported by Michael Riedel in the New York Post, White Noise's "co-director" and producer has issues.

Mitchell Maxwell, another flop king, is causing such strife that he's been banned from his own show, the Broadway-bound musical "White Noise." The volatile producer verbally abused his creative team, frightened his actors and threw such a temper tantrum in the lobby of the Omni Hotel that terrified guests called the police, several production sources told The Post. "I have never experienced anything this crazy in my life," one member of the creative team says. "He is not a stable man."

Don't miss any of the details, it's crazy. The stuff they couldn't print will probably make it into a screenplay of mine someday.

I've been in rehearsals for the musical comedy Vote! at FringeNYC. It's going REALLY well. As I've mentioned before, we have an incredible cast.

I took this picture yesterday on my iPhone at a music brush-up.

Tickets just went on-sale. They are just $15. That's the best deal in New York. Buy yours now, we open on August 14th and they are selling fast.

We're in pre-production for Street Lights, which was invited to the New York Musical Theatre Festival this year. White Noise got it's start at NYMF and we're excited to return to the festival. We open on October 14th, more details soon.

I'll try to keep up with the blog more. Hope to see you all at Vote!

First Vote! FringeNYC Casting Announced

I spent some of last week at Ripley Grier Studios casting the FringeNYC production of Vote! It was a fun process and our casting director Daryl Eisenberg did a first-rate job. The first two days we saw over 200 people. The third day were callbacks and a dance call lead by Rachelle Rak, our choreographer.

The creative team got together on Monday night and we made decisions. I'm excited about the cast, a bunch of crazy talented people.

We're going to announce the full cast next week, but Broadway World has the preliminaries.

VOTE! The new ‘cartoon' musical about high school election espionage premiers as part of the 13th annual New York International Fringe Festival- FringeNYC - starring Deidre Goodwin and Morgan Karr.
...
Vote! will play the historic Minetta Lane Theatre, a 400 seat Off-Broadway house. This will be the first production in New York City. A workshop production of Vote! was recently staged with students from the University of Indiana in Bloomington.

Ryann Ferguson and Steven Jamail's award winning partnership began 8 years ago at Rice University. Together, they have collaborated on numerous projects including 2005 Fringe Festival show, Byzantium and the Harper's Guild Award winning aria, "Lotus Song." The two have joined forces again with their long-time director, Ryan J. Davis (Street Lights - NYMF '09 & White Noise), a noted political pundit with The Hill and The Huffington Post.

Joining the team for FringeNYC is choreographer, Rachelle Rak, a veteran Broadway performer and recently of Every Little Step film fame. Other new additions are lighting designer Brian Tovar (Perez Hilton Saves the Universe) and Hilary Noxon (In The Heights) as set designer.

Previous cast members, Krystal Joy Brown (RENT National Tour), Landon Beard (Altar Boyz), and Tracy Weiler, continue on with the project. The full twenty-person cast will be announced soon.

Not officially announced, but on the website: Kevin Michael Murphy (Craig Stevens!) and Nina Sturtz (The Battery's Down). Check out the full article. Also, visit Vote's new website. I'm excited to start rehearsal, stay tuned for the full cast.

Announcing VOTE! @ Fringe NYC. We're Casting!

VOTE!, a musical I've been working on with the wonderful writers Ryann Ferguson & Steven Jamail, will perform in August at FringeNYC! I spent parts of February & March in Bloomington, Indiana working with students from Indiana University on a workshop production and we're ready for New York City.

We're casting. Details below:

VOTE! The Musical
FringeNYC 2009
AEA New York International Fringe Festival Code
AEA/non-AEA (Pending Equity Approval)
Stipend

Director: Ryan J. Davis
Book & Lyrics: Ryann Ferguson
Music: Steven Jamail
Choreographer: Rachelle Rak
Casting: Daryl Eisenberg Casting
Auditions (by appointment): June 29-30
Rehearses: Mid-July/Aug 2009, flexible schedule
Performances: Festival is Aug 14-30 2009, show times pending

More Info At: www.votethemusical.com

SUBMIT VIA E-MAIL ASAP

SYNOPSIS: At GVHS, it hardly matters who will lead student council. But try telling that to candidates running and people who love them (or hate them). For them, the rest of their lives hinge on who can get the most votes.

