Julia and I will be back at the Weston Playhouse next week to participate in their annual Artists Retreat.  We’ll spend the week hard at work on one of our newest projects Pied!, a musical that charts the rise and fall of the infamous Anita Bryant.  We’ve only been working on the piece for about two months, but we are hoping the peace and quiet of spring in Vermont will inspire a whole lot of writing!

We’ll spend the week with fellow writers Sean Daniels, Jenny Giering, Adam Gwon, Laura Harrington, and Benjamin Scheuer.  After a week of writing (and frequent trips to the Vermont Country Store, I’m sure) we will present a few selections to the Weston audience.

We’re so grateful to have some uninterrupted writing time, especially back at a place we’ve come to love!  Thanks, as always, to Steve Stettler for inviting us back.

We can’t wait to share this project as we’re writing it.  For now, you can get a peek at the first song from the show – “Make Me a Star” – as performed by the wonderful Ally Bonino at Rockwood Music Hall earlier this month.

(You can see more videos from Julia’s Rockwood concert on her YouTube page!)

Julia and I are back in the studio to record some of our newest material.  We’ve got some Pregnancy Pact rewrites from last summer, songs from two of our new shows, and a few new standalones.  We’re excited to get to share the nine new tracks in the next few weeks! 

Thanks to all of our wonderful singers – Krystina Alabado, Ally Bonino, Katrina Dideriksen, Caitlin Kinnunen, Erin Maguire, Lauren Marcus, Jean McCormick, Margo Seibert, Ryan Speakman, Dana Steingold, and Dustin Sullivan – and our wonderful musicians – Rich Silverstein, Eric Day, Austin Moorhead, Jeremy Yaddaw, and Sean Hagerty.  And a special thanks, as always, to engineer extraordinaire M.P. Kuo for making our material sound great.

Check back soon for a listening party!

Galaxy Comics, the short musical film with songs by Julia & me, will be screened in the 2013 Sarasota Film Festival!

You can read more about the festival on their website, and find info about our screening here.

Congratulations to director Kevin McMullin & screenwriter Jacey Heldrich!

Thanks to the wonderful videography of Karen Marshall, we’ve got videos from last Sunday’s Ellen Condon Macy/Julia Meinwald concert at Rockwood Music Hall.  Julia and I were excited that Ellen chose to sing two of our new songs, and I’m excited to get to share them with you!

The first, “Muscle Memory,” is from our new and as-of-yet-untitled wedding musical.  In the show, Geoff travels to rural Pennsylvania to crash his ex-boyfriend Casey’s wedding to his childhood friend Joelle.  This song happens early on in the show as Casey explains to Geoff how simple his life is back in his hometown.  It was written for a baritone, but I think Mrs. Macy puts quite a wonderful stamp on it:

I’m looking forward to sharing even more from this show in the next few months (and maybe even giving it a title…)

The second, “I Had To Wait,” was written for the wedding of our good friends Jeremy Kronenberg & Robert Anthony Jones.  We were so honored to get to be a part of their beautiful ceremony in October, and happy to get to continue to share their song.  On this one, Ellen is joined by the incomparable Amy Linden:

You can also hear renditions of “It’s Hard for Me Not To Love You,” “Nobody Knows,” and the most accurate version of “Hummingbird Heart” you’ll ever hear.  (In case you hadn’t noticed, Ellen was 8 months pregnant up on that stage.)  The full concert featured some wonderful covers of Regina Spektor, Gabriel Kahane, and Mumford & Sons.  Check it out!

After our first meeting last week, I’m feeling incredibly lucky to be a part of Ars Nova’s inaugural Uncharted group.  Come hear a sampling of the kind of exciting, adventurous, tuneful, and brave writing that will be coming from my colleagues throughout 2013.  You’ll get some funk, some Cuba, and some vagina dentata.  What could be better?

Julia and I have a mix of old and new material being performed by Krystina Alabado, Ally Bonino, Liz Carbonell, Amy Linden, and Margo Seibert.  Plus, you’ll get to hear me sing in public for the first (and hopefully, for my sake, only) time in New York!

Info and tickets are on Ars Nova’s website.

]]> http://www.omfgordon.com/uncharted-kickoff-concert/feed/ 0 http://www.omfgordon.com/my-baby-will-keep-me-warm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-baby-will-keep-me-warm http://www.omfgordon.com/my-baby-will-keep-me-warm/#comments Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:29:30 +0000 Gordon http://www.omfgordon.com/?p=1029

The old gang’s back together!

Ellen Condon Macy is back on stage, singing the music of Julia Meinwald (with lots of lyrics by me!) with a few covers thrown in.  She’ll be joined by Ally Bonino and Amy Linden, with Julia, Jeremy Yaddaw, Eric Day, and Anthony Rubbo playing.

In addition to a few Pregnancy Pact standards, the concert will have the NYC premiere of two new songs.  One was written this fall for our good friends’ wedding, and the other is from our brand-new-and-still-untitled musical about weddings.  Since Ellen is 8 months pregnant, there will be a brand new spin on “Hummingbird Heart”!

