Calgary and I were headed for a collision that finally happened last week. I’m finally recovered, the insurance is worked out, the lawyers have extrapolated the details and now I am free to talk about it. Woah. I’ve been doing the songs for this musical currently entitled “Ash Rizin’” and we had the opportunity to workshop it last week in Calgary’s beautiful ATP (Alberta Theatre Projects) http://www.atplive.com/. I’ve done work on a play before with Greenthumb Theatre (Cranked) but this is a completely different level of commitment and workload. Again, this is a play written by my friend Michael Northey but the music obviously has a narrative aspect so we’ve had to collaborate quite a bit more to give the piece a seamless existence between book and song. The workshop definitely made this more obvious and apparent than I was previously willing to accept. The effort to do so continues.
It’s obviously a play that utilizes hip hop music/culture and it was tremendously informative to have 6 actors that were not from that world. One of the questions that we needed answered was would the material stand up from the page on it’s own or would we need people with a hip hop background to make it work. Our cast had 20 hours and answered that question unequivocally, no. Good actors are brave enough to handle anything. 5 of the actors with zero rap experience all learned one of the songs that I wrote and they performed it live on Saturday for our reading of the play. They killed it and actually got applause from the crowd, I was truly proud of them. Actors are stupid enough to try anything if they trust the work and thank god they were stupid enough to me trust because they killed it!! Stupid vs courageous? Pretty sure it’s confidence, talent and courage but never the less it was exceptional.
The play will be opening next year in the Martha Cohen theatre and I was lucky enough to check it out. Amazing. Thrust stage that has a revolving centre piece to fly in different sets. Since the play is about a graf writer who pieces atop buildings, the height of the stage will also be fully utilized down the road. The acoustics are brilliant as well. It’s weird looking at theatre this way, I studied theatre, did a little bit of it and am truly blessed to have this opportunity. The time consumption can be crucifying but the prospect of this thing is inspirational and I can’t thank the good people from ATP/Greenthumb enough for being so stupid as to trust Northey and I with the keys to the kingdom. Hahaha. I do believe this will be special.
Obviously I lit it up in Calgary after I was off booze for February. Had a great Friday night with Justin Ellington, Northey, Amy, the cast and the good people from the ATP. Flew by and I can’t wait to get back there. Back in Vancouver now with a show 2morrow night (Saturday March 12th) at the Red Room. Get your asses out.
Bernsteinrios