NOTE: VOTE! The Musical, a cartoon masquerading as live action show, offers a sharp, campy look at elections and the moral dilemmas they produce. The bright, energetic score drives fast from the onset of the campaign to the voting booth. It is HAIRSPRAY meets YOU'RE A GOOD MAN CHARLIE BROWN meets ELECTION. Substance disguised as cuteness. All heart disguised as satire. All students should actually be 18-25 years old.

SEEKING:
[MUFFIN PASQUINELLI] 17 y.o. Caucasian female. Stunningly beautiful. The valedictorian of GVHS, Muffin has a secret she has finally admitted to herself: she’s really just not that smart. She's only running for president because her mom wants her to attend law school, but secretly – in her heart of hearts – all Muffin wants to do is be a flight attendant! LEAD. HIGH F - BELT/STRONG MIX

[MARK] 17 y.o. Caucasian male. An evil nerd who has been pushed out of everything he feels he deserves by Muffin. He's very ambitious. He loves power and is distracted by very little else. Now, he decides to exact revenge when MUFFIN goes after the one thing he really wants - Student Council President! LEAD. MUST HAVE STRONG FALSETTO.

[NIKKI] 17 y.o. African American female. A super politically-correct African-American Role Model. But she is not an advertisement for her ethnicity. She struggles with how much she wants her race to define her. LEAD. BELT/MIX.

[TRISH] 17 y.o. female. MUFFIN's yes man, always in the shadow. All that changes when she discovers that while she’s good at being a side kick, she’s even better at being a villainous side kick. LEAD. CHARACTER BELT

[MS VENORA FOWLER] Late 20s-40s African American female. GVHS’s sassy, whimsical, government teacher. With a soft spot in her heart for Denzel Washington, David Justice and Tyson Beckford, she also has a talent for creating mnemonic devices and telling it like it is. LEAD. BELT/STRONG MIX

[MIKE] 20s male. Slick, buff snowboarder, boy band type. CAST: LANDON BEARD.

[BRODY] 18 y.o. male. The dumbest, hottest jock there is and current student council president. SUPPORTING

[ANGELICA] 17 y.o. female. The dumbest, hottest blonde cheerleader there is and Muffin's follower through and through. CAST: TRACY WEILER

[NATHAN] 17 y.o. male. A serious minion to MARK. Puts up with all of Mark’s schemes, echoes his agenda. Overly invested in everything Mark does. Secretly pines for MUFFIN. Lots of physical comedy. SUPPORTING. STRONG TENOR.

[ENSEMBLE] 17 y.o. males and females. Jocks, nerds, and the precious ones in between. Several featured roles. Must be able to dance. Please submit Non-Eqs as well!

Vote! Bloomington Press Photos

Press Photographer Cory Harbour took some great pictures of Vote! for Sunday's Indiana Daily Student follow-up article on the Bloomington production. View the entire album here.

Muffin and Company

Mark sings "Ambition"

Visit the Vote! website.

Vlogging Vote! - The Musical

Katherine Duffy, who was one of the cast members of Vote! Bloomington, has her own video blog. She produced a terrific three part video detailing the entire Bloomington Vote! experience, with lots of interviews with the cast and crew, plus creator Ryann Ferguson. She even chatted a bit with her humble director... me.

The first part is posted below, and here are the links to part two and three.

Katherine's Blog is pretty cool and it reminds me of my friend Andrew Keenan-Bolger's blog. Andrew is a young actor and he blogs about his many exciting performances. His blog on the Vote! NYC reading was seen by Eric Anderson, who after learning about the show, produced it in Bloomginton. Read that full story as told by Ken Davenport.

Vote! Opens Tonight

Vote!, the musical, opens tonight in Bloomington, Indiana. We've been workshopping the show here for over a month and we've learned so much from our terrific cast.

We've gotten some nice buzz, from a great article on Broadway World, to a nice write-up in The Indiana Daily Student.

Tickets can be purchased here. We've got a performance Friday & Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm. I'll post some pictures from the production and begin blogging for real again when I return to NYC on Monday!

Odds & Ends

Vote is going extremely well. Yesterday we stumbled through Act 2. Today, we spend the entire rehearsal polishing the choreography. Broadway producer Ken Davenport blogs the Vote musical backstory of how we ended up workshopping in Indiana at his blog, Producer's Perspective.

