Confusion. Anger. Joy.

Can't go into details at this point, but Andrew Collie is unable to perform on the 10th- through absolutely no fault of his own, but a slight bit of jerkiness that I AM willing to peg on other people.  

THE GOOD NEWS is that within seven hours of getting this news I (and when I say I, I mean my awesome friends Brian Paljug and Lauren Estes) was able to find a replacement singer.  Though Andrew will be greatly missed, the show must go on... and now, with a time constraint, rehearsals will be all the more exciting.  

Yay for Music Being Done!

OK, so the music (at least for this performance- I'm sure I'll revise it another five times) is finished, and I like all but one song.  I'm not going to say which song I don't particularly like, but the good news is I don't particularly hate it either.

I had great fun over the past few days going to the on-campus copy center and getting to know their staff very well while printing out all this music for my performers.  Today I printed out my own personal score that I'll use to conduct (I've decided that things will be a lot easier if I conduct, and Professor Serghi encouraged this).  The result is an extremely thick score, 57 pages of 11 by 17 paper containing 20 songs.  I imagine that with incidental music the final score should run around 65 pages, if formatted correctly.  I REALLY need to go back and format.  Finale, the music program that I use, has so many ways to precision-engineer your score that it actually makes it MORE difficult to make it produce something that looks decent.  

I spoke with Professor Serghi the other day about the paper that I have to write as part of this thesis- sounds pretty easy.  All I have to do is spend 15 pages talking about the process of writing Usher.... so basically I get to go back, read all of my blog posts, and synthesize the information.  Thanks, blogger!

Now... on to that string quartet rehearsal...

Marathon Music

I've been writing a ton over the past week- as of this moment I only have one and a half songs left to finish up.  I'm pretty sure I can do it by sometime tomorrow afternoon... just in time to get things printed off for my musicians.  After that, I can shift my concerns to rehearsals and marketing.  

So far all of the musicians have been amazing.  Of particular note was Thursday, when the vocalists all got together for the first time.  They are the same ones that sung on the original CD, but when that CD was recorded they had each come to the studio separately.  Hearing them all sing at once was completely thrilling (it helped that they already knew most of the music).  I am very excited, especially for the full group numbers.

DC/Rehearsals

First off- we got into the DC Fringe Festival!  This is both a blessing and a curse as it puts us into a position where we have to notify DC of our attendance before we find out about New York.  Fringe shows are not super cheap or super relaxing to put on and we face the potential of having two shows this summer.  It is something we would love AND hate to do.  I think right now we're leaning towards going for it...

In other news, the last piece has fallen into my instrumentalist puzzle: I have a guitarist!  We had our first string quartet rehearsal this evening, and while it was very much a first-reading, they all sounded good and I am certain that they are capable of pulling everything off.  It's always a treat to hear one's own music actually being played... though sort of disconcerting when you have no idea where you are in the music and are basically useless as a conductor.  

Piano rehearsal is Wednesday, and voice rehearsal is on Thursday.  This weekend I put the finishing touches on the three or four songs that aren't yet finished.  After that, we'll have three weeks to put it all together for the WM recital.  Woo-hoo!

Greetings from Disney World!

... I am not working at Disney World ...

Snow Day!

No class today for the first time in my four years at William and Mary.  I was informed of this at 6:30AM when everyone's phone rang to deliver the news over the campus emergency announcement system.  Now, I'm not going to suggest that I wasn't happy to learn about getting the day off, but a part of me feels as though it is abusing the "emergency" notification system to use it for snow days.  Hurricane?  Sure.  Fire?  Of course.  Snow?  When all the power is on and no one has been hurt, perhaps not.  

Enough of that.

I've been recruiting instrumentalists over the past few weeks, and am now lacking only a violist and a second classical guitar player (though I have leads for both).  The pit, as it exists, is comprised of members of ATO (my fraternity), the WM Orchestra, the WM Wind Symphony, and former members of the Wind Symphony.  I had to reach out all over for this project because the instruments are not normally found together.

"My Love" is finished (for the purposes of the recital, but if Brent (Mr. C) doesn't like it I might change it a bit.  Working on "Music of a Dream" and all of the other songs that I wrote but that have been changed to 4-part pieces or written with different lyrics.  Many of these updates are more difficult than I would have imagined, but I am still confident that I can get all of the music to my musicians on the day they get back from Spring Break.  

If I'm not on my computer working on music this week, then I'm either eating, sleeping, or in class.  Or... updating my blog and procrastinating.  

In Other News

I'm in Macbeth, which has nothing to do with Usher... except that I haven't been getting much work done on Usher because of Macbeth.

