CYAC's Jack The Ripper

[Divakind]

Hello everyone! I decided to move things pertaining to my show over here in this section of the board. I'll still post over on the "Diva Kelly" thread in Pub Talk, but felt this would be a little more appropriate for the news stories and such.

So to start things off, here's a link to an article about our "Jack" and his handiwork:

http://dailymail.com/entertainment/200810020221

[Divakind]

And the verdict is in.....

I don't normally post it on line..but if you read this, you'll end up knowing my real name!

Thursday October 2, 2008
'Jack the Ripper' musical drama full of excellent scenes
Contemporary Youth Arts Company show opens tonight
by Rick Justice
For the Daily Mail

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The Contemporary Youth Arts Company tonight will be premiering a new musical by Dan Kehde and Mark Scarpelli, "Jack the Ripper." To me, "Jack the Ripper," the musical, is not unlike "Hiroshima The Musical," except one goes boom and is over and the other lasts about two and a half hours.

Extensive development of plot line and character takes place in the first one and a half acts. In their version of the story about the legendary London serial killer of the late 1800s who was never caught or identified, they have envisioned Jack the Ripper as a tormented artist.

Ryan Hardiman as the title character is very focused and in character as the man driven to despair by his taunting mother and memories of his childhood.

Jack's repressed rage will be revealed in the second hourlong act.

Donnie Smith is downright righteous as the smarmy newspaper reporter, J.H. Seymour.

Jack's mother, played by Tanya Dillon Page, is not a nice person. Her revenge against Jack's father, besides stabbing him to death, is carried even further in her actions toward her son.

Detective Abberline, played by Kevin Pauley, and lead prostitute Mary Kelly, played by Melanie Larch, move and sing with assured conviction. The band moved well during Wednesday's dress rehearsal through the challenging score, though there were long stretches where the arpeggiated chords on the piano started to sound like scene change music for "Days of our Lives."

Costumes were true to the period and the three-tiered set made for a dandy platform for the various scenes where double or triple action occurs simultaneously.

You must not be lulled into a state of lethargy by the length of the first act, because you need be at your best attention when the scene between Jack and his mother reveals the reason for Jack's abhorrent behavior.

The strength and maturity of this Kehde/Scarpelli collaborative effort provides some excellent moments of musical drama.

The show opens today at 8 p.m. at the Capitol Center Theater on Summers Street. There will be performances Friday and Saturday and Oct. 9, 10 and 11.

[Divakind]

An interview with our writer/director

Just for the record--Dan visited Casebook while he was writing this show. He speaks very highly of it; in fact, he recommended it to the cast during rehearsals.

Writing the Musical "Jack the Ripper"
Thursday is the premiere the new musical, Jack the Ripper. The writer of the show is Dan Kehde, who created the show with composer Mark Scarpelli.

Both of them took the time to talk about the show in an e-interview, and we'll start with comments from Dan.

Q: Tell our readers a little bit about your theatre background...


Dan: It's a long and checkered past indeed. Actually I graduated from college in 1973 with a commission to write the libretto for a rock opera for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC., and it's been downhill ever since. So, except for the years when my son was growing up, I've been at this for 35 years. I've been fortunate enough to have nine plays of mine published, plus a few books of monologues and short scenes; wrote songs with Bob Whitmore and his production company up in New York back in the '70s; won a bunch of awards for the videos of some of my shorter works, including a Telly and screenwriting award from the New York Film Festival back in 2000. I've been collaborating with Mark Scarpelli for the past 12 years, writing the librettos for an insanely eclectic portfolio ranging from a fantasy opera Griswold and the Goblin King to Lincoln an opera on the last day in the Lincoln's life. We've also set Romeo and Juliet and the Blob to music, and have run our first piece Mary, a rock opera based on days and months before the birth of Christ every Christmas for the past eleven years. I've lost the actual count of the number of musicals and operas we've written so far, off the top of my head I count eleven or twelve.

Q: Your latest project is hitting the stage this week - tell us about Jack the Ripper.

Dan: This is a pretty wild piece. We've always written for multiple voices - lots of duets and trios - over the years. This seemed to lend itself to going even further. The libretto was actually written in three, sometimes four columns, so we could work in voices from multiple settings, in this case Jack's studio, the tavern in Whitechapel where the whores congregated, and Inspector Abberline's station several blocks away. It's a very challenging piece, dark at times, funny at others. Very weird.

Q: Jack has been a source of fascination for a long time, and there's an incredible number of books out there about him. Was this a difficult show to research?

Dan: Impossible. Everybody has a pet theory. I liked the character that Patricia Cornwell theorized was the ripper - the artist Walter Sickert - but the facts don't really prove her or anybody else's case. Still, I thought the Ripper as an artist was intriguing. The Ripper Encyclopedia was invaluable, and the websites are truly obsessive, if not absolutely accurate. If I had a theory, I'd say an awful lot of the characteristics of the ripper killings were used to sell newspapers - maybe too much so.