-- Michael Feingold, of The Village Voice, reminded me via e-mail that both Broadway World & Talkin' Broadway got the theater community involved in resurrecting California's canceled RENT production.

-- Another scientist goes after Bobby Jindal. "So what do we call a supposedly bright person who is a creationist and believes that an exorcism cast out cancer?"

-- If you looking to lose weight - cutting calories is the only real deal. "The lesson, researchers say, is that people lose weight if they lower calories, but it does not matter how."

-- The police arrest a suspect in the Bushwick gay-hate murder.

Late Night Odds & Ends

We just finished staging Vote! today. The last song to stage was the act 1 closer, "I Sell You What," and that went fairly quickly. With the extra time, I was able to run the first 27 pages. Tomorrow we'll stumble through act one, fixing any issues that come up.

-- George Clooney has ruled out running for office in the past, "No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties." But, he sure looks like a candidate meeting with Barak Obama and Joe Biden about Darfar. Clooney spoke to the press outside the White House: “They said that they would appoint a full time high profile envoy that would report directly to the president... It's good to hear because there was some concern that this could fall off the radar. . .This would be a huge policy step." Clooney's right, it's good news. The UN has estimated over 400,000 have died in Darfar, nearly the number of Americans who died in World War 2.

-- NY Times says America loves their Obamas, the President's approval is 63%. Michelle is the most popular new First Lady in 28 years, at 49%. At this point, H. Clinton had a 44% approval rating... Just saying.

-- Arnold Schwarzenegger needs to be on Obama's Cabinet. How about replacing Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. How fucking awesome would that be?

-- Obama just paid for $10 billion dollars in new Science funding.

-- A middle ground on gay marriage? Federal civil unions make a lot of sense.

-- Even Jesus isn't paying the bills anymore. Billy Graham lays off 10% of his workforce.

-- Former Father Charles O'Byrne, Gov. Paterson's former aid who didn't pay his taxes, isn't looking to return to Albany.

Night Owl / Early Morning Odds & Ends

I'm back from flu land. My temperature is gone and I was finally able to do something outside the house besides rehearsal. I hung with my new friend Quinto, after my dinner at the IU-staple Mother Bears, and we watched the first three episodes of Rupal's new Logo Series Drag Race. It's a drag version of America's Next Top Model, that I sorta loved. It wouldn't work without Ru Paul, but with her it really works.

Rehearsal went great tonight, we're finally getting the chance to polish some of the dances. Today we worked on D-Gates, a song where Muffin (yes, Muffin) and Mike meet and fall for each other outside an airport. In this photo, Eric Anderson Jr. is at the piano, Aly Bloom is in front, and the two-Ms are Jen Saltiel and Justin Klein.

Vote in Bloomington tickets went on sale yesterday and we perform the weekend of March 6th-8th.

The News:

-- The NY Times has a major feature on the RENT California drama. Mr. Martin, the school's amazing drama instructor, describes in some detail his initial conversation with the bigot principal.

He said his principal, Fal Asrani, had objected to the show because of its treatment of “prostitution and homosexuality.” “When I heard that, I stopped her and looked her in the eye and said, ‘First, there is no prostitution in ‘Rent,’ and second, homosexuality is not wrong,’ ” Mr. Martin said. “She made no comment. It was the most demoralizing, disappointing moment in my career as a teacher.”

-- Kathleen Sebelius will make a great HHS Secretary. But, what is Howard Dean gonna do?

-- Obama has a 67% approval rating in the latest AP Poll. The Republicans in Congress are at 33%.

-- I agree with Andrew Sullivan, Obama should give Arnold a job when he leaves office. Arnold should become Obama's top Republican ally.

-- Republican Chairmen Michael Steele is out of his mind.

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

The RNC’s first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party’s image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times.

-- Al Franken will soon finally be a Senator. 59 Democrats. Obama will just need a single GOP vote to pass legislation.

Late Night Odds & Ends

We're nearly halfway done staging Vote!

Yesterday, Aly (my choreographer) and I were staging "Ambition," one of Mark's big numbers. Mark is one of the candidates running for senior class president in the show and is a mix of Alex P. Keaton & Karl Rove. David Coleman, who is playing Mark in the Bloomington production, is a freshman at IU and is doing quite a nice job in the part.

During one moment we had Mark try a crane kick. David knew exactly what to do and it was really funny. But, he didn't know what the reference was from! It made me feel pretty old. I thought everyone grew up on Karate Kid.

