These YouTube Videos Are Part of my Libretto
There aren’t any words, but they’re part of a script, not a performance. I’ve talked before about the dumbshow at the beginning of Summer’s Twilight. I don’t want to write a vamp with a few sound effects to be played underneath the mime. I want to score the physical beats of the scene, moment for...
Ian Rosenbaum tries out a monologue
Last night I went over to Ian Rosenbaum‘s place, and we went over some of the sketches I’ve got for the new scene 1 of Summer’s Twilight. As usual with a marimba part, you think some things are hard when they’re easy, and you think some things are easy but they’re hard. Sometimes you take...
Summer’s Twilight video libretto
Earlier this month Rose Ginsberg and I got together a group of actors to workshop some mime sections of Summer’s Twilight. We spent the afternoon trying out different things, working scenes till they gelled, and filming the process to create a kind of video libretto. The filming was as low-key as you can get, just...
November 15th is the day
November 15th is the day we launch the Meet The Composer Studio at 92YTribeca. It’s been a long year of hard work. I’ve been learning a ton of new skills, from web marketing to commissioning contracts to nuts-and-bolts web analysis and UI design. I’m really proud of the work everyone has done on this project,...
Summer’s Twilight mime experiment
Next Saturday Rose Ginsberg and I are running what we think is a really cool experiment to help with Summer’s Twilight (my current big project and an adaptation of
sound design and meeting on Summer’s Twilight scene 1 re-write
Last week saw me stuck sick in bed for a couple days, but also saw two good meetings. The first was with Rose Ginsberg, director and chief brainstorming-buddy for Summer’s Twilight. I’ve finished a significant re-write of the libretto of the first scene, and wanted to bounce it off of Rose before I dug into...
Good Meeting
Last night I met with Summer’s Twilight director Rose Ginsberg, and a potential scenic designer for the piece. In the short term we’re hoping to develop some concept art to help promote and develop the work for the next phase. Of course, in the long term we’re going to actually have to create a practical...
Video of the Summer’s Twilight Reading is up!
You know you’ve been waiting for it, and now it’s here. We read Summer’s Twilight on December Fifth, and the video of that workshop performance is ready to go! The musicians did fantastic work, and I can’t wait to get the next version of the piece ready for its next step. Have a look: Summer’s...
Scene 6 or Scene 1
I’ve been thinking about where to go next with Summer’s Twilight. Since the reading I’ve been working on collecting the input of my collaborators and friends, including cast, crew and audience. I think I’ve captured a good amount of the valuable ideas for revisions from the workshop process, but now I’ve got a second question:...
Collaborative revision on Summer’s Twilight
It’s startling how quickly certain ideas are emerging as obviously important in the revisions going forward, and more startling how quickly some solutions are becoming incredibly obvious. It’s turning out that the reading did just what I wanted it to do, which was highlight the areas I needed to fix. One suggestion that’s come up...
Summer’s Twilight reading post-game
That went fantastically well. The performance was great, the audience gave very useful feedback on the piece and where to go next, and everything went incredibly smoothly. We had an audience of about thirty, which is pretty good for thirty minutes of opera in a library auditorium during the first winter storm of the year....
Summer’s Twilight Reading – 12/5 Details
Summer’s Twilight is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The piece tells the story of the four lovers, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena, as their romantic troubles lead them out into the forest, where the fairy, Puck, and his king, Oberon, wait ready to meddle. Part opera, part play, and part music-theatre...
