A Christmas Carol

We closed my new musical, A Christmas Carol, last Sunday after 11 performances and terrific audience response.  It was a wonderful experience with an talented cast and I am just about as thrilled as I could be that we did it!.

At the cast party on Sunday night, Kathy Page-Hauptman, our director and catalyst for the show, looked at me a bit stunned and said:  "We didn't even workshop it!  We went right into production!  What were we thinking?"

Indeed!  What were we thinking?

My favorite reaction to the show, of which just about everyone has, is...it was so much better than I expected.  HA!  Love that....

Pax,

Paul

A Christmas Carol

We have had our first week of rehearsals for our new musical version of A Christmas Carol and I could not be more pleased.  The acting company is top-notch and the artist they brought in to arrange my music and orchestrate the show is brilliant! 

Perhaps now would be a good time to fill you in on the fact that even though we tried to find the perfect Scrooge, every one we really wanted was either booked or otherwise unavailable.  So, the director asked me to step into the role.  I am looking forward to looking at this show from a different angle. 

So I am very excited about this production--my work in it just got increased quite a bit!

Pax,

Paul

Doctor of Education

I am deep in my doctoral studies at Harrison Middleton University.  I had taken a leave of absence to move to OKC and then back to Wichita and have been re-enrolled for about 6 months now.  The work is tough--my reading list is quite expansive for the current course I am in--and the collaboration and writing work is daunting.  However, I continue to make steady progress and hope to be taking my first set of comprehensive exams in the next 12-14 months.  The program is not unlike a survey of Western Civilization and Education through the ages--except on steroids!  I am proud of my work with HMU and look forward to my continued studies.

Pax,

Paul

A Christmas Carol

Gentle reader--my music and lyrics for A Christmas Carol have turned out much better than I anticipated.  Reception at last week's read/sing through was very positive and many useful comments have been incorporated into the work.  Tomorrow I am auditioning some local talent to see what happens.  I'm very excited about this production!

More to come, soon.

PAX

PAUL

Theater Work Fall 2011

So, gentle reader, my Fall is shaping up quite nicely as I have committed to some terrific theater projects.  First--I am the music director for the upcoming production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum--one of my favorite shows (I played Psuedolus in a fast, fun production in Lawrence years ago and it is still one of my favorite theater memories).  This production will be at the new Forum Theater opening soon.  Forum opens on October 14 and runs for 3 weeks.

The bigger news is that the producers at the Forum Theater approached me early in the summer about composing the music (and writing the lyrics) for a new version of A Christmas Carol.  I am pleased with how the score is turning out and am excited to present the entire show for a read-through audience this weekend.  The book has been written by local author Conrad Jestmore and it has been an absolute joy working with him and Kathy Page-Hauptman as we prepare this piece for a November opening and run.

Now that I've got this blog under my "real" Gmail account, I promise to post more often!

Pax,

Paul

Summer 2011

I haven't posted in quite a while--which is a good thing considering that my life is really going excellent these days. I just finished playing Jacey Squires in The Music Man at Music Theatre of Wichita. Jacey is one of the barbershop quartet men and I had so much fun working on this show and presenting it to our fabulous audiences.

In February I was the music director for Violet at UCC. Every spring for the past 7 years Karen Robu and I have produced a musical for our church--of course, that ended about a week after we closed Violet as our church council decided (rather quickly and under very suspicious circumstances) to "reorganize" and let Karen go. This development has broken my heart--as I love UCC....and I love Karen and the work we had been doing. Needless-to-say, my own future at UCC, with a congregation I have served for over 16 years, is in serious jeopardy. I really don't want to be associated with an organization (especially my church) that treats other people in such a sneaky, underhanded way. The whole episode reeks of a handful of people wanting to control congregational policy...something in which our entire Congregational tradition abhors. Early on I sort of understood, maybe, what they were trying to do, but as more information was made known about how secretive the process had been, my faith in UCC started to unravel. And it continues to unravel to this day. So...we'll see what happens. It is just such a shame that UCC lost an amazing leader and the potential of Karen's ministry on the advice of a few misdirected folks.

Anyway, enough of that!

I have a number of future theatrical projects in the works--but I can't talk about them just yet. I'll post once they firm up!

Pax,

Paul

Long time no post!

I have not posted to this blogger account since last May! So....a quick catch-up: I performed in Red, White and Tuna for the Vagabond Players during last July. I wrote the incidental music and arranged the hymns for Karen Robu's original play "No Cross, No Crown" which was produced at UCC in September. I moved into Spruce House (in Wichita) December 4th 2010. And....there's lots more, but I will try to keep this blog more up-to-date.

Pax!

Paul