-- David Axelrod says Obama plans to lift the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research sometime soon.

-- Kissing really matters. - "Saliva is like a chemical cocktail, and hooking up may have evolved to help us quickly tell if someone is a good mate or not." And, there is probably more to it than that:

"There may be more to this chemical assessment than just kissing," Fisher said. "I think kissing is the tip of the ice berg. I think we'll find that all kinds of other chemical systems are in play that we don't know about."

Goodbye freewill.

-- We've got a Stimulus Package! More on that tomorrow, but watch SNL go after the GOP this week.

-- NY Times: Five NYC economists on the state of the city's economy. Money quote:

“New York City isn’t like Elkhart, Ind.,” Ms. O’Cleireacain said, referring to a city that President Obama visited last week, one that largely depends on a single industry, recreational-vehicle manufacturing, and where unemployment has soared to 15 percent. New York, she said, “is a magnet for talent: for smart, enterprising, ambitious, innovative people, not only from this country but from around the world. Everyone wants to be here, and I think that sets us apart from virtually any other city.”

-- 71% of Americans believe there should be an investigation by either criminal prosecutors or an independent panel into the actions of the Bush administration.

-- Just what will White Spaces give us?

New cellular phones are being planned that would operate independently of existing networks, and would instead access the Internet through white-space technologies and send and receive calls over the Web. High-definition TV broadcasts and movies can be streamed through white spaces directly to a person's laptop, BlackBerry or iPhone.

"It takes images and sound and sends them great distances with no distortion," said Jake Ward, a spokesman for the Wireless Innovation Alliance.

-- Time's Joe Klein on the Israeli Election.

-- Thank you for the link NY Daily News!

Early Morning Odds & Ends

I went to bed early last night, so for some reason I had to get up at 5am. So much for catching up on sleep.

Vote! rehearsals are going very well, we're moving right along blocking the show. The cast has been a blast to work with. Here they are, during rehearsal Wednesday night.


-- My thoughts are with the families and friends of victims of last night's plane crash outside of Buffalo. 49 people died.

-- Obama's speech last night honoring Lincoln was a beautiful tribute to the man and the Union that he kept together. Watch it - Part 1 and Part 2.

-- Seattle's Police Chief is on his way to being our next Drug Czar. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said "He’s likely to be the best drug czar we’ve seen. Not that that’s saying much.” Seattle is a city known for fairly progressive drug laws.

-- Obama is quickly learning that anyone who calls themselves a Republican these days is bound to be useless. Judd Gregg is a childish asshole, who should never have been given the honor of serving in Obama's cabinet. James Boyce has a great idea for Commerce Secretary - Bill Gates.

-- These new special edition extra-Lincolny pennies are really cool.

-- Scientist have taken skin cells and reprogrammed them into heart cells. They actually made them beat in the dish - there is even a YouTube video of it.

-- Google and friends have started a White Spaces group to advise the FCC on starting a database. Mobile internet is about to get really fucking fast. No more 3G bullshit.

-- Designer babies have finally arrived.

Odds & Ends

Last night was my first out on the town of Bloomington and I had a really good time. After we staged eight pages (two songs!) from Vote! in just over three hours, I went to a 21st birthday party and then hit a few frat bars with some new friends. We paid a late night visit to Uncle Elizabeth's, the town gay bar, which was totally empty except for a few scary guys with goatees playing pool.

The picture to the right is me drinking a $2 Peach Long Island Ice Tea. It's rather large and very tasty.

-- Entertainment Tonight ran a preview of Quentin Tarantino's new film Inglorious Bastards and it looks fantastic. The Dirty Dozen meets Kill Bill. See the video here. I can't wait.

-- A new Gallup poll shows that Iranians and Alabamians have the same level of religiosity. Frightening. Vermont, my second home, is the least religious state in America. No doubt I'm retiring to Burlington.

-- One of the craziest things that I've read in a while - "Anthony R. Stancl, is charged with setting up fake profiles on Facebook, the popular social networking site, to dupe 31 male classmates, some as young as 15, into sending him nude photographs of themselves over the last several months." Even MORE: "But, the authorities said, Mr. Stancl did not stop there. In addition, they said, he threatened to release the photos to the victims’ friends or even all of Eisenhower’s 850 students if the youths who had sent them to him did not agree to perform sexual acts he demanded. The tactic was successful, officials said. Mr. Stancl is accused of using it to sexually assault seven boys." How much longer before Facebook requires proof of indentity to sign up? I wouldn't be against it, as it would eliminate some of the weird spam request I receive.

