Cast Bio IX: Toni

Toni is a twenty-five year old young woman who has been raised all her life in the theatre business by her single father Christoph, who is a somewhat famous director, actor, and overall theatre connoisseur. Since Toni was a young child, her dream has been to be a renowned and accomplished director of Broadway productions. Toni’s father has been both a help and a hindrance in regards to Toni accomplishing her dream, but despite their somewhat awkward and strange relationship, Toni constantly works toward persevering independently as well as developing her own unique craft which she hopes will one day bring her great success.

Cast Bio VIII: Steven

One year ago, the man known as the Masked Vindicator, his true identity unknown, reemerged from obscurity after his sudden disappearance following the defeat of his enemy Deltus Slate, a terrorist doctor who built an army by inflicting memory loss on his prisoners and turning them into soldiers. Slate himself was vanquished in the legendary war, but many of his soldiers remained, carrying on Slate’s mischief. When it was discovered that Slate’s army was targeting the beautiful Warden of Fowl, Alexandria, and her true love Bison, the Masked Vindicator vowed to protect them both from harm. He took on an apprentice for this mission: Scarlet, a bitter, but determined young woman who was widowed in the recent war.

Names, Pt 4

Pete aka Crazy Pete. Pete had to be a really short, hurried sounding name. The long e coupled with the harsh consonants of P and T makes Pete not only actually short, but also sound chopped and brief. It's also a somewhat common everyday name making it sound unassuming until you add the adjective Crazy to the front.

Sam was another one of those asexual names. It because of Lord of the Rings it makes you think of a good friend which is what I was really going for: a name that inspires trust. I actually can't think of a villain that's ever been named Sam. If I'm wrong there, correct me, I'm curious.

Sherlock Holmes yeah...

Steven. I've know several Stevens and they're all kind of off. That was really important for this character because he's really off. Steven also has a kind of comical sound to it somehow which was another important factor.

Sycophant was one of the only synonyms left.

Toni was chosen for being a technically nondescript name, but with that spelling it really isn't. It has an Italian sound which somehow makes things sound artistic and also it's a strong, leaderly name.

Cast Bio VII: Daisy

Daisy was born an energetic child with music on her mind. She could sing before she could speak and recognize printed songs faster than the alphabet. Her parents strove to help her pursue her interests, but had a hard time convincing her to stay on one track. First it was Piano, then Ballet, then Magic tricks, then Acting, then Veterinary school, then Vocal Performance, then Cooking school, then living out of the backyard to “connect with nature” and learn to garden, which unfortunately did not pay well. Gardening led to flower arranging (it paid a bit better than gardening), which led her to selling and delivering flowers, which led her back to the theatre.

In her own mind, Daisy considered herself to be the perfect match for the theatre. She was pretty, enthusiastic, an excellent actress, and a fabulous singer. Unfortunately, no company she auditioned for shared her opinion. Her wide range of experiences left a long resume with little matching material. This left Daisy feeling she could do anything, and employers feeling she could do nothing. Finally, she decided to put her talent to work backstage, with the plan of catching a director’s eye and finally giving her the recognition and lead role she deserved. This meant, of course, that the director would have to hear her fabulous voice and see her talent. Looking to the father of theatre then, Daisy assumed the motto, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players” (Shakespeare). Daisy’s passion for the stage rules her every movement and word. Her (deviously) eccentric and overly energetic behaviors are signs of her desperation for the fulfillment of what she believes to be her only true passion: Musical Theatre.

Cast Bio VI: Barrett

Barrett was born and raised, military. He fired his first gun at the ripe age of 18 months. He enlisted into the army the day he was old enough. His first fight, would be the invasion of Grenada. There, he would quickly rise in rank until one day being approached by men in black, who would offer him a job on a super top secret mission of extraordinary importance. Needless to say, that part of Barrett's story is, well, super top secret. He seemingly disappeared and was never heard from again until one bright sun shining Tuesday morning he applied for a job on Broadway as a special effects supervisor, citing an old jazz dance injury as the reason for being discharged from the military. Is Barrett truly settling down behind Broadway? or could this be part of a bigger, unseen plan? Only time will tell. That is, if Barrett doesn't silence it first.

