On Inspiration and Influence, by Jason Rico

The cast and band of Escape from the Haltsburg Boys Choir get musical-y.

"Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg; I have it in my pocket." - Henri Rabaud

It’s somewhat hard for me to know how to explain this from anything other than a composer’s standpoint since that is all I know, but I’m going to give it a damn good try.

Music is what feelings sound like. This is why when you hear particular pieces of music they invoke certain emotions and reactions that often times you can’t explain. As someone who creates music I feel these same things and often store these feelings in my brain for later use. This is how I get inspired by this music at a later time when I’m writing my own. It’s similar to you as an individual becoming who you are as a result of all your experiences and the people in your life who have influenced you. You are still a solitary being but people say “you have your mother’s temper” or “you have your father’s devilish humor.”

Considering we start listening to music at birth and start absorbing it and remembering it long term around the age of six or seven, I have about 25 years of aural input stored in my brain. It’s somewhat funny to me that I have become this flesh and blood encyclopedia of music. I get texts and phone calls all the time asking “what’s this piece?” And I usually know what it is and how the rest of it goes. All this wonderful knowledge that the human brain can store is waiting up in there with bated breath to pop out and influence what I put on a page.

So when you listen to the music in Escape from the Haltsburg Boys Choir, keep this in mind. Listen for Mary Poppins, South Pacific, Bach, Hill Street Blues, Samuel Barber, Kurt Weill, Gypsy, Mozart. Their notes, their rhythms impacted my life just enough to convince my pen to reuse them, reinvent them and make them relevant in a new and different way. I hope you enjoy discovering them and perhaps get some inspiration of your own to listen when influences speak to you. They make us who we are.

That's great advice, you should absolutely listen for all of that. It's wonderful. Jason's musical written with Aaron, Escape from the Haltsburg Boys Choir, opens this weekend. Don't miss it.

Aaron Dean Gets Sentimental: a blog entry by Aaron Dean

December 26th

How much is that bloggy in the the window? The one with the pompous and diluted tail? How much is that bloggy in the window, I do hope that bloggy can expound on a bunch of stuff they have no business foisting on a public sick of everyone's constant flood of half considered opinions.

Ahem. Ahem. I have been summond again, blog stars. This will be a sincere and sentimental one. Focus up the camera on my glistening, teary eyes. I am going to tell a story that will make Ryan Seacrest, Nick Cannon and even that light loafered Englishman on the dancing show do more rehearsed crying than a Godly and Creme Music videooooo!!!

My niece turned three yesterday. Yes, she was born on the Christmas, no halos, but a nice shock of red hair that is turning strawberry blonde and will no doubt be pee-wee football participation trophy gold in some time.

After a good dinner of freshly caught Northern Pike (never frozen, except if you count its time alive in the cold waters of Lake Michigan) and opening of gifts and such, my niece and I got bored with the usual red and greenery, and we picked up flashlights and crawled around on our hands and knees throughout my brother's house, and hunted creatures. When creature hunting you must crawl on your hands and knees as creatures always look straight in front of their own eyes, never down. And then you grab them by the ankles and pull. Then you put them in a sack or something. We didn't have a sack. But we didn't find any creatures either.

My niece told my sister (her ma) that she hates creatures, which she pronounces "teachers" and my sister frowned at the child's exclamation. After that misunderstanding was cleared up, we resumed our search.

We looked in the closet, the computer room, the bedrooms and the basement. We turned on no lights as this is repellent to creatures and makes them difficult to spot. Okay, we did turn on lights in the basement cuz, ya know its scary down there, and we..um...well we walked upright too cuz the floor is cold. But I'm pretty sure their were no creatures in there anyway, so...

But it was cool, becuase there were moments in her big brown eyes of sheer terror and exhiliration, because my god, what if there really are creatures. There might as well be at her age!

The line between reality and fantasy is so blurry for one so small. That flashlight she carried was really a wand. And I wish to everything that I could see what she imagined the creatures to look like.

I bet the were horrible, just horrible.

And of course I got tired, I went back to the red and greenery to sit. Mmmm, sitting.

But there were creatures to catch. And she needed me. She tugged at me, forcing my wand back into my hands, begging me to get back in the game.

I, to my shame, declined.

And so, they're out there.

She went home with her parents to bed, I stayed at my brother's (where I am blogging now) leaving her to fend for herself.

Cuz see, I'm coming back to Chicago, where I don't really need to worry about creatures.

And I have left her here.

Where her mother thinks she is saying "teachers"

I have abandoned her.

But she has her wand and her halo.

And she knows to stay low, so they can't see her.

Aaron still believes there are creatures. He put some in his play. It opens this week, and it is called Escape from the Haltsburg Boys Choir. It's wonderful. Come see it.

From actor Alyse Kittner, ESCAPE FROM THE HALTSBURG BOYS CHOIR's 'Nils'

Happy almost New Year, Blog!

Here comes the Boys Choir bonanza. Up first, the delightful Alyse Kittner. Alyse is really kicking the sh%t out of this little musi-cale of ours, and now I know why -- it's all because of Google! Also, anything that conjures images of Adam West-era Batman villains is a-ok with me. Take it away, Alyse.

Alyse Kittner in a promotional photo for ESCAPE FROM THE HALTSBURG BOYS CHOIR

Sunday Fun with Google Images

As a part of my “process” (I know that sounds pretentious – deal with it) I like to use images. It may be a picture of how I envision my character, the setting, something that visualizes my relationship to other characters, lots of stuff.

