I’ve Fall-en and I Can Get [You] Up(dates)
It’s fall (booooooo), and you’re probably too young to get the above reference, so here it is.
Anyway, to those updates. First and shiniest, Sketchbook for Ollie is now up and touring to schools around Kansas City! It was a joyous week of final preparations, taking in LOKC’s excellent production of Carmen at the majestic Kauffman Center, a building designed by Frank Gehry, and an even more joyous reunion with Bill Folman, my college pal responsible for the source material that inspired my new opera. We saw the first few performances, and the kids are eating it up, which is a huge relief! Honestly, it’s been healing to see them blown away by the opera singers’ powerful voices and, occasionally, by my bad jokes. Here are some of the most hilarious post-show audience questions so far:
How old are you? (Since Bill and I are the oldest in the group, when we shared our ages, the whole place went “WHOOOOOOA!” as if we’d just said we were around to witness the signing of the Declaration of Independence.)
How tall are you? (Similar responses to the tallest among us.)
Does it hurt when you sing?
How do you turn the lights on?
How many glasses have you broken with your high voice?
And some of the sweetest responses:
How do composers do THIS?!
You guys are the best opera guys I’ve ever seen, and I’m amazed at all you did!
One girl shared that she had recently lost her grandparents, and the opera made her feel brave.
You can now find some beautiful photos from Sketchbook for Ollie on my Gallery page as well as (drumroll) a playlist of excerpts from our invited dress rehearsal below!
Shortly before leaving NYC for the premiere, I also turned in a significant rewrite of the libretto to Welcome to the Madness for Opera Steamboat as well as (finally!) a complete draft of the vocal score for Good Shabbos.
As previously described, I’ve spent some intense months writing, traveling, rehearsing, rewriting, more rewriting, and eventually seeing it all come to fruition. There’s more in the hopper, but I suddenly find myself with…a bit of (mostly) uninterrupted time? This year’s commitments and their various ups and downs—not to mention the shared roiling chaos outside this quasi-operatic fishbowl—have given me much to chew on. As such, I’ve begun looking at what I do and why I do it from a slightly different angle. You can read more of my thoughts on my new About page. If any part of my newly articulated mission sparks your imagination, please get in touch!
Here's some of what’s up next:
The Public Access team was awarded a residency at the Millay Arts Colony beginning late next month to reconvene and forge ahead with our opera-adjacent video miniseries about the infamous Mari Lyn. We’re excited to resume our deep dive into her 1980s cable access TV studio…and her singular psyche.
Lisa DeSpain and I will be heading to Vanderbilt University in January to tinker with Staggerwing some more.
Fargo-Moorhead Opera will give the first-ever live performance of Everything Comes to a Head, which was originally conceived for a digital production in 2020, next February.
Until then, uninterrupted time doesn’t mean unfettered idleness (though I do enjoy my daily doses of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which remains some of the best sitcom writing ever). I’m stepping up my skills in everything from playwriting and orchestration to the audio and video editing I inexplicably managed to avoid doing when the world went completely online during the pandemic.
Most importantly, I am preparing a lot of material, from the brand new to the decades-old, to offer in a one-stop sheet music shop on this site. I’ve got shelves and boxes and hard drives full of stuff that deserves TLC and sprucing up (and performances, ahem); progress is steady, but there’s always more to be done! I aim to be up and running by the end of the year, if not before. Please let me know if you have any specific requests for me to prioritize; I’m always happy to fulfill one-off orders via email as usual.
Happy Fall,
RP