Cast Bio V: Frank

Arianna, (or better known as Frank) grew up in Pascoag, Rhode Island, battling early symptoms of memory loss, and training for the World Cup Golf Tournament for the better half of her life. About a year ago, she was old enough to enter the long-awaited competition. So Arianna, being competitive and daring by nature, entered as a man, positive that she would win the whole shebang. Long story short, she was disqualified and detained from playing golf and ever since then, she has been known as Frank. Afterwards, she decided to take a new outlook on life, and go out for acting. Little did she know that the life of a thesbian would require lines.. and memorizing them..

Names, Pt 3

Lackey is, like Flunky shear laziness. Fortunately Carol Anne is doing a wonderful job of breathing life into the character.

Lil was honestly named after the character in Rugrats. I was going for a similar personality.

Lou just sounds like a veteran at whatever job you give him. Lou is in fact a girl ala Cindy Lou Who but it still sounds vetereny. She's the head of the running crew and I needed to have an experienced name.

Louis has no relation to Lou. Once again, it just sounded coppy.

Nicholas needed to sound coppy but it also had to sound young, like the rookie. I went with a name that most would probably not say the full thing and instead go with a nickname until he earns it. Nicholas is a lot of syllables.

O'Leary. C'mon. It's a rule. One cop has to be Irish.

Parker is one of those names that was around since the one act so it had to be gender neutral. It could also be either a last name or a first name, I won't tell you which, and it sounds professional but in a kind of slacker way. Like someone who could run a multi-million dollar company but does so in blue jeans and a hoodie.

Names, Pt 2

Clarence is a nerd and with a name like Clarence, how could he not be? I chose this name, not considering the potential confusion between it and Claire, because it's one of those that when you hear you can't help but wonder, what were his parents thinking? If you have named a child Clarence, I'm not sorry, and if you're considering naming a child Clarence, thank God you read this before it was too late.

Daisy is a name you don't hear much anymore and it makes you think of a flowerchild for obvious reasons. It carries a hint of eccentricity behind it but also has a fantastical, fairy sound.

Flunky is yet another no name obviously. I believe I did this out of laziness. I didn't feel like giving Flunky a name and I didn't develop the character much either. Fortunately Hannah has.

Frank is a fairly basic name. You don't hear it too much in our generation, for some reason parents have recently started calling Franks by their full name, Franklin. Yeah, that's less likely to be mocked. Anyway, I wanted this character to have a basic, nondescript name. I also liked how it sounds following the phrase, "Darn it". Try it.

Giralto is very Italian sounding. That's really all I wanted. It needed to sound like an artist and you can't go wrong with an Italian name there. That's a tip, write that down.

Ian is bland. Cool people can and have been named Ian but it's a very bland name and that's what I wanted. A name that's easily forgotten and James constantly doing so has proven that I was successful

Keith was chosen primarily because I was thinking about "Hoodwinked" at the time. It was one of those bizarre instances where I chose the name without thinking about the character and the character kind of came with the name. Names are very powerful.

- T.J. Mercer

Cast Bio IV: Parker

Having moved from the Midwest in his early teens after successfully starting a small business selling aerating shoes to farmer’s wives, Parker decided to follow his dream of being amid the bright stage lights of Broadway. Soon he discovered that he really could not actually tolerate those self-same bright lights, Parker found the niche in which his keen mind and extraordinary interpersonal management skills could be best utilized: stage managing. Corralling actors, placating divas and whipping backstage personnel into a well-oiled machine were the things that filled the stage-shaped gap he had been longing for all his life.

After quickly rising through the ranks and 10 successful years as a theater stage manager, he was picked to manage a new show for a new director to be her support as she made her debut. Of course, no stage manger worth his salt could do anything without an assistant to attend to the details and scheduling needed to keep the show running, so when he discovered the Assistant, he knew he had found the right person to aid him in this most recent, and somewhat hair-brained, new show.

Names, Pt 1

For me personally, choosing names is one of the most time consuming parts of writing. I tend to overthink it really. Every one has met at least one person that they always want to call by a different name because they don't look like their actual name. My goal is to keep that from happening and just have the name fit the character. Usually. Sometimes there are other factors.

When James and I first started writing we knew we'd probably need a larger cast than most of the other submissions so we asked what gender ratio we'd have. Girls to boys 10 to 1. So we decided that rather than basically say, okay this is a guy, we gave everyone gender neutral names. We knew that the diva and the understudy had to be the same gender so those were given unmovable names but everyone else could be either.

