Okay, I wrote it in 2002, it's all of ten minutes long, and I am still tinkering with Wallflowers.
For the uninitiated, Wallflowers is a tiny musical for which I provided the story and the lyrics. Inspired by Chagall's painting, "The Birth", composer Michael Moricz provided a ravishing score on which I pinned a tale of an emotionally unstable man picking between the bliss of fantasy and the gruesome challenges of reality. I've written so many things since then, but Wallflowers has a hold on me like none of my other writings. Trying to make it user-friendly for audiences is a cottage industry for me.
Wallflowers was commissioned during the heyday of Raw Impressions Music Theatre, a noble experiment in collaboration that lasted a few years and burned itself out. Raw Impressions pitted a composer with a lyricist, cast, director and concept, sent them off into the wild on a Friday night to return Sunday afternoon with a ten minute musical ready to go into rehearsal. The original cast, directed by Mark Schneider, included Matthew Trombetta, Emily Rabon Hall and Jamie Mathews. Raw Impressions restaged it in 2004 as part of Dreams This Way: The Best of Raw Impressions with a new director (Daniella Topol) and completely new cast (pictured above: Gavin Esham, Jennifer Waldman and Lucy Sorenson). That production played The Kirk Theatre later that year as part of the inaugural New York Musical Theatre Festival.
For reasons unknown, a huge revival of interest in Wallflowers has blown into town. I've had four requests for productions in the past few months and an NYU film student wants to produce it incorporating some lovely animation elements. We'll see.
So, of course, I am tinkering.
For the uninitiated, Wallflowers is a tiny musical for which I provided the story and the lyrics. Inspired by Chagall's painting, "The Birth", composer Michael Moricz provided a ravishing score on which I pinned a tale of an emotionally unstable man picking between the bliss of fantasy and the gruesome challenges of reality. I've written so many things since then, but Wallflowers has a hold on me like none of my other writings. Trying to make it user-friendly for audiences is a cottage industry for me.
Wallflowers was commissioned during the heyday of Raw Impressions Music Theatre, a noble experiment in collaboration that lasted a few years and burned itself out. Raw Impressions pitted a composer with a lyricist, cast, director and concept, sent them off into the wild on a Friday night to return Sunday afternoon with a ten minute musical ready to go into rehearsal. The original cast, directed by Mark Schneider, included Matthew Trombetta, Emily Rabon Hall and Jamie Mathews. Raw Impressions restaged it in 2004 as part of Dreams This Way: The Best of Raw Impressions with a new director (Daniella Topol) and completely new cast (pictured above: Gavin Esham, Jennifer Waldman and Lucy Sorenson). That production played The Kirk Theatre later that year as part of the inaugural New York Musical Theatre Festival.
For reasons unknown, a huge revival of interest in Wallflowers has blown into town. I've had four requests for productions in the past few months and an NYU film student wants to produce it incorporating some lovely animation elements. We'll see.
So, of course, I am tinkering.
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