29. The Play's The Thing

And now for some drama. My first theater project was to write a musical called The Skyladder. The Skyladder was an experimental piece using archetypal characters which I wrote for several reasons; just to see if I could do it, to create a setting for some of my music, and to create an alternate reality which I could escape to during a bleak period in my life. Once this was accomplished I set the play aside and moved from NYC to Portland, Maine.

I didn't have another opportunity to venture into drama again until my second musical about Mary, Queen of Scots entitled, Hail Mary. Hail Mary was a long and elaborate piece which I was fortunate enough to have read by some friends who were professional actors. We had a really fun Summer afternoon reading of the play with a cookout afterwards. The feedback from the reading made it clear that although the play had good bones, the script needed to be streamlined which really benefited the final draft.

My association with the actors who read Hail Mary led to some other opportunities at Portland Stage Company which included performing at a concert to benefit one of the actor's whose apartment had been flooded, recording some entr'acte music for a production, playing piano in the lobby, and contributing some Love Poems for a scheduled Valentine's Day reading.

My last theater project during this period of my life was to compose and record some incidental music for an Aire Theater production at the St. Lawrence Arts Center. Shortly afterwards, I put up my first website with the help of a student of mine and started preparing for a planned move to California. I was on the move again....