Q: Jack seems an odd subject for a musical - it's not exactly the usual upbeat feel-good topic. What made you choose this as a topic?

Dan: We wanted to call it High School Musical 4: The Ripper Goes East, but we thought Disney might have a problem with it. Actually, that's all my fault. I have a tendency to write dark pieces and this seemed challenging to me, though Mark never disagreed. It gave us a chance to explore a whole new range of techniques.

Q: It must be a difficult undertaking, to create a new show and bring it to the stage for the first time. What have been some of the biggest challenges you've faced? Also, which comes first - the story or the songs?

Dan: The idea comes first: sometimes from me, sometimes from Mark, but that's how it all starts. Then I'll write a scenario and run it by Mark. He'll either agree or make changes, or we'll hash it out for a while until it sounds right. After that I'll begin the libretto and e-mail him portions as they get finished. We rarely see each other while we're creating a piece - maybe once in a while he'll play me what he's working on, but that's usually when we're not sure how a particular moment in the libretto is going to work musically. Creating a new show is a real bear. Especially one as difficult as this one. Who knows if the thing is actually going to work - what the real moments are - and whether an audience is going to tolerate our experimentation.

Q: Tell us a little bit about the cast and how they've managed, working on a new show.

(Diva's note: I'm going to tell you who's who after the names you see below.)

Dan: We got lucky on this show - for reasons far beyond all understanding, we've ended up a group of true artists as cast members. Principals Ryan Hardiman (Frederick/Jack the Ripper), Kevin Pauley (Inspector Abberline), Melanie Larch (Mary Kelly), Tanya Dillon Page(Jack's mother), Nick Curnutte (George Lusk), Donnie Smith (J.H. Seymour), Niklaus Tidquist (Inspector Reid) all know the trials of living as an artist and so are personally dedicated to this project. Our chorus is amazingly tolerant of the monumental amount of work staging an original piece entails. Between shortages of scores and inaccurate librettos, they've had to claw their way through some of these scenes by their fingernails. I really can't say enough about our cast. We're proud of this piece and the folks who are in it.

Thanks, Dan! Tomorrow we'll hear from composer Mark Scarpelli!

[Divakind]

And now the composer's side of the story!

The Music of "Jack the Ripper"
Yesterday we brought you an e-interview with the writer of the new musical, Jack the Ripper, which premieres tonight in Charleston. Here's the second part of our discussion, as the show's composer, Mark Scarpelli, tells us about the show.

Q: Tell us about your theatre background, and past projects...

Mark: My theater background is primarily the role of composer/musical director. I have directed a number of productions the past ten years for (CTOC) Children's Theatre Of Charleston, Kanawha Players, and (CYAC) Contemporary Youth Arts Company. When working with CYAC I am collaborating with playwright Dan Kehde. We have worked together writing and re-writing and composing and re-composing numerous musicals, operas, ballets and collections for the past eleven years.

Q: You have a new show taking the stage this week - tell us about Jack the Ripper.

Mark: Jack is a story from the folds of Dan's brain. There is fact and fiction in this production that translates into a character who I think you develop feelings for. There is a sympathetic side to this guy (Jack/Frederick) who displays much emotion as well as the ever expected rage.

Q: Jack seems like an odd subject for a musical - it's not exactly an upbeat, feel-good story. Did that present a challenge to you in composing the music?

Mark: The music for Jack The Ripper is probably the darkest stuff I've ever written yet, it is some of the most melodic and romantically dramatic. The challenge was that I had to write music for three separate stage settings... a tavern/streets of Whitechappel, the inspector's station and Jack's studio. There is focus on particular settings at different times but the real challenge was writing for the musical events happening in all settings simultaneously. I initially scored the piece for two pianos and then developed it into a piece for piano, string quartet, electric bass and drums/percussion. In this performance we are using piano and string quartet.

One interesting thing about writing the music for "Jack" is that I had the advantage of writing to a show that was already cast. We cast this thing back in January '08 but shelved it for a number of reasons. Probably the main reason was because we were still writing this thing. The original principals agreed to stay with the project and committed themselves to a production run in October '08. Now that I knew the voices, I had the advantage of writing to their strengths. I had some incredible talent to work with (Ryan Hardiman, Kevin Pauley, Tanya Dillon-Page, Mel Larch*, Elizabeth McCormick). Having these incredible voices in mind to write for made the process a little smoother.

*Diva's note: Most of my friends call me Mel. If you've known me for very long and address me by my full name, you're either ticked off at me or just being very formal!

I did not have a very "social" summer in '08 because writing Jack the Ripper was all-consuming.

Q: Which comes first - the script or the music? How do you and Dan work together?

