The B’DAT graduating class of 2015 is chock full of musicians. You may remember the days of Big Child? Or when SK bounced around with a guitar – whipping her hair in a metal band. Or when Rob was really into playing the double bass. But I remember the first time I asked Rob and Marla to write a little jingle in T1 and David Barber was there too and Luke not long after and here we are. Eurydice. One of my favorit plays by one of my favorite Playwrights. Rob wrote a melody. Luke made it a chord progression. Sarah gave it depth. Abby gave it structure. Sarah Ruhl provided the story.
I’ve been fascinated by live scoring for as long as I can remember. When I was challenged to find a play that best honored this senior class I found myself drawn to plays about musicians that offered a playground for sound.
Sarah Ruhl layers her writing in image, but visual and aural and my only request of Rob was that nothing we used to make sounds in this play could be pre-recorded. We cast a roster of music makers and collaborated to make every moment of this “score” live. Enter Abby Meyer, welcome Nicole Onwaku and the rest is history. This is the place where singer meets storyteller and history meets moments right up in your face.
Who are those stones you ask? Big, Loud and Little? What does it mean to be dipped in the river? What kind of music does Orpheus make? What if Orpheus was more Adam Levine or Nick Jonas, than Greek God and the stones were the very people for which hell would be a place void of sound? Buddy Holly. Karen Carpenter. Amy Winehouse. Whitney Houston. Janis Joplin. John Lennon. Nico. Lou Reed. How different would this world be if their music didn’t stop?
A world without music? That’s my personal hell, come to think of it.
Please welcome David Brune as he joins our rank of teaching artists as the Technical Director we’ve long waited for! But boy was he worth waiting for! Arming his roster of student technicians with design decisions and engineering puzzles I’m proud to say I did NOT design this show. They did. Elena, Sophia, Lulu, Natalie, Willa, Grace, Addy, Emma, Lucy, Marcella, Marla, Juliet, Abby and Rob…. Bravely done team! Bravely done.
Now about that elevator. Water? What’s a little water? This is B’DAT. We’re not afraid of anything.
Thank you for coming to our play.
Big love,
Jo
