AMBERGRIS: THE MUSICAL

I’ve been itching to announce this news for awhile, but had to hold back until some details were in place.

Stepan Chapman, Matt Cheney, and I have been working on a musical based on the Ambergris stories and novels for a long time. Stepan has a wide experience in theater and has done musicals before, albeit on the regional level. He was basically the one taking my rough scratchings and turning them into something usable. Matt has actually staged productions and he then took what Stepan and I had come up with and made it usable for the stage, which amounted to a lot of rewriting of the stage directions and some rewriting of the lyrics.

We finished our work, including the score, about three months ago. Basically, the musical is a guided tour of Ambergris, narrated in song by Voss Bender and the colorful characters he meets along the way. There’s a doomed love affair, sword fights, a wonderful piece of chorus and melody work involving the eccentric writer “X” and his psychiatrist. And throughout it all, the gray caps pop up at odd moments to provide an ironic counterpoint in song.

Now I’m happy to announce that the prestigious off-Broadway York Theatre will be doing a production of Ambergris: The Musical in the fall. The singers will be chosen over the next couple of months and there will be some run-through performances in upstate New York regional theaters before the show hits New York City. We’re all very excited. I’m still trying to imagine the costumes, although we’ve made suggestions for the gray caps and begun to receive drawings from the costume designer. I was worried at first, because in the first iterations, the gray caps’ costumes looked a lot like they were just being covered by giant gray condoms. But the latest sketches are awesome!!! And Stepan, Matt, and I can’t wait to fly up to New York for the opening.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a few lines from the production as it currently stands. It’s a bit ingenious as it is a musical but there is a definite operatic strain running through it.

VOSS BENDER:
Those cannot be gray caps I see
How could such creatures be?
I’ll venture they’re nothing living
And maybe they’ll be forgiving.

CHORUS:
Gray caps they are not
No, not this gray rot
Look how they come close!
Look how they come close!

(The gray cap shapes are advancing at this point.)

VOSS BENDER:
The light’s uncertain
Like a dirty curtain.
I would wish my eyes
Were full of lies.

CHORUS:
Gray caps they be?
Gray caps we see?
Gray caps three?
Or forty-three?

GRAY CAPS
O we are the gray caps
O we are the gray caps
O we are the gray caps
Bring on the terror!

(Jeff: "Congrats on your first published piece outside of this blog!" Evil Monkey: "Oh, thanks. Congrats on the P&S interview and historical piece." Jeff: "Thanks." Evil Monkey: "We make a good team." Jeff: "Yes." Evil Monkey: "...Sorry I sided with Bakker at the end." Jeff: "No worries. He's emailed me since and everything is cool." Evil Monkey: "Really? Shit, man. You should have told me." Jeff: "Why?" Evil Monkey: "I already toilet papered his house." Jeff: "Crap. Maybe he's not up yet." Evil Monkey: "Huh?" Jeff: "We might be able to clean it all up before he notices." Evil Monkey: "What do you mean 'we', pale face?" Jeff: "C'mon. If we hurry, it'll all be okay." Evil Monkey: "Nothing's ever 'all okay,' weirdo." Jeff: "Well, true...")