marriage equality

New Gayland recording in New York captures new music and yields high-energy tracks

| Evan Hammond

After a week of rehearsals, the cast, band and music director for Gayland gathered at the Yellow Sound Lab and Log Cabin studios in New York to capture the new music we’ve been working on over the last year. Thanks to our awesome team!

  • Mark Hartman: Music Director
  • Danielle Erin Rhodes: Willow
  • Stephanie Umoh: Boo
  • Tristan Shuler: Zack
  • Sam Given: Gaige
  • Kristin Feeney: Sally, Ensemble
  • Alex Thompson: Harry Tums, Ensemble, Keyboards
  • Joe Choroszewski: Drums
  • Saadi Zain: Bass
  • Yuri Suzuki: Engineer
  • Rich Hill: Engineer

 

Group around piano.jpg
Practicing: Sam Given, Alex Thompson, Tristan Shuler, Danielle Erin Rhodes, Stephanie Umoh
Danielle.jpg
Recording: Danielle Erin Rhodes
Stephanie and Kristen.jpg
Recording: Stephanie Umoh and Kristin Feeney
Tristan.jpg
Recording: Tristan Shuler
Sam.jpg
Recording: Sam Given
Saadi Zain.JPG
Bass: Saadi Zain
Alex Thompson.jpeg
Keyboards, vocals: Alex Thompson
Joe Choroszewski.jpg
Drums: Joe Choroszewski
Music director and engineer.jpg
Music Director Mark Hartman and Engineer Yuri Suzuki at the big board
Late day selfie.jpg
Late in the day selfie. 14 hours in the studio and the last few diehards roll merrily across the finish line: Clockwise from lower left: Scott King, Danielle Erin Rhodes, Mark Hartman, Christopher St. John, Kristin Feeney, Stephanie Umoh

We’ll be making studio recordings of new songs on November 20, 2017

| Evan Hammond

We’ll be going into a New York recording studio on November 20 with the Gayland cast and music director Mark Hartman to make recordings of the new songs. This will be an opportunity for the creative team to hear how the new music is working with the singers. And we’ll also be choosing tracks to include in our presentation to Broadway producers and directors early next year.

Gayland team completes extensive revisions

| Evan Hammond

We had the opportunity to put Gayland in front of an accomplished Broadway director in early 2017. He provided us with detailed and very valuable feedback. So we’ve taken most of the past year to take another look at Gayland, with an eye to focussing more on the story and dialing down some of the “travelog” elements.

That turned into a gargantuan task, which included taking out two major characters and rewriting most of the first act. Whew! The new Gayland 8.0 has a much cleaner storyline and an entirely new technique for the scenes set on The Willow Show. We’re now investigating our next steps.

New musical comedy flips your world: Interview with Twist Online

| Evan Hammond

screen-shot-2017-01-30-at-3-03-26-pm

Interview with Twist Online.

We recently had a conversation with Christopher St. John and Scott King about their new project, ‘Gayland’. It’s a musical comedy that will be lots of fun.

Twist Online: So give me the premise for Gayland in a nutshell.
Christopher St. John: It’s a love story set in an alternate universe in which almost everyone is gay. And there are just a few breeders. They’re this marginalized group, struggling for their rights.

Twist Online: So it’s our world, backwards.
Christopher St. John: Exactly.

Twist Online: And what’s the meaning of this rainbow Confederate flag logo? {Editor’s note: This logo was changed later in 2017.}
Scott King: In the recent history of the Gayland version America, there was a group of states that held breeders in subjection. The females were used as breeding stock, and the males were used for labor.

Christopher St. John: That was the Rainbow Confederacy.
Scott King: And in the present, there are some states where lot of people hold anti-breeder views.  For a local politician, anti-breeder rhetoric is the gift that keeps on giving.
Christopher St. John: Sound familiar?

Twist Online: Ouch! A little too familiar. So when you did you first have Gayland on the stage?
Christopher St. John: In the New Orleans Fringe Festival in 2013.

Twist Online: In the south? Was it controversial?
Christopher St. John: There were some rumblings. But a lot of people loved it.  Of course, it was a Fringe audience.
Scott King: We were in the largest Fringe Festival venue, Marigny Opera House. And by the end of the Festival, it was standing room only.
Christopher St. John: One of the local papers, NOLA Defender, called Gayland “the must-see of Fringe Festival.”

Twist Online: So this is about a gay world, but I understand that one of you is gay, and one of you is straight.
Scott King: Correct.

Twist Online: Which is which?
Christopher St. John: You can’t tell by looking?
Scott King: Maybe you need to change the batteries on your gaydar.
Christopher St. John: Here’s something even weirder: One of us is a Republican, and one of us is a Democrat.

Twist Online: Okay, now you’re freaking me out. How did you two meet?
Scott King: We met in a church in San Francisco.

Twist Online: In a church?
Scott King: Yes, an Episcopal church.
Christopher St. John: St. Gregory’s. And there were like tons of composers there. All the music was a capella. We did a lot of chant and modal music.
Scott King: Actually, the first big piece that Christopher and I worked on together was a Passion. We harmonized the gospels. Literally.
Christopher St. John:  And then we did an opera set in the world of pharmaceutical marketing. A comedy, of course.
Scott King: Oomph! it was called.

Twist Online: What’s happening with Gayland now?
Scott King: We’ve been workshopping it in New York. We had a great read on the main stage at the York Theatre.
Christopher St. John: They’re a very forward-thinking company. They were part of the development for Avenue Q.
Scott King: Every time it’s in front of an audience, we learn more.
Christopher St. John: We get a lot of good response to the fact that we have so many strong women characters. There’s still a hunger for that.
Scott King: The whole Gayland world is female-led. Breeder guys are at the bottom of the heap.

Twist Online: Next public performance?
Scott King: We’re having a table read at 224 Studios in Manhattan on February 15th.
Christopher St. John: Our aim is to create a version that can work on Broadway.

Twist Online: Are you having to make a lot of changes to go from edgy to mainstream?
Christopher St. John: Well, one of the songs went from “Don’t Forget Your Cock Ring” to “Don’t Forget Your Bible,” which must be one of the hardest U-turns in the history of theatre.

Twist Online: Okay, readers: Follow the Gayland gala on Facebook, Twitter and WordPress. Ciao!