VIDEO: "THIS ONE THING WILL GET YOU THROUGH 2020"
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxkJzRncROw&w=854&h=480]
What a 24 hours! During the pandemic, the 24 Hour Plays have been creating videos that are mini-collaborations between writers and performers. Librettist Isabella Dawis and I decided to write the 24 Hours Viral Musical Monologue Challenge, with me writing music and lyrics. We made this in Round 20, the second musical round.
On Tuesday night, we were told who our actor was, Brittany O’Grady, and sent a short interview video that she took, and that’s all we knew! In this pandemic, I had no idea where she was or what time it was for her. And Isabella is in Minneapolis and I’m in New York, so it was all FaceTime.
Brittany smashed it, and it turns out that I had seen her before in Star on FOX! And now she’s the star of the brand new show Little Voice, the new Apple TV show by Sara Bareilles. Love that my song written very late and in very few hours is going to be sent to someone who’s been performing Sara Bareilles songs!
The concept of the video took about an hour to develop, and then Isabella and I got off the video chat to regroup. It was based on something we saw in the background, and also on us wanting to write Brittany more of a clown than an ingenue role.
After a little over an hour, Isabella came back to me with a lot of script, and I came back to her with… nada. I told her that all the musical sketches I had come up were wrong, and she forgave me, and then I apologised again, and we got off the phone again and I went back to the piano drawing board. I had thought that I’d just be writing on the piano, but I only found a little on the piano. It was when I started working in Logic that the song fell into place, and I suddenly found the lyrical hook and the feel. We got back on the phone, hashed out staging and rough beats, and then I realised how much more work I had to do! I stayed up all night making the track and timing out the script exactly to the verses, and by 8am I was able to deliver a guide track and a backing track to the music director. And yes that’s me doing ah’s. Ya gotta have the ah’s!
The rest of my process was not really anything at all. Just me waiting on tenterhooks and imagining our wonderful actor having to go to the store and getting stuck in a queue, or worrying that our actor wouldn’t be up for the big challenge of this piece… When you’re a performer, but in this case you’re just writing, you get worried because you can’t tell what’s going on! I checked a couple times that she had my email address… yes, she did. She’d email if there was anything wrong. Right?!
At 7pm on Tuesday the videos started being released, and I was jumping around the apartment. I watched the video and was so happy to see that our actor was so game and willing to play into the scene. She did brilliantly! She totally got it, and she made it her own! Then I had a massive energy crash. I had stayed up, and looked so forward to this, and now what? I’m just sitting in my apartment still, and all I’ve done is moved between my couch, my desk and my piano. And so it has been all pandemic. All art I’ve created? Same three places.
Also, this massive spot was developing on my face, just when I was thinking of putting a selfie up to celebrate my 24 Hr Viral Musical Monologue. So in 24 hours, I made this whole song, but also, I got uglier.
But then all the messages started to come in, and I once again realised how lucky I am to have an excuse to make anything at all in the time of all-theatre-is-cancelled. I’m so grateful for my collaborators Isabella and Brittany, and to the 24 Hour Plays. I hope you enjoy our piece!
24 Hour Plays official website
This round in support of TDF’s Wendy Wasserstein Project.