Thanks to the brilliance of Google Image search, finding images for inspiration has never been more easy or fun. The actual algorithms of how Google searches and ranks images and websites is a highly guarded secret. I have no idea how they do it, but the results are fantastic and most often hilarious. My favorite search has been “creepy choirmaster.” Below are the results. Thank you Google Images.

Bonus: “funny boys choir” – I don’t know who these kids are, but I love it.

Ladies & gentlemen, Josh Davis

January 1, 2010 - A lot can get done in a year.

Here we go. Set building today.

Ding dong.

On the writing of music, by the wonderful Jason Rico.

Gustav Mahler once said "If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music."

And that's what I'm usually doing. I write these little black odds, lines and squiggles all over pieces of paper. I give these pieces of paper to someone who either hits, taps on, blows in or runs some hair along a device that makes sound. If all goes as planned, the sound you hear matches the squiggles I put on that piece of paper. That is how I write a perform my plays. I call them movements instead of acts, and instruments instead of actors, but to me, the concept is the same and I have the extra advantage of writing in a language everyone understands.

Once in a while, a composer reads a book or a poem and thinks, "Hey, this would sound great set to music!" That's how songs and operas are born.

Occasionally, a composer is gifted with not only music, but story writing ability and can create a great play or book himself so he can add a musical line to it.

But sometimes, a composer is selling computers and a coworker runs up to him, so excited he thinks she may explode and she says:

"Oh my gosh, you have to read this play, because I know the playwright and he is conceiving it as a musical and I know you'd be perfect for it because the play is perfect for you and this needs to happen as soon as possible."

Or something to that effect.

And that is how a straight play entitled "Escape From the Haltsburg Boys Choir" becomes a fantastic musical produced by The Ruckus.

"Escape.." is a wonderful project to work on for many reasons. The Ruckus is all over some new stage work. Aaron Dean is a fantastic playwright and perfection to work with. The material is so well written that the songs (almost) wrote themselves.

I got lots of influence from pop music and 17th century choral music to name a few sources and had the unique opportunity to be able to craft some of my own lyrics, which isn’t always the case for a musical. I also have the honor of having seen the type of production The Ruckus puts on which helps me adapt my ideas to their stage ideals.

The official blurb can be read on a preceding entry, but I'd like to give you a little more insight, without ruining the story. Imagine yourself a kid with not much memory of your parents, if any. Imagine you have one of the most beautiful treble voices in Europe. Imagine someone wanting to cut your balls of to keep you that way. Do you remain a choirboy forever or search for what else is out there, be it fantastic, grotesque or life threatening?

Come to the world premiere in January and find out, cause lemme tell you… you better use 'em or lose 'em.

Born in 1978, Jason Rico is an American composer of instrumental, vocal and theater music. He has created a body of work in multiple genres including symphonic, wind ensemble, choral, art song, chamber music and opera. Rico studied composition with Michael Schelle at Butler University and with Andrey Kasparov and Adolphus Hailstork at Old Dominion University and completed the doctorate program in music at Manhattan School of Music. Rico’s compositional style has been praised for it’s complex and truly American style. He is currently Music Director for Quixotic, a sketch comedy troupe based in Chicago.

Workshoppe. A blog, by Aaron Dean of the Michigan Deans.

[Editor's note: much of the charm of Aaron's bloggery lies in its haphazardness. Much is retained, for authenticity's sake, bless it.]

[Blogger's note: I tried to do this legit, and of course it did not work. We must teach this man to fish. Most spelling errors are intentional. ]

Hello again blog,

Today I have been commanded to write to you on the workshop process for Escape From The Haltsburg Boys Choir. I think every playwright dreams of hearing her words spoken on stage by actors. I have to say, it is a nice old time. I have been lucky enough to see it done about three times or so.

So that would make EFTHBC my fourth play written with intent to perform. But this was neat, this time, because I had the added bonus of doing a workshop.

A workshop [editor's note: at least, as we of The Ruckus do them] is where you almost do the play. It is like a full on performance in many respects except you hear comments and impressions from the people who are good enough to brave yellow skies and share breathing space with shady people who leave five minutes into the performance because of the show's lack of "young boys" therein.

[Editor's note: That really happened. "I was told there would be boys!" Also, the actors hold scripts and work from music stands and someone reads stage directions and the focus is on rewriting. Just sayin'.]

Sleep tight, blog readers.

I cannot blog to you how valuable this process was to me. I was three drafts into the show when we put that workshoppe uppe.

After we finished, I blogged two more drafts. Two days after it closed. I sat up there in the dark, blogging like a real playwright. What a cast, what a director, what a composer, my goodness what a group. I am so thankful. This workshop stuff, if all goes well, fills one with much confidence, and inspiration. And not just for me, but for all involved. One seldom gets the chance to hear candid and constructive comments in the actual performance, and one is not as heady with their achievements, so we actually listen. And want to.

A treat indeed, nothing short of it. Workshops ain't for Santa's elves any longer. This I speak truly.

Thank you all who came to see it, and say stuff about it. Thank you to all who helped make it happen. And thank you ahead of time for your work in what lies ahead!

Photo: Lucas Gerard Photography

ANNOUNCEMENT! The Ruckus: Season 2