An
interview with Kevin Moore, Producing Artistic Director of The Human Race Theatre Company, about their upcoming production of Play It By Heart with a book by Brian Yorkey (Making Tracks, NAMT Fest '01), music by David Spangler and
Jerry Taylor, and lyrics by Spangler, Taylor and R.T. Robinson.
As a teenager, she became
the breakout star of the Jasper Family Singers. Now, Jeannine Jasper is the
“Queen of County Music,” but she has hopes of getting off the road and having a
life. After a concert, a long lost love appears and they discover the spark is
still there. But their “history” could be her undoing. Her record label has
been purchased by a Dubai businessman who has his own plans for her career, and
her rebel, younger sister is always in the news for all the wrong reasons.
Family secrets are revealed to the sweet sounds of old and new country in this
quintessential story of a family.
Play It By Heart was originally produced out at The Village
Theatre. How did it find its way to Dayton, Ohio?
It actually came to us from
one of the writers, David Spangler. After their production at the Village
Theatre in 2005, the writers all went off to work on other projects. Brian
Yorkey had this little show brewing called Next
to Normal. In 2006, we workshopped the musical Nefertiti by David Spangler and Rick Gore. We stayed great friends and in 2009 he
told me about Play It By
Heart, and that the writers all wanted to get back to it. I
read it, listened and was hooked. I offered them a residency – brought them in
and gave them a space to live, work and gave them actors to play with. That was
Fall, 2009. In the summer of 2010, we did a full workshop. Our audience loved
it. Over and over I heard, “I’m usually not a country music fan, but I really
liked this music and this show.”
You presented a reading of
the show last year in your Festival and clearly must have gone over very well.
What work have the writers put in on the show since then?
Based upon our workshop
experience that incorporated new material and plot ideas, the writers and I
identified certain story lines that needed to be clarified, songs that needed
to be replaced, and development of some of the new ideas that didn't have enough time to fully ferment during our workshop. Brian,
David and Jerry have been working on both the book and the score and are
working to deliver our starting materials. We have engaged a music director/arranger
who will refresh the old score and make it more “actor friendly,” as well as
prepare the new material and orchestrations.
Why is the show a good fit
for your season and your audience?
National
Fund grants of $10,000 to support full productions have been awarded to:
Barrington Stage Company
(Pittsfield, MA) for Southern
Comfort by Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis. This project
previously received a Project Development Grant in support of its time at
CAP21, a Writers Residency Grant for its time at Playwrights Horizons and was
presented in NAMT's 2012 Festival of New Musicals.
Transport Group (New
York, NY) for The Memory
Show by Sara Cooper and Zachary Redler, with support from Stacey
Mindich Productions. The
Memory Show was presented in NAMT's 2009 Festival of New Musicals.
National
Fund grants between $2,500 and $5,000 to support a workshop or reading have
been awarded to:
An
interview with Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond, writers of the Festival
’11 show Dani Girl, about their show, life since the Festival and other projects
they are working on.
Dani Girl is the inspiring and humorous story of
a young girl's battle with a life-threatening disease. Far from sitting back
and accepting her condition, Dani transforms her struggle into a fantastical
adventure. Together with her teddy bear, imaginary guardian angel and
movie-obsessed hospital roommate, she battles a personified Cancer across the
realms of fantasy and reality as she attempts to get her beloved hair back.
Told from a child's perspective, this provocative musical explores the
universal themes of life in the face of death, hope in the face of despair and
the indomitable power of imagination.
What was
the response to your presentation at the Festival?
We got a terrific response. The feedback we received was incredibly
encouraging and it's generated some great opportunities for the piece,
including the chance to participate in the festival at The Human Race Theatre
Co. (Aug. 3-5), which we're thrilled about. Additionally, the Festival
has generated several opportunities for us beyond Dani Girl, which have allowed us to begin to
develop several new projects. We've also made some terrific new contacts
that we hope will lead to new opportunities in the future, which came about as
a direct result of NAMT.
Did the
Festival process make you go back and revise or refine anything in the show?
Absolutely. The process of preparing the piece for the presentation,
trimming it down to 45 minutes, helped us to see some potential cuts to the
script that we ended up implementing. We've also gone back and done some work
on the very opening of the show, which we think helps to establish the tone of
the piece much more clearly right from the get-go.
What are
you hoping to work on while at Human Race?