Anyway, here's the trailer for Macbeth, just to throw something up on this blog...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6f4wc1UZVA

I look silly, I think... but it's a well made trailer.

Andrew Collie is Awesome

Andrew Collie comes over with his guitar every now and then to play some of Usher.  He came over last Wednesday, and within about ten seconds of his playing I had to stop him so that I could write down the things that he were playing that were not in the music.  Small ornaments here and there in a piece make me very happy.

I also have my committee for my honors thesis defense.  They are:

Sophia Serghi- Adviser since Freshman year and composition instructor.

Greg Bowers- A fellow musical-writer who has actually had his own off-broadway show.

Nancy Schoenberger- An English professor currently working on a fictional work about Poe (Think "The Da Vinci Code" but with a raven instead of a last supper.)

I'm very excited about these three on my committee- I know they'll be tough on me since at least one of their lifelong passions is represented in "The Fall of the House of Usher," but I'm also hoping that they will appreciate it more than other professors might.

More Like "Memory"

I met with Professor Bowers the other day for coffee, and he was hugely inspirational.  I knew that he was writing an Alice in Wonderland Musical (I would paraphrase the desription as a cross between "Finding Neverland" and "Big Fish," both of which are awesome) but what I hadn't heard was that he once had a show that he helped create go off-broadway.  This is a guy that knows all of the things that I really want to know, apparently.  

He told me a lot about how his show got picked up, the fickleness of New York audiences, the importance of marketing (score one for the marketers!), and how he had tons of friends up there and if Usher gets into the Fringe he'll help us get some contacts.  Knowing more people is always good.

Brent liked the song I sent him the other day, though (and he points this out correctly) there are some sections in the song that don't "stick in the mind" in the way that others, for example, "Memory," does.  

I wrote him back asking if he realized that the guy who wrote "Memory" has been doing this for forty years and has written maybe three or four songs that are almost on par with "Memory" in a melodic sense.

He replied that he did realize this and he did not think it was too much to ask.  

So I suppose I'm working on that, then.

New Song

The final song that made it into this draft of Usher is one called "My Love" and is sung by Annabel to demonstrate the source of the influences on her flute composition.  The lyrics are a poem written by Robert Burns, whom you may know as the writer of Auld Lang Syne.  You can sing this poem to that tune as well.  It was a challenge to write something that sounded similar and yet different enough to be unrecognizable.  It's just a short little song, but I like it very much.  I'm meeting with my soprano who sang as Annabel for the concept CD on Monday to ask if the notes have been written reasonably well.

My Love

My love is like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June:

My love is like a melody,

That's sweetly played in tune.

So fair are you, my handsome lad,

So deep in love am I;

And I will love you still, my love,

'Til all the seas go dry.

'Til all the seas go dry, my love,

And the rocks melt with the sun:

And I will love you still, my love,

While the sands of life shall run.

Back to School

My new schedule features my first 8:00AM class since high school.  In order to wake up at 7, I've downloaded Hugh Jackman singing "O What a Beautiful Morning" onto my phone and set it as my alarm.  I'm not sure how it motivates me, exactly, but it seems to work.

I had my first meeting with Professor Serghi today.  She's been my advisor all four years here, but she's been gone for the past year and a half on sabbatical.  I played her some of the music for Usher, and she seemed to really like it.  She asked what Dr. Bower thought of it, and I said "who is Dr. Bower?"  She proceeded to grab my arm and lead me downstairs because I apparently should know this person.  While he wasn't in his office, she demanded that I immediately write him an e-mail, because he is currently writing a musical version of Alice in Wonderland and he would be a big help as far as tips about how to get your musical produced go.  So I did that.

Beyond that, I have a meeting with her again in two weeks where I am to show her whatever more work I've done on the musical between now and then.  We've set the date of March 12th for auditioning and securing musicians, and I'll start rehearsing them for the concert right after spring break.

Worst Blogger Ever

OK so here's the rundown of what has happened since the last time I posted... over a month ago...

I wrote a song that I actually like for "I Cannot Love You."  I have to revise it heavily, but the idea of it no longer makes me want to beat my head against my laptop.

We updated to Draft V!  Or Draft V.2, I suppose.  Here's what we changed (I'll put a star next to things I mentioned wanting in my last post):

1.  Two more full cast numbers *

2.  Creepification of the ghost scene *

3.  No more doctors * 

4.  New lyrics and a pretty song for Annabel

5.  More tension between Roderick and William

6. More uncertainty regarding the insanity of Madeline

and 7.  Madeline now gets the following line: "As it turned out, the crow didn't really love me.  So I killed it."  ***

I don't know why I wanted that last thing so much- it just seemed like the kind of line that, were I given the chance to act it, I would love.  