-- We've got a stimulus package and it's got technology's fingerprints all over it.

-- Asshole-loser Norm Coleman has found himself seven new votes. When is this loser going away?

Odds & Ends

The first day of Vote! rehearsals in Bloomington was a blast. We've got a great cast up here (comprised mostly of IU students) and I think the show is gonna be lots of fun. I'll try and get some pictures for you all soon.

Lots of Odds & Ends today:

-- Gay City News has a great feature on gay marriage in New York, with lots from Majority Leader Malcolm Smith. Also, a little shout-out to yours truly for my article on Daniel Squadron. (Also, thanks to the NY Daily News for their link last week.)

-- We may finally be able to visit Cuba legally.

-- Christopher Hitchens on Zimbabwe.

-- I'm really fucking disappointed in Chris Brown. I thought more of him. Apparently Rihanna's injuries are "horrific."

-- Huge study out that appears to show that multivitamins may not work at all.

-- Looks like Connecticut voters are finally done with Joe Lieberman.

-- Shepard Fairey, Obama's Hope artist, is fighting back against those assholes at the AP.

-- How awesome is it that Obama called on The Huffington Post's White House correspondent last night? Welcome to the future.

-- Catholicism is back in the dark ages! You can now pay to get rid of sin again.

Odds & Ends

This morning was my first in Bloomington, sadly the local coffee shop doesn't have Wi-Fi, so I'm late blogging. Rehearsals start tonight for Vote! and I'm excited to finally meet finally meet the cast. Last night Eric Anderson, the producer, took me out to Mother Bear's Pizza near IU, it was fantastic and is ranked fourth in the nation by whoever ranks pizza places.

-- Norm Coleman is such an asshole. Not only is he trying to force a revote by continuing to legally challenge the election results, he lost to Comedian Al Franken, and running negative ads like there is still a campaign - now he's saying Jesus is on his side. On Friday, he gave an interview to conservative radio host Mike Gallager - Coleman said he starts every day with a prayer and that he knows “God wants me to serve.” God hates Al Franken.

-- John Glover, who comes from my hometown of Salisbury, MD, is joining the cast of Waiting for Godot on Broadway. Glover is replacing David Strathairn and joins the star-studded cast featuring Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, and John Goodman.

-- Atheists in London have bought ads on buses proclaiming, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." This has upset Christians so much, that they are buying their own ads that say, "Psalm 53: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." The Christian group is apparently spending over $50,000 on the ads. I bet Jesus would rather see that 50k go to the poor instead of boosting the ego of David Larlham, the assistant general secretary of London's Trinitarian Bible Society, who payed for the ads. But, that 50k bought him a few quotes a paper, so finally his life may have some value.

-- The almost bankrupt New York Times published an article on how hard it is to live in NYC for less than $500,000 a year. Fuck you.

Early Morning Odds & Ends

I'm up early, getting ready to leave for my flight to Indiana to direct the musical Vote! I'm a little worried about making it through airline security with this orange plastic bag from a Halloween store full of colorful costumes, but I guess it doesn't make me look like a terrorist... just crazy.


Jeff, Kevin,& Me

--Last night Kevin and I went to see People I Slept With Who Never Called Me Back at Ars Nova. The show, written and performed by my friend Jeffery Self, was part of Ars Nova's Residency Encore series and was extremely funny. You missed this run, but Jeffery is one half of YouTube's VGL Gay Boys and blogs daily. So, keep up.

-- This women, a lesbian denied seeing her dying partner in a Florida hospital, is an example of why the gay movement needs to focus on federal civil unions asap. It's not enough to protect gays who live in liberal states. Federal unions are the only way to protect the rights of gays and lesbians in conservative states where there isn't a path to full marriage in the near future.

-- Human cloning is finally viable. "The research is the first step toward therapeutic cloning — making embryonic stem cells from a patient's own DNA capable of replacing diseased tissue, failing organs and even lost limbs. And, theoretically, the same technique could be used to produce a cloned person."

-- Cablevision's internet service continues to be less reliable than the 28.8 modem I used in 7th grade and even makes AT&T's cell service look acceptable by comparison.