Musical Theatre Update~

It's been a few years since I've written a wholly new musical. Technically, the last one I finished was The Drummer Boy, back in like 2021/2022. I've gone back and made some major revisions to it, Memeical, and Three Wolves.

I've written plenty of concepts and song snippets for other shows. I have some lyrics for a drag queen apocalypse show, some for a show about time pirates, a Disco Elysium-inspired adult fairytale noir, an adaptation of my adaptation of Medea, a Catholic bee saint musical satire, and a TYA show about monsters under the bed. I wrote and composed songs for a friend's TYA show, though I can't say much about that at the moment.

Yet still, these are all unfinished. And if they remain such, they don't much count. They're uncomposed trunk songs on various themes. I'm unsure why it's been so difficult to commit to writing a full show. It's been a while since I've managed a new full-length play, as well.

My latest interest in musical theatre is an adaptation of a silent film called Wings, the winner of the 1st Academy Award for Best Picture. Wings is a WW1 picture featuring plenty of aerial fight scenes, homoeroticism, and an unexpected degree of slapstick comedy. It's a strange movie. (Do go give it a watch! The version I watched used the same song throughout the entire run, though. I, uh... don't recommend having the sound on for that version. It gets grating.)

I don't want to give away too much of my adaptation, but suffice it to say, I'll be taking the queer subtext and turning it into text-text. I will not be placing flying planes in a theatre, nor will I have actors put on angelic wings and fight (though... that is tempting for a sci-fi novel adaptation........).

Song snippets for the piece have existed for half a year now. Often, when I'm on a drive, music will come to me. I'll have to get Siri to open my voice recorder so I can get the lyrics that come to me saved somewhere before they escape my mind for good. Those drive-based snippets were all that were. Most of these weren't full songs. It takes a while to figure out a passage when you're singing it to yourself over and over in order to think up the next line.

Recently, though, I managed to finish the lyrics for one of Mary's solo songs. In my version of the story, Mary works at her family's funeral home. As the war picks up, she becomes quite distressed at all the bodies she must tend to, all these youthful men with faces similar to her beloved, shipped off to war like he was, dead. Cold. She can't take it anymore.

Thought I'd share some of those lyrics!

I am sick! Sick of it!

Sick of the scent thick from the dead

Sick of their little wooden beds

Sick of dressing the disgusting

wounds of these questing men

who leave home and never return again!

What about him? What about Jack?

I can envision him on his back...

What if my shooting star flies out too far,

comes crashing down to earth?

What if I'm the one to prepare him for the dirt...

There's more to it, but I'll leave the snippet at that for now. I will finish this adaptation! I will write more theatre, more musicals, more poems, more novels. I am always running out of time, so I must complete what I can when I can in the little time I am given. There are so many stories to tell...

Hope you'll see a production of it soon!