Anyone who has started talking to me about creativity over the last eight years or so has probably heard me mention this "play with music" I've been noodling on since 2009 (or since I was born, depending on how you
count). After lots of dreaming, but not a lot of action, it's finally becoming a real thing.
Miss Isabella Rainsong and
Her Traveling Companion: A One-Guitar Show
Written and Performed by
Ross D. Martin
Saturday, January 20th,
2018
7246 Cradlerock Way
Columbia, Maryland
Here are links about the show:
Facebook calendar event: https://www.facebook.com/events/540408152977129/
Brown Paper Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3184030 All of the proceeds are going to The UUCC Minister’s fund,
which helps needy folks in Howard County with things like food, rent,
transportation, medical needs, etc.
YouTube “commercial”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrGTZNAiaFU
Short background: In 2009, I was asked by a neighbor to write
the music for a musical being put on by Art Stream, an inclusive theater troupe
that includes adults with various disabilities – Down’s Syndrome, autism, etc. They
put on two original shows every year and rehearse year round, but wanted to try
a musical for the first time. I ended up being in the show, "It's a Wonderful Pie", playing an
itinerant musician who played guitar on stage for the songs in the show. It
struck me odd that this homeless-looking guy had such a beautiful Taylor
guitar. I thought about the backstory of the character and how he came to have such
an amazing instrument. The notion festered for a while and I finally wrote the
script about five years ago, tweaking it occasionally, but never having a plan
about how to turn it into something real – it was always a “someday when I have
more time” sort of thing.
Then last winter, my neighborhood business book club was
reading The One Thing: a book about the myth
of multitasking but also about finding the efforts that you’re passionate about
but that need a plan to be fully realized. We went around the room talking
about that “one thing” that was in us but wasn’t getting out. I talked about
this play. Right there, the group made it their mission to cajole me into
making it happen. They insisted that I set a date to perform it – for them. Last
August, I did a workshop version of the play in my home for about a dozen
people from the book club and the neighborhood – complete with a lightning storm and other effects. It was far from
perfect, but was good enough to show that it had some legs. Some members of my
Unitarian congregation in Columbia saw it too and they asked me to do a full
two-act production of the show there – tickets and all. We eventually set a
date for this January.
There is never a good time to do an extracurricular project
like this. I’ve tried to give myself enough of a runway to memorize the 55
minutes of monologue that go with the dozen original songs in the show I’ve written
over the last 20 years. Memorizing lines in my 50s is a very different
experience from doing it in my youth! But it’s coming together and I expect
that this show will be good enough not to be embarrassing, though I don’t
expect any agents to come calling about the national tour…
If you want to see a "commercial" for the show, you can get a little taste here:
Here's a quick video I shot the day after the workshop performance -- showing the tech I put together to make the show work.
