Mountain Rehearsals - Week Two

It wouldn't be a Mountain rehearsal without our tufts of muddy rice!

We're hitting the end of Week Two of rehearsals, and tonight is our first stumble-thru of Act One! It definitely feels like the creative team and cast have found our groove as a group, and the past few rehearsals have not just been productive but fun! I also find myself in the long-awaited position of simply being the playwright/composer in the room, instead of running double duty. For my previous two productions I also worked as Music Director, which made sense since I knew the shows so well. However, for Mountain, it has been very liberating to be able hand Music Director duties to someone else's capable hands and focus solely on finessing the script & score.

What exactly do I do in rehearsals then? I check to see how the script and score play out in the room. Sometimes the script no longer works, or a moment of song/dialogue is no longer necessary, because of what we discover with the actors, set, costumes, sound & props. So I give a quick assent to cut or modify. I also answer questions about my original intent, usually to help bring clarification to a scene. If a rewrite is needed, I might start working on that while rehearsal continues (I recently made minor tweaks to six Act One musical numbers, and I'll see how those changes work at tonight's stumble-thru). I will also initiate discussion if I feel like what I see or hear in the room is going in a different direction than the writing. But mostly, I observe and I listen, and watch the skeleton of the show grow tendons, muscle and sinew, as if by magic.

Mountain Rehearsals - Week One

Rehearsals have officially begun for the world premiere of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. These early days are fascinating because what began as words and sheet music slowly starts to get its own skeleton as a performance piece. We are in a modest dance room in Oakland. We use some props that are just for rehearsal, and sometimes props that will make it to the actual production once they are painted and embellished. We try things, throwing ideas out and taking cues from each other. There is spike tape in a variety of colors outlining our imaginary set. We have looked at sketches and color swatches. We've listened to sound samples. There's a lot of waiting, discussion and thinking.

Minli's dining table in the rehearsalroom. Inside the bowl are two coins, one of which starts our protagonist on her journey.

Perhaps what fascinates me the most is that the final product will be built upon this skeleton, but only after much has been pruned and plucked away. To the audience's eyes, it will arrive as a complete package. But those of us in this dance room will know the sparser versions of the show that had to come before. The discarded drafts, the revised movements, the great ideas that ultimately had to be cut will still be with us. As well as the joy, the jokes, the shared memories that come from working together on this project. It's funny because from day one of rehearsals, the end is always in sight. But I already know that the end will come much too soon.

So I take to heart the lesson that Grace Lin teaches us through her novel. "Thankfulness."

I am thankful to be here in the midst of this creating, as it unfolds before me.

My Trip to Cars Land

Over the holidays, I finally got to revisit "The Happiest Place on Earth." It has been several years since my last adventure at the Disneyland Resort, and I was excited to see as much of the new attractions as I can. I was, perhaps, most impressed by Cars Land, the brand new area in California Adventure, based upon the Pixar Cars franchise. The layout of Radiator Springs is replicated in such a true-to-the-film fashion that I actually felt like I was in the movie set! It was such a treat see Sally's Cozy Cone Motel and Flo's V8 Cafe before my eyes. The figurehead of Cars Land is Ornament Valley, where the Radiator Springs Racers attraction is housed. Looking at the automobile shaped rocks was stunning. I knew the rock walls were fake, but the forced perspective work is done so well, I felt dwarfed by the setting. The careful work that Disney put into Cars Land inspired me to be just as thoughtful in my own craft. Of course, writing for theatre and Imagineering an attraction are different things. But they both involve telling a story. Having created a unique and quirky universe in the films, Disney/Pixar went to great lengths to make sure the audience buys into the story at the park. The minor details make a difference, even if the audience doesn't quite perceive them. In a similar way, I should remember the importance of imagining the worlds of my musicals, making decisions about details so the audience buys into the reality of the story I'm trying to tell, especially if the story is fantastical or mythological. I would love to visit Cars Land again (when it is not crowded by holiday visitors) and just take in its handiwork.

Oh, and be sure to catch a glimpse of Cars Land at night to catch the neon lights, which appear at a poignant moment in the first film. They are just as poignant in person.