Helena was chosen because it's the kind of name that A: would be given by wealthier parents, B: would frequently be incorrectly said by lesser-thans resulting in harsh criticism and C: it sounds Greek and that carries certain visual images. Toga! Toga! Toga!

Claire was picked because it has an assuming sound to it. It's a bit of an everyman name but you also don't hear it much anymore. It's hard to picture someone with the name Claire being mean unless you've met a mean Claire. There's another reason why that name was chosen however that I haven't even told James yet. When I first wrote the script for the one act, Claire actually had a different name. I can't remember for the life of me what it was but I changed it when I was halfway through the script. Why? I was working on the "Memories" parody and I needed her name to rhyme with air.

Addison was one of those open ended names. James suggested it and I went with it because that was one of the characters I kind of wanted to be a guy and it does sound kind of boyish.. I've never actually met a girl named Addison but I have heard tale they exist.

Assistant is without a name because of a young man named Will Norris. Actually, he's pushing 30 now. Anyway, he was the assistant stage manager in a play I was in once and we all treated him like dirt. One actor referred to him as banana boy. We would ask him to do weird things. And ignored most of what he told us. I figured I'd keep with that idea and not even really acknowledge the position as a person.

Barrett just sounds tough. It's also one of those wonderful names that you can't be sure if it's a last name or a first name. That'll make more sense when you see the show.

Brown just sounded very coppish.

Christoph is very similar to Helena namewise. It sounds snooty, like it probably isn't actually the person's real name, and like someone trying to appear French. It's also almost never read correctly at first glance which makes me happy.

Brief Character List

Addison

A younger actor whose career is going well. He's a good at what he does but he's currently love sick for his ex, Helena, and this is affecting his ability to prepare. He starts off in denial about his feelings but they steadily get worse as the show progresses.

Assistant

Lives for the sole purpose of making Parker's life easier. She is to Parker what Marcie is to Peppermint Patty in Peanuts. She's not a kiss up but she does live to serve. In her eyes Parker (whom she always addresses as "Sir") She's very quick on her feet and very seldomly has to stop to think.

Barrett

The props manager and a Vietnam Veteran. He's hardened, grizzly, subtly frightening and possibly insane. He's not a bully or mean but because of his aura, the only person willing to tell him to do anything is Parker.

Brown

The lead cop. He's clearly the leader, due to his stereotype dialogue, and by the book attitude.

Christoph

Christoph is an almost. He is Toni's father and a veteran director nominated three times for a Tony but never got one. He's now a critic and owns the theater. In the latter part of his life he has resigned to become a critic. He's very full of himself, pretends to be British because he wants to be, and is trying to relive his glory days through his daughter.

Claire

The show's new actress and Helena's understudy. She is young and talented with a touch of naiveté. She is easily both optimistic and depressed, and the embodiment of the Chinese curse, "may you find everything you're looking for." She's old friend's with Addison and he got her the audition that led to her being here.

Clarence

The head usher and a nerd. He has recently become inspired to rise up in society and is testing it by organizing the ushers toward a common goal. The power goes to his head he continues trying for more and more…and again… he is a nerd.

Flunky

A member of Helena's entourage. Identical to Sycophant and Lackey. All put up with Helena because they want the limelight of the job, but could do without Helena.

Frank

A newish actress. This is her first really big show and she's nervous. She has one showstopping monologue near the end of the play but she can't memorize it which makes her stressed, which makes it harder to memorize it, which makes her stressed, which makes it harder to memorize it, which makes it…

Giralto

The show's conductor. He puts up with everyone as little as possible and keeps his sentences short and to the point to get himself away faster.

Helena

A diva. She's rude, biting, full of herself, and a handful. She is no longer the brightest and newest talent on Broadway, but she's not old news either. She's in that in-between stage, and it she doesn't like it. While rehearsing she injures herself and this puts her out of commission, but she refuses to take this lying down.

Ian

The sound engineer and a bit of a slacker. He likes his job but you'd never know it. More deadpan than Ben Stein.

Keith

The lighting technician and a kiss up. He knows that Parker is in charge and he wants Parker to know that he likes working with him. Never misses a chance to show Parker that he respects his authority.

Lackey

A member of Helena's entourage. Identical to Sycophant and Flunky. All put up with Helena because they want the limelight of the job, but could do without Helena.

