The wonderful Dvora Meyers interviewed Gordon and I about The Magnificent Seven for her Unorthodox Gymnastics newsletter; you can read the full interview here!  Dvora is a treasure trove about all things gymnastics, and has been a huge help to us as we develop this show.  

So very excited to share the news that The Magnificent Seven will be getting it's world premiere this sprint at Flint Repertory Theatre! The show will be directed by artistic director Michael Lluberes, with music direction by Rich Silverstein, with performances running May 1-10.  You can find more information (and get tickets!) here! Wahooo! 

Gordon and I are pleased as punch (pleased as cheese?) to be spending a week at the Weston Playhouse in Weston, VT, for a writers retreat. We'll be working on our show Choreomania, getting to know work by the other rad artists on the retreat, and eating as many cheese samples from the Vermont Country Store as we can in good conscience devour. Weston is the first place Gordon and I were professionally produced (the world premiere of Pregnancy Pact, in 2012), and we're just thrilled for any chances we have to return to one of our favorite artistic homes away from home.

Thanks to funding from Opera America's Discovery Grant, sponsored by the Virginia B Toulmin Foundation, I got to finish the string orchestrations for REB+VoDKa+ME and add them to our demo! You can check out the new playlist with the new orchestrations here! 

To my delight, we found out that our July reading of The Magnificent Seven at Urban Stages got a review on GymCastic, a podcast on the pulse of gymnastics.  We were overwhelmed and totally honored when the gymternet (yes, the internet of gymnastics is very real) showed up in full force at the reading.  We're thrilled that this reviewer got in to see the show, and that she had a good experience! You can check out the episode here (the talk of the show begins at 51:26, but tune in to the whole thing to learn a ton about the US Classic meet.) 

Next week, the Musical Theatre Conservatory Company at Barrington Stages will be presenting a 20-minute excerpt from ​Pregnancy Pact under the direction of the phenomenal Erin Krebs.  If you're in Pittsfield, check it out at 10:30pm on Thursday 7/25 or 5pm on Friday 7/26!

We were back in the studio this spring recording demos for The Magnificent Seven, and you can now check out basically the whole score here! (plus a cut song that I insisted on recording anyway here.) Heartfelt thanks to the rock star singers and musicians who helped us bring this thing to life! 

This summer brought the rare treat of getting to engage in two 29-hour readings of musicals basically back to back.  Less than a month after sharing a reading of REB+VoDKa+ME, Gordon and I were back in the proverbial saddle (or whatever the less macho musical theatre equivalent is....back in the binder?) again for a reading of our musical about the 1996 women's Olympic gymnastics team, The Magnificent Seven.  I can't describe (or at least not without getting prohibitively cheesy) what an honor it is to spend a week in the room with collaborators as talented and as hard working as these folks are.  We learned so much, and I'm already champing (chomping? which usages reads as less pretentious?) at the bit to get to return to this material again soon.  

The Magnificent Seven
Monday, July 15, 8pm
Urban Stages - 259 W 30th St.

Directed by Nikki Diloreto
Music Directed by Rich Silverstein
Movement: Sunny Hitt
Featuring: Kim Blanck, Ally Bonino, Nikita Burdein, Ellen Condon Macy, Rachel Flynn, Kendyl Ito, Madison Mullahey, Allison Posner, Lynne Marie Rosenberg, Ryan Speakman, and Tatiana Wechsler

After last week's reading of REB+VoDKa+ME, we headed back into the studio to add the new string arrangements to our demos for the show! (Again, thanks to the support of Opera America and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation!) I'm so excited to be able to incorporate this new layer into the score, and it's always a delight to spend a few hours at Mighty Toad Studios with recording engineer extraordinaire Chris Gilroy and the immense talents of Brian Sanders (cello) and Saki Uetsuhara (violin).  I'll post the updated demos here as soo as they're mixed! 

It was an absolute thrill to present this reading of REB+VoDKa+ME with such a stellar group of collaborators.  In addition to working with a new director (all hail Annie Tippe!) and trying out a bunch of new rewrites, this was our first chance to hear the score with not only electronic beats but also live instruments (Brian Sanders on cello and Saki Uetsuhara on violin are champions among strings). I'm so grateful to Laura Lee Everett and Claire Gohorel at Opera America for the Discovery Grant that made this reading possible (generously supported by the Virginia B Toulmin foundation), and to the Civilians, who not only presented this reading but gave us the chance to begin the project in their R&D group back in 2016.  

REB+VoDKa+ME
Monday, June 10, 3:00pm
The National Opera Center
330 7th Avenue, 7th Floor
Presented by The Civilians
Supported by a grant from Opera America, generously sponsored by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation

Directed by Annie Tippe
Music Direction by Rich Silverstein
Featuring Renée Albulario, Delaney Amatrudo, Matthew Berzon, Mackenzie Dade, Manoel Felciano, Sam Heldt, MinJi Kim, Lily Lester, David Merino, Elexis Morton, Jeanna Phillips, and Tatiana Wechsler