An
update from Andrew Gerle and Eddie Sugarman about their 2005 NAMT Festival show
Meet John Doe, based on the Capra film, about the getting the
show licensed, recorded and ready to go out into the world. There are big new developments for Meet John Doe, and we're so excited to share them with all the NAMT members and our fellow writers. Since the Festival, we've seen several very different productions of the show, and now that it's been licensed by Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals, we can't wait to see what other theaters, large and small, do with it. We also just released the cast album on Broadway Records with Heidi Blickenstaff, Jim Moye and Robert Cuccioli (one of Talkin' Broadway's top 10 cast albums of 2013!), which was a huge thrill and an even huger surprise—more on that later.
We're so grateful to NAMT and all the organizations that have helped us along the way, and are very excited that the album will allow many more people to meet John Doe. NAMT was the beginning of a perfect development process for us. At a retreat at TheatreWorks, we were able to write several new songs, and then incorporate them at a workshop at Carousel Dinner Theater. A student production at the Hartt School of Music allowed us to see the show and fine-tune the book, and an extensive rehearsal process at Goodspeed Musicals gave us the opportunity to add another couple of songs and address big-picture issues like pacing and flow.
The process culminated with our world premiere in DC at the Ford's Theater. We swapped out another couple songs for that production, and were overwhelmed by how well the show played for large houses (9 Helen Hayes nominations and 2 wins!). What was maybe most exciting was how much it entertained and moved the Ford's many high school audiences, who had
