An original musical premiering at the University of Redlands is a sendup of academia and performance art spiced up with a little modern romance. “Love U. The Grad School Musical” is a collaboration that spans not only two schools of higher education but two countries.
“We are creating a very entertaining work that has a real sense of fun and irreverent sense of humor and a degree of satirization that allows us to laugh at our own foibles,” said director Chris Beach, who is a theater professor at the university.
The tale set in a fictional college town spoofs a tenure-track guy named Karl who falls for a drop-out waitress and performance artist Nora.
“Sparks fly because Karl happens to have a fiancée, Hildegarde, who is the daughter of the president of the university,” Beach said.
Along the way, the creators have thrown in some screwball Hollywood comedy, ancient Jewish wisdom, a hip-hop dissertation, talking footnotes and flying pies.
The show began its development with tunes written by jazz guitarist Peter Curtis, a music professor at Riverside City College.
It grew to involve Curtis’ cousin-in-law and Montreal author Joel Yanofsky; Beach and the university theater department; Jo Dierdorff, an RCC associate dance professor, as well as other faculty and students at both schools and the Riverside School for the Arts, which contributed some funding because the play met its mission of promoting collaborative projects.
Curtis and Yanofsky worked over a period of years on the book and music, then Beach read it and came on board as director, asking Dierdorff to join in as choreographer. Last summer the piece was “workshopped” at the university and has continued to undergo changes during rehearsal.
“It’s truly a collaboration, and the changes are all done in the spirit of making it work, making it better. It’s been great for the students, because this is what often happens in professional theater,” said Dierdorff.
The students have not only observed; they’ve contributed to the evolution of the piece.
“I’ve choreographed a lot of musicals, probably 30 in my life, but I never did an original score,” Dierdorff said. “I told Peter I absolutely love his music, and one of the main reasons, it is totally sing-able. I like to go to a musical and leave at least humming one tune. He has so many, fun, wonderful songs.”
A taste of the tunes, humorous and edgy, can be heard on the musical’s myspace site.
Curtis began writing some of the songs when working on his doctorate at Indiana University.
“The tunes just started coming out,” he said. “I had this idea of taking these songs, which were like show tunes, and making my own musical.”
His influences were the canonical Tin Pan Alley composers - Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and the Gershwin brothers.
“As a jazz musician a lot of standards now were originally by those composers,” he said. “I’m hoping the humor in this music is of our time. It’s not a throwback.”
There are also newer musical elements, such as hip hop and modern jazz.
“As the show developed and my task became to write songs for characters, the music started to change to fit those criteria,” he said.
The evolution began when he approached his cousin’s husband, Yanofsky, who is author of “Homo Erectus,” “Jacob’s Ladder,” “Mordecai & Me” and lives in Montreal.
“I read his novel and thought it was really, really funny,” Curtis said. Yanofsky told Curtis the original ideas for the musical were depressing and wrote a brighter storyline for him.
The two of them would work on the musical whenever Curtis went home to Montreal on visits.
“He would say, ‘We need a song from this character’s perspective.’ So he would give me an assignment,” Curtis said.
As years went by, the never-finished musical became a family joke. But now everyone may sing another tune.
“It’s literally a dream come true,” Curtis said. “It’s such an incredible feeling to work with such talented students and artists and see it come to fruition.”
Beach has no regrets about signing on.
“It was a very jovial collaboration,” Beach said. “Contrary to a lot of reputations or perceptions about what it’s like to collaborate with a playwright and librettist, these guys were really open-minded. Peter’s songs are melodies that really stick in your mind. I felt they wanted to work with me as equals on the project and that really cinched it for me.”
Curtis said he has aspirations but no firm plans for the musical after its debut.
“We think it’s suitable for college productions. It satirizes and is set in the academic world and also satirizes performance art,” he said. “Hopefully, we can use this as a building block.”
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