After getting the new script, I set to work on one of the full cast numbers near the end, which Mr. Cirves calls "Serenade" but I call "Music of a Dream," because the word "serenade" is not uttered once in the song.  I came up with a reasonable draft, but it needs heavy work.

The real accomplishment of the past few days has been getting all the material together to send to the Fringe!  I am happy to say that I sent it UPS this morning, just inside the deadline for early application.  I leave you with the cover letter that sits on top of the application.  Normally I would say "if you see any problems with it, let me know," but since I already sent it in, I really would prefer not to hear that something is terribly wrong.  

COVER LETTER for THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

            Roderick Usher wants to live forever.  He intends to do this, as he explains early on in the show, through music.  We have the slightly less megalomaniacal goal of producing the story of Roderick Usher in the New York International Fringe Festival for all to see.  We intend to do this through a musical: a dark, vibrant, soul-searching musical based on Edgar Allan Poe’s brooding tale of a man at the end of the line (in every sense of the word).

 

            Most people can guess that at the end of The Fall of the House of Usher, a house falls down.  Many, too, have read the story and know that it begins with the arrival of an old friend who has come to comfort Roderick Usher in his sickness.  But why are these men friends?  What does the story tell us about the nature of friendship?  And further, how do our early influences affect who and what we become?  We attempt to answer these questions by creating a first act that gives a dramatic--and at times, comic--back story to the tale.  We add Annabel Lee, the title character from Poe’s famously eerie and tragic poem, as the beautiful wife of a young and confident Roderick Usher.  Our narrator, William, is invited to Usher’s house due to his musical talents.  What happens in that house between these three and Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline, sets the stage for the horrifying and tragic conclusion.

 

            We frame the entire musical in the form of a story being told by William to a stranger, some ten years after the house falls.  Since each of the four main characters in the show is a talented musician, every song is played organically by the characters.  In other words, they are playing their own music and they play only when (with the exception of dream sequences) it would make logical sense for an actual musician to share a song.  Because of this, we learn about the interior thoughts of the characters through more than just their lyrics-- we understand them through the music that they write and through the way they choose to play it.  We can hear, as the show continues, the influences that the characters absorb from one another’s music and personalities. 

           

            Life is complex, beautiful, and occasionally tragic.  We want to put this complex view of life on stage with a unique and edgy (and sexy) Poe adaptation.  What The Fall of the House of Usher can bring to the Fringe is a passionate testament to friendship and music and the potentially destructive powers of the past.  We wrote this show because we saw in the original story a world that would look and sound spectacular on stage.  Now that it is written, we want nothing more than to see it performed on stage.  Since Brent Cirves is a high school drama teacher and I am an undergraduate student of music at William and Mary, the summer-- specifically around the time of the New York Fringe Festival-- is when we would be most able to throw all of our time and energy into a production.  If you give us the chance, we will make this show every bit as incredible as it demands to be, and we will happily work until we collapse like Usher’s House. 

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to read through our application materials.  We hope you enjoy our House of Usher as much as we enjoyed creating it.

I suppose it's time for an update

On Friday Brent and I (it's so hard not to call him Mr. C, but he insists) are talking through ALL of the comments that people gave about the show and we're deciding what direction in which to take the redraft.

Some things I'll be angling for:

1.  More excuses for full cast songs.

2.  Fewer instrumental pieces.

3.  Heavily modified ghost pieces.

4.  Occasional lyric changes from the original Poe.

and 5. (not musical) The cutting of the doctor scenes.

I know he has some good ideas as well.  I'm excited about the new energy we're about to be pouring into this project.  Regular blog updates will no doubt return.

Happy Thanksgiving!

No editing or revising for the next few days- trying to look at everything with fresh eyes when it's time for the redraft in a few days.  Have a great Thanksgiving!

With Many Thanks to Christian Amonson

"Fall of the House of Usher" Read Through

By Brent Cirves and Mike Johnson

 

November 14, 7:30PM – Ewell Recital Hall

Courtesy Recording from http://ChristianAmonson.com/

 

ACT 1 (70MB) – http://ChristianAmonson.com/CBARecording/FallOfTheHouseOfUsher_Act1.mp3

 

ACT 2 (60MB) – http://ChristianAmonson.com/CBARecording/FallOfTheHouseOfUsher_Act2.mp3

 

Enjoy!

Thank You!

Since the House of Usher readthrough is now over, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped out in some way, either by reading or singing or stage managing or critiquing early drafts of songs or encouraging this project.