Come on by Rockwood Music Hall (196 Allen Street, just below Houston) on Sunday, February 3 at 4:00pm.  It’s FREE and you’ll still have plenty of time to get home to your Superbowl party…

And just to give you a little preview, here’s my favorite Ellen rendition of all time!

Julia and I are thrilled to be heading back to Ars Nova again as members of the inaugural Uncharted Musical Theater Writers’ Group!

After our wonderful experiences in both ANT Fest and the Uncharted concert series, we couldn’t be happier to call Ars Nova our artistic home for the year.  We’re one of four teams tasked with writing a new musical over the course of the year, with a few concerts and master classes along the way.  Our cohort includes Anna Jacobs & Michael R. Jackson, Charles Vincent Burwell & James D. Sasser, and Shaina Taub.  The group will be curated by the wonderful Kent Nicholson, Director of Musical Theater and Literary Associate for Playwrights Horizons.

We’ve got a number of ideas that we’re itching to get started writing.  We can’t wait to see where this year takes us!

(And mark your calendars!  Our first concert, as a group, will be Tuesday, February 19 at 8pm at Ars Nova.)

2012 was the year of the world premiere.

My year was focused squarely on August and September, when the Weston Playhouse Theater Company presented the world premiere production of Pregnancy Pact.  It was the first professional production of my writing – with all that entails – and I couldn’t have dreamed of a better experience.  Starting with a pitch-perfect understanding of the show from director Joe Calarco, an amazing cast made up of old and new friends who poured themselves into these teenagers, and a creative team that went above and beyond any expectations I had to create a full, complex, and complete world.  Of course, none of it would have been possible without Steve Stettler and the entire staff at Weston who embraced our work from very early stages and had the desire to bring it all to life.

To get a blow-by-blow account of the time up in Vermont, check out my “Knockin’ Up Vermont” blog here.  Check out Playbill’s photo coverage of the show (and a peek behind the scenes with everyone’s favorite baby actor Twan Baker) here, here, and here!

So what have I been up to since Weston?  Well, after coming back to the city and re-adjusting to post-production life, Julia and I have been busy starting a few new projects.  Songs have been written, outlines have been outlined – from crashed weddings to dancing plagues to pies-in-the-face – and we’re excited to hit the ground running again.  After devoting the last few years to pregnant teens, it’s refreshing to remind myself how to start again.

An exciting announcement or two is on the way, but for now I’m happy to be getting back to basics and doing more of what I love to do in 2013!

Last January, Julia’s friend Jacey Heldrich contacted us about a project she was working on as a film student at Columbia University.  She had written the script for Galaxy Comics, a short film about the employees and patrons of a small, struggling comic book shop, which she and her director, Kevin McMullin, thought was ripe for musicalization.  Julia and I were excited to work with them and write four new songs for the project that was shot in over a few days last May and June.  The final product was first screened last October.

Galaxy Comics was screened at the 2012 New York Television Festival two weeks ago, where it was it was given both the “Best Director” award AND a development deal with MTV!  We’re so happy to have been a part of this project and we’re excited to see where it goes from here.  Congratulations to Jacey and Kevin and everyone involved!

Check out the teaser for Galaxy Comics here:

The film is directed by Kevin McMullin and written & produced by Jacey Heldrich.  The amazing production design is by our friend and frequent collaborator Matt Brogan.  It stars one of our very favorites, Kimiko Glenn, along with Matt Strickland, Christina Sivrich, Adam Lerman, James Butler, and Olli Haaskivi.

Listen to two of the songs below!  (And excuse some of the empty spaces – it’s filled in with dialogue in the film!)

Nerds Get Nervous - Matt Strickland with Adam Lerman, James Butler & Olli Haaskivi
Wake Up - Kimiko Glenn & Matt Strickland

Julia and I are so excited to say that we are semi-finalists for the developmental programs offered by Page 73!  Out of 330 submissions, 30 semi-finalists were chosen for their three different developmental programs.  As musical theatre writers, we are immensely honored to be included among the talented playwrights on this list.

A little bit about Page 73:

Founded in 1997, Page 73 Productions has made a name for itself as a home for the development and production of new work by early-career playwrights. We seek out untried playwrights who are yet to be produced and recognized in New York City and usher their work from first draft to production-ready script. Page 73′s developmental programs are carefully designed to give early-career playwrights the tools and resources to ready their work for production opportunities. Our mission is to offer a crucial steppingstone at a critical, early point in a writer’s career.

Each year, Page 73 offers five primary programs to early-career playwrights: a New York City or world premiere production of a new play by an emerging playwright; the year-long P73 Playwriting Fellowship which provides cash, development and career support to one writer annually; a week-long summer residency program on the Yale University campus to four playwrights; Interstate 73, a writing group that consists of six to eight playwrights; and the Page 2 workshop, offering extensive rehearsals and design support to a play in development.

We’re so thrilled to have been recognized by this wonderful organization!