Mark: Dan Kehde and I work best when he hands me the script and/or the libretto. From that I typically write the music and sometimes reset dialogue and or phrases to fit musical ideas. Through the creative process 99 percent of our contact is done through emails and downloads (a real timesaver).

Q: It must be a major challenge to bring a new musical to the stage - what have been some of the biggest challenges you've faced?

Mark: The biggest challenge in getting Jack The Ripper together has been "timing." Since it is almost 100 percent music there are a number of areas where the music is underscored to highlight dialogue and then out of the blue a character might sing a phrase. Working to get the correct timing and phrasing and mixing in this dialogue with music has been a tremendous effort on everyone's part. Rehearsals were organized around characters and not much around scenes. The interaction of characters and the musical counterpoint they vocally create was the main focus in setting up a rehearsal schedule. If there was more time, I would love to have spent it on full cast/street people scenes. For example, there is a "whore rhapsody" that was cut, mainly because there was not enough time to work up the scene with choreography.

Q: How has the cast managed, learning a brand new show?


Mark: The cast has been extremely focused for learning this production. There are many tricky musical sections with odd time signatures and multiple key changes and dissonance. Getting a cast to accept this and to successfully function out of the norm of a standard 4/4 time reflects mature qualities and patience. I am very pleased and proud of our talented cast and look forward to this world premiere in Charleston at the WVSU Capitol Plaza Theatre.

Thanks, Mark! That premiere is tonight, and Jack the Ripper will run this weekend and next - don't miss it!

[Divakind]

Second review

By Chuck Minsker of the Huntington Herald Dispatch:

The story of Jack the Ripper is one that has fascinated people for more than a century. To summarize: at least five women were brutally murdered in London between August and November 1888. The murders were never solved, and the murderer never caught or exposed, so the case has led to much speculation.

That may seem an odd choice for a subject for a musical, but that’s the challenge writer Dan Kehde and composer Mark Scarpelli faced in creating the original show being presented at the Capital Center Theater in Charleston.

And I’m happy to report that their experiment is a success! They take the story, approach it from an original angle, add some excellent songs and a great cast, and produce a story that’s thrilling and entertaining.

Most authors approach the story as a “whodunit” - solving the mystery of Jack’s true identity. Instead, this production is a “whydunit” - it tells you right up front that Jack is really a disturbed painter named Frederick, whose rapid descent into madness is spurred on by the actions of his equally-demented mother. But there are several other mysteries that unfold as the musical follows Jack’s career.

Any good show depends on having a talented cast of actors on stage, and that’s another reason for the show’s success. Cast in the title role is Ryan Hardiman, an outstanding actor who manages the wide range of emotions required, from timidity and tenderness to the sheer rage of a madman. He also gets to show off his tremendous voice, and the songs allow him to demonstrate his range and power.

Playing the part of his Mother is Tanya Dillon Page, another excellent singer who does a great job playing a mysterious and troubled figure. Her voice is an excellent match for Ryan's, and their songs together are spot-on.

Jack’s opposite number is Inspector Abberline, as played by Kevin Pauley. Another excellent singer, his character is always one step behind Jack. (That's him in the photo above with Ryan.
)

The cast does a terrific job, including: Donnie Smith, Greg Garner, Nick Tidquist, Liz McCormick, Nick Curnutte, Melanie Larch, Marranda Major, Sam Oxley, Jennifer Davis, Mara Regling, Penny Fioravante, Alicia Lewis, Cabrina Pierson, Jessica Rogers, Kirill Gura, and my pal Paul McNeely.

Mark Scarpelli’s music is as intricate as the Dan Kehda’s story, and blends together different voices and songs, sometimes working together and sometimes playing off each other. It’s an impressive piece of work, and I look forward to the team’s next project.

The only complaints I have are small ones: there were a few minor microphone problems the night I saw the show (it’s one of the biggest problems any community theatre groups faces); and the show was a bit constrained by the small size of the stage. They did their best to overcome the problem by devising a clever three-level set, but the show would definitely benefit from more elbow room.

But those are minor problems, and what the creators, performers and crew have been able to accomplish is nothing short of amazing. The show is moody and dark, and even though there’s no graphic violence, there are more than a few startling scenes, so I really don’t recommend this show for little ones. But for everyone else, the show is a real treat (which seems appropriate as Halloween gets closer).

It’s not often you get to see an original musical, and audiences should make a point of doing what the police weren’t able to do 120 years ago: catch Jack the Ripper!

[Divakind]

Painted lady

This is one of over 600 photos my significant other shot during our final dress on 10/01/08. He's always loved doing different effects with his pictures and since his new computer has more options, he's really been having a good old time with that stuff. And wonder of wonders, I actually like this picture.

This is from Act I, Scene III, where MJK is telling inspectors Abberline and Reid, along with newspaperman JH Seymour about "customers" who might be Jack.