In 2011 I was fortunate to be able to lend my talents to four theatrical productions. At UCC last Spring Karen Robu and I produced Violet (I music directed) and the show was very well-received by our audiences. This is a bittersweet memory as it would prove to be the last show Karen and I would produce at UCC. We had been doing an annual Spring production since 2005 and the church eliminated Karen's position shortly after we closed Violet.
In June I was cast in the Barbershop Quartet in Music Theater of Wichita's first production of their 40th anniversary season -- The Music Man. It was great fun to spend two intense weeks with this amazing theater company. It seems every year the bar gets set a bit higher and I was proud to return to that stage once again.
Almost immediately after The Music Man closed, I began working with Conrad Jestmore and Kathy Page-Hauptman on a new musical version of A Christmas Carol. We spent most of the summer writing and re-writing scenes, songs and story for a December premiere at the new Forum Center for the Performing Arts. Once we got the bulk of this completed, I then set about working as the Musical Director on the Forum Theater's inaugural production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. We had a blast preparing this hysterical romp for our Wichita audiences and opened in October to wonderful reviews and terrific audience response.
Almost immediately after we closed A Funny Thing..., we began rehearsing our new A Christmas Carol. Kathy and I had tried for weeks to recruit the right actor to play Scrooge, but in the end I assumed the role for this first production. I had so much fun and our little musical was greatly received by the Wichita community. I will write another post soon about this experience, but for now let me suffice to say that it was one of the most rewarding artistic periods of my life.
2012 sees me with a few projects on the horizon--Conrad, Kathy and I are working on our next project with plans to workshop it this summer and premiere it in the fall. Also, we will tweak A Christmas Carol and present it again during this year's holiday season in December. We already have some great ideas to make it even better!
I am planning on auditioning for MTWichita and we'll see what happens there!
It should be an exciting year!
PAX
Paul
Monday, January 09, 2012
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