The Olympus Surprise Song

This is not what writing is like all the time.

Writing is taxing work. I can spend hours on a single section of dialogue choosing, re-choosing, deleting, re-ordering words, and still end the day feeling like I barely made a step forward. Writing music with lyrics gets even more complicated because there is the added aural dimension which will affect mood, atmosphere and story. What key? What's the tonality? When should notes rise and fall? Which words should be emphasized? Am I emphasizing the correct syllables as if the words were spoken? This laboring over details makes up the majority of my work when I write songs - toiling over rhyme, meter and melody as if trying to solve a riddle, often leading to frustration, but usually resulting in a rewarding finish if I stick with it.

And then there are the surprise songs.

These are the song moments in my shows that come together as if by magic on the first go. The songs that show me why people came to believe in Muses as angelic voices inspiring people to write, paint, perform.  They often end up with a depth or flow that I could not have imagined when I first set about writing them. And each of my shows so far has had at least one surprise song. Below, I discuss the development of one of them.

"I Used To Weave" from Tales of Olympus
I knew I wanted to include the story of Athena and Arachne when I was conceptualizing Tales. The problem with adapting the myth, however, was that Athena is completely justified in punishing Arachne for her pride and insults against the gods. So I asked the questions "What if Arachne really was a better weaver than Athena? What if transforming Arachne into a spider was a result of Athena losing her composure and acting impetuously?" And then this question came, which set the tone of the song: "What if Athena has not been able to weave ever since the 'Arachne incident,' because the act is a nagging reminder of her lowest moment?"

Then came the opening lyrics "I used to weave..."

Calliope (Chrissy Brooks), Zeus (Steven Shear), Hermes (Min Kahng) and Aphrodite (Lauren Spencer) tell Athena (Michelle Drexler) she's not so bad.

This set-up allowed the song to have layers. We get to know Athena as a fuller character, and more importantly as a flawed character. In regards to character arc: by singing "I Used To Weave" Athena is finally giving in and telling a story, when previously she sat to the side, unwilling to participate. There is also a key revelation about the relationships on Olympus. At the end of the song, the other gods console Athena, showing for the first time that this dysfunctional, leftover group of gods is really a family of sorts. The song also contains some of my favorite lyrics:

Now I'm best of who's left
But I've lost all the joy
Of creating a blanket, a scarf or a sleeve
And each spider I see is a reason to grieve
I used to weave...

There's something about the words best, left, lost, blanket, scarf, sleeve, spider and grieve with their blended, recurring consonants and their simplicity. This combined with the sense of loss and regret with which the words are sung (performed masterfully by both Michelle Drexler in the world premiere, and by Rebecca Pingree for the staged reading) pulls at my heart in a way that's difficult to describe, except to say I am moved.

"I Used To Weave" is my favorite song in Tales of Olympus. It has also remained largely unchanged from its original draft, which is understandable: Surprise songs, formed from an outflow of sudden inspiration, usually don't need major revisions.

Building a Mountain

Two weeks ago, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon: A Musical Adaptation went into its second workshop, culminating in a staged reading. We only had four days of rehearsals (a total of about 16 hours) to teach the music, blocking and choreography, and get it ready for an audience. Thankfully, we had an amazing group of actors and musicians who brought the right mix of fastidiousness and flexibility, and were able to deliver a stellar performance.

Actors Isabel To, Patricia Pitpitan, Pauli Amornkul & Will Dao during a workshop rehearsal.

Although audience feedback is invaluable after these readings, I have to confess, the feedback that excites me the most is from the actors themselves. And not necessarily their verbal feedback. When I watch actors perform my work, I often see new or different sides of the characters, which then inform my writing moving forward.  There is an indescribable poignancy to see your characters in front of you, real-time, moving around in three-dimensional space. And I'm honored that the Mountain actors gave so much life and brought so much truth to the show, even when playing monkeys, goldfish or lion statues.

While I will be spending the next few weeks by myself, often in front of a keyboard (both the musical kind and the computer kind), I very much look forward to the first day of rehearsals in January, when cast & creative team can continue building this Mountain together.