We got some great feedback from the audience, and I'm hoping to get a recording of the entire show online at some point for those who were not able to come see the readthrough.  I'll let you know when that happens.  In the meanwhile, there's a lot of work to be done...

49 Minutes of Music on the Wall

Sometimes things seem to just work out.  For example, today I had no homework or class to do after 9:30AM due to a field trip which forced me to wake up at 7.  This means that I had from 9:30-3:00PM to work on music, from 3:00-8:00 to record that music, and from 8-11 to rehearse.  

Tomorrow I plan on waking up early and writing as much instrumental music as I can (all of the sung music, with the exception of one song, is recorded) before 11:45.  At that point I will go to the recording studio and do a final mix of the songs.  Afterwards, if I have more time, I'll work on a little more instrumental music and then go to the recital hall to do a sound check at 3.  From 3-6 I will work on organizing the music and putting sticky notes in my script to let me know when the music needs to be played.  If there's time, I'll also try to type up a survey and get it printed out.  If there's still time, I'll come up with introductory remarks. 

The cast had a great rehearsal tonight, and at the end I asked them some of the questions on the survey that we'll be handing out to the audience.  They had some fantastic insights and solutions to problems in the show... I can't wait to see what a full audience can find.

Overall I'm very, very excited.  How could I not be?  If the audience enjoys it, then great.  If they hate it, then isn't it a good thing we had a readthrough so that we have time to change the things to make it great?  There's a little bit of rationalization in there, but not much...

5 Days and Counting

Went to the WFS-EHS game this weekend.  We won by a wide margin, as predicted.  I saw Mr. C but we didn't really have time to talk about the musical.  He did offer to fill out a form for the DC Fringe Festival, though, which is extremely nice of him to do (I think he feels bad that he can't help out with the readthrough in a more hands-on way).

I am currently in Studio 1 in the library waiting for songs to bounce (render, compile, turn into actual music- however you want to say it) and simultaneously trying to finish up some old songs.

There is a lot of work to do between now and Friday, but this should be a lighter academic week than last week (two case write-ups, an exam, and a 45-slide powerpoint presentation didn't help) so I should have time to scramble everything together.  

Sound Check

Ahh! I missed my official window for posting for the first time in 43 posts. Oh well.

I did a sound check today in the Recital Hall- couldn't get any sound out for the first fifteen minutes and thought, along with the administrative assistant who was helping me, that everything was broken. Then I found a small plug that was halfway out, and putting it back in its place seemed to fix the problem.

Also did some more sound mixing today.

Had individual character rehearsals yesterday. They went well, though half of my cast may have inflamed bronchitis. And by may I mean absolutely do. They should be well by the readthrough, though. If not, Annabel Lee may be a little more in character than I would prefer.

Halloween Weekend!

And what a lovely weekend it was.  I'm a little late on my posting, but hey, I haven't eaten dinner yet either, so it's not like I was procrastinating.

Went to Woodberry on Thursday for the weekend- I carved a very cool pumkin out of a pattern that Liza and I found- a barbershop quartet of ghosts.  Even though only four trick-or-treaters came down to her house, I feel as though it was worth the two hours it took to carve.

Saw Mr. Cirves's play- Moby Dick Rehearsed.  This was a play that we had seen about six years ago in a regional theater, and we thought it was great and were in a race to see who could direct it first.  He won.  The production was very cool- a bagpiper took to the stage between each scene change!  They also super-soaked the first four rows of the audience with the "sea," so I was lucky that I knew that beforehand and got a fifth row seat.

This morning before I left, Mr. C handed me seven beautiful black folders filled with draft five of the script.  I'll be handing these out to my actors tomorrow for our first rehearsal.  

When I got back to William and Mary, I went straight to the recording studios so that I could record Brian and Andrew at 5:00.  Brian stayed till 8 and managed to churn out every song that his character sings.  A few of them might need slight revisions, but overall he did a great and very efficient job (which takes a load off my mind since now I don't have to be in the recording studio every day this week).  Andrew stayed till 9:30, which was the point at which I realized I had nothing left for HIM to sing either.  I have a few songs that are almost written that he needs to sing next weekend, of course, but overall he's all finished too.  Now all that's left, for the most part, is the mixing.

I keep forgetting to mention this, but I wouldn't be able to put up this read-through if not for the help of Robert Black, whom I have enlisted as stage manager.  I should have put his name up on the cast list as such.  He's been scheduling things for me so that I don't have to, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing.  

I am still, of course, delightfully behind on all of my actual school work because of this.  I think that I'll go get something to eat and then get to that.