Monday, December 15, 2014

Holiday fun at the Black Crown

April will be performing at the Black Crown Piano Lounge (Broadway in Denver) on Saturday December 20th from 5:30 to 8:30. She's planning to play songs from WYSIWYG, some classics and new songs too! It'll be lots of fun Please connect to the event on Facebook too!

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Bar Scene

After the support group meeting in the first act the characters head over to Charlie's Tavern for some drinks. Denise and Carl arrive first and get cozy. April is apprehensive about it all, but Mark convinces her to go and they have a few rounds, which leads to bar talk.


Saturday, June 28, 2014

The World Wide Web

The second act starts off with the song The World Wide Web. Each character is drawn to the Internet to satisfy an irresistible urge to unleash their alter ego. Carl thinks that people see his inadequacies in the real world, Denise has lost the connection with her husband and goes online to explore her sensual side and April feels empowered by the web because she feels as if it is the only place that people see her as a real woman.


Thursday, June 26, 2014

GIC (Gender Identity Center) Scene

In the middle of the first act Mark invites Carl to run self awareness exercises for his support group and April develops a crush on him. Mark becomes concerned about April and online dating then convinces her to have drinks with the group.


Monday, June 23, 2014

Hypnosis Scene

The hypnosis scene occurs towards the end of the second act. Carl and April have fallen for each other online as Chuck and Mary when they are invited to an ayurvedic hypnosis session at the gender identity center.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Tech Rehearsal Video Promo

Here's some footage from our tech rehearsal earlier in the week (the songs are in no uncertain order). I thought it would be nice to get some video out there for people to look at. It's so much more entertaining than pictures. We've been making some tweaks here and there, but it's been coming together nicely.


Monday, May 26, 2014

Memorial Day rehearsal at DU

The one thing I can tell you about rehearsing on Memorial Day near DU is that, you can... actually get a parking space! The music facility was a ghost town, but that's okay, it just allowed us to work through the scenes with no distractions. Afterwards, we went to The Pioneer for lunch and a few beers, it was fun.


Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Press release for upcoming weekend run at Crossroads

Here's a link to our Official Press Release for the upcoming weekend run at the Crossroads Theater (2590 Washington Street) in the heart of the downtown Renaissance district of Five Points. Hope you can make it!

Monday, May 19, 2014

Dance rehearsal and choreography

Watching choreography today reminded me of the design term CRAP. Now you think I'm full of it don't you? Graphic designers sometimes use the term to evaluate their designs and it seems like it could be applied to dance as well, since every dance sequence has some amount of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity or CRAP. I think Ammon had a good balance of each. A bit aggressive for everyone to learn perhaps, but entertaining nonetheless.




It was fun to see him work with the cast, but it seemed like maybe I should have joined in since I'm the one that probably needs to shed some extra pounds!


Instead, I bellied up to the piano and ate the blueberry pound cake I picked up from King Soopers early in the morning. Afterwards, everyone unwound and talked about the dance numbers.



Friday, May 16, 2014

OMG, Three weeks to go!

Here are some pictures from our latest rehearsal at FBC:



"There is a kind of classlessness in the theater. The rehearsal pianist, the head carpenter, the stage manager, the star of the show--all are family." --John Kander



"Rehearsing is thinking aloud with others...nothing in a theatre performance is more important than the people of whom it is composed." --Peter Brook



"For me, acting is not about showing my presence or displaying my technique. Rather it is about revealing, through acting, 'something else,' something that the audience doesn't encounter in daily life." --Yoshi Oida

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Blocking rehearsal at DU

Despite the potent Colorado snow storm yesterday, we were all over at DU for some blocking. You can tell Evan has been working on this and was excited to see it come together with all the characters.



We were able to snare a large choir rehearsal room. It was perfect, Tony had no problem taming the 9' Steinway in the room. It's really rewarding to see the work make it off paper and come alive.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Nick Trotter joins the cast for Crossroads Theatre performance

Nick Trotter has joined the cast for the upcoming performance of WYSIWYG at the Crossroads Theatre. He will be playing Mark, the holistic therapist who runs a transgendered support group. He has an MFA from the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. He specializes in Clown, Bouffon, Commedia, and puppetry and is a noted mask and prosthetic designer. 



His multidisciplinary project Circo de Nada fuses improv theatre, mask, music and puppetry, and he performs locally and internationally as the clown Ferdinand the MagnificentCirco's original production of Three Bottles of Wine, a classic Commedia piece, is debuting in the Denver area in 2014. He is a member of the comedy duo Third Base! with Jerry Lee Wallace, and their production Myths of the Plastic Age has been entertaining audiences in northern California since 2009.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Hot off the press: WYSIWYG performance poster!

Here's the official WYSIWYG poster for our upcoming performances at the Crossroads Theatre in Denver, June 6, 7 and 8. We can change the background color to just about anything, so we'll probably reuse this concept for later performances and change the color based on the venue.



You might have noticed that we have support from some area companies for the endeavor too. Thanks go to Mary at Performing Arts Project. Patrice at Crossroads, Brian, Eric and Jessica at FBC, as well as Tony, Mark and Erik at two of our favorite watering holes and everyone else who helped us make this happen.

Monday, April 28, 2014

First table read in virtual rehearsal room

We met at Denver University (Lamont School of Music) for our first complete table read. I could tell that Evan was a little nervous as he took notes and monitored times. Kelly had a bit of an emergency so we all filled in her lines and songs during the read. I think everyone was happy with the new songs and completed script.



These virtual rehearsal rooms can simulate the ambiance of a large hall by sweetening the overall sound in the room. It's really cool, but I think we were all just happy to finally get through the whole work. Table reads sure do show you where all the gaps are! Afterwards, we all went to the original Chipotle for lunch.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Saturday night's alright for writing. hashtag Making a musical

In preparation for our upcoming table read, Tony, Evan and I got together to run through the whole musical. Things are starting to come together, but there is still a lot of work to do. Eventually, we ordered pizza, drank some beer and had a little fun too.


Monday, April 14, 2014

Denver Premiere: WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) scheduled for June 6,7 and 8th at Crossroads Theater!

We can now confirm a weekend run for WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) at... drum roll please..Crossroads Theater north of downtown Denver (2590 Washington St, Denver, CO 80205). June 6th & 7th at 7:30PM and June 8th matinee at 2:00PM. We'll start selling tickets on TicketLeap in early May.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

First Act reading at Crossroads Theater

We met at Crossroads Theater yesterday for a reading of the 1st act of the musical. It was good to get the work on a stage and the personnel at Crossroads were great. There's something about being on stage versus being in a rehearsal room. Stay tuned more to come soon!


Sunday, February 9, 2014

Gearing up for a Spring performance debut

Surprise Surprise! We've been working to prepare the musical for a Spring theater debut. We've added several new songs and the story is being finalized. Evan is now on board and is working on the script and we've been making a lot of progress on the story. I've been developing the recurring themes and motifs and threading them throughout the work while Tony continues to make transcriptions of the newly added songs and meeting with vocalists. We had a reading of the first draft of the 1st Act script with Kelly, Drew and Blake on Feb 8, 2014 at DU. Stay Tuned!