ROCK arrangements, Art direction and Production
Mary Ann adds more pump to the songs. I hold forth on the virtues of art direction in theatre. Production opportunities are coming.
Rockin' it up
Mary Ann has made some awesome progress on the rock arrangements of In The Beginning, God's Breath, No Turning Back, Love and Justice and Promise. The drafts I've heard have just got me excited through the roof. They're all great, but No Turning Back and Love and Justice are my favorites - great energy and rock feel. These will add a huge amount of color to the music. We hope to hit the studio in June, but we still need to lock down a guitar player. (If you know anyone in New York, let us know - this is a paying gig.)
Over the summer, the whole show will get similar arranging treatment, but we only have time and budget to get these five recorded. The rest will be heard... well, soon. Read on.
Art direction
It turns out that "Art Direction" is not a well-understood concept in the theatre world; "Scenic Designer" is certainly clear, as is "Costume Designer" and "Lighting Designer", but nobody seems to be thinking of unified art design, which strikes me as very odd. Market research indicates that audiences come to musicals for the spectacle - so why not be super thoughtful about coordinating the visual style of all that spectacle? Some of the most successful musicals out there do this - Cats, for instance, has one of the most striking and consistent visual styles I've ever seen. Moulin Rouge had the same thing going for it, though you might argue that because that was a film musical that 'art direction' came with the territory.
But why not on stage as well? Why shouldn't one artist be responsible for setting the visual language of a piece, just as one artist (typically) is responsible for setting the sonic language? Is it because scenic, lighting and costume designers don't want to be constrained creatively? The alternative is creative chaos - great in the black box or the workshop, but not great when you're dropping huge amounts of money on a production.
We've interviewed a couple of candidates for the art director position, and are working with a couple of finalists on some test sketches. All are very talented artist, and we hope that we find at least one person with style and interest that are compatible with ours. If anyone has leads on other candidates, we'd still like to hear about them.
Production
We are in talks with a co-producer for a fall production. We are very encouraged by what we've heard so far. I can't identify the production entity or tell you about dates or locations, but I hope to in about a month. Keep watching this space!