Lil

The low member of the running crew totem pole which means she gets asked to help with everything. She enjoys her job and is very exuberant at it.

Lou

The leader of the running crew. She knows her job and resents the other stuff that she has to do.

Louis

The smart cop. Has a tendency to over think but she's Brown's right-hand man.

Nicholas

The rookie cop. Eager to please and a bit foolhardy. Enjoys the action aspect of the job and sees himself as a renegade cop.

O'Leary

The veteran cop. He could've been promoted long ago but likes the beat. Feels like he's seen everything and consequently keeps a clear head on his shoulders in the most dire of circumstances.

Parker

The stage manager. He is a theater veteran and the person Toni most relies on. He runs a tight ship, and is a hard worker. Due to his experience, he sees himself as a mentor to Toni and tries to help her as much as possible with whatever. While he tries to be fair and holds no "serious" contempt for the cast and crew, he sometimes comes across as stern and more logical than emotional. He likes and appreciates his assistant.

Pete

The psycho cop. He had an incident last year that he loves to talk about but the story changes everytime and frequently makes no sense whatsoever. He's obviously unhinged, so he has a sheriff's badge and his gun is made of wood.

Sam

The actor's voice of reason. She's been in the business a long time and doesn't put up with drama, doing all she can to stop this. She likes working with younger actors because she dreams of getting out of the acting game and starting an acting school and sees this as practice.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes.

Steven

A method actor and like most method actors, he's not fully right in the head. He gets into character and stays there until the last curtain call of the last show.

Sycophant

A member of Helena's entourage. Identical to Flunky and Lackey. All put up with Helena because they want the limelight of the job, but could do without Helena.

Toni

A new director and Christoph's daughter. Toni has gotten many opportunities due to her father's influence, but is trying to step into her own as a director, because she doesn't like her father's methods. She thought she was ready for anything and was taking the show in stride but she learns she needs to find her inner director.

Usher

One of Clarence's followers. A nerd…no really…a N-E-R-D.

-T.J. Mercer, James Legg

Drafts

I don't know how normal this is. I know Lord of the Rings frequently had scenes being written when actors arrived on set, but surely that isn't normal. We are currently on draft 10 of this script. We've had to do this multiple times for a number of reasons.

Draft 1: there were actually three rewrites before we had an official Draft 1. The biggest change in those rewrites was we changed the lyrics in the final song probably four or five times. Then we made it not the actual final song.

Draft 2-4: These were just various inconsequential but necessary rewrites.

Draft 5: An entire new scene and a song was added.

Draft 6: Two new scenes were added, the song in draft 5 was removed, and the show was split into two acts.

Draft 7: This was the first script the actors saw. It was done right after casting. A new character was added and one of the songs was severely shortened.

Draft 8: Characters were removed due to a loss of cast members.

Draft 9: James started censoring me.

Draft 10: The show was further edited to send to someone for approval.

That brings us to now. I've actually made several revisions to 10 now, but I'm trying not make another actual draft before the show's over. Of course, that was my plan at 7.

-T.J. Mercer

Cast Bio III: Assistant

The assistant was born on a farm in Missouri. Her father had a family farm that had been passed down for one full generation. He and her mother noticed that she didn't enjoy getting up at six AM to milk cows or stay in the blistering heat for ten hours plowing the fields. Instead she volunteered to work back stage at school plays. So they gave her a label and that label was, different.

The first book she ever read by herself was called "Stage Managing, an Art." While other children played games like Prince VS Dragon, Prince & Princess, or Monster Truck VS Barbie Car, she was busy practicing to be a stage manager.

When she graduated from the town college with the other ten seniors, she moved to New York to pursue her dream, though no one took her seriously because of her small stature. She had to settle for changing scenes for a play.

The stage manager for this play was Parker, her role model. He caught her secretly reading "The Secrets of Stage Managing", and decided to give her a shot as his assistant and has kept her at that position ever since.

-Caroline Mercer

Cast Bio II: Lackey

Lackey, an aspiring actress, dropped out of college after her first semester when she was offered a principal role in an up and coming broadway show. Unfortunately, a couple days before opening night there was a mishap involving a set piece in the string section which rather upset the orchestra conductor. Despite the fact that she had absolutely no control over the accident she was fired, and, after finding that no director would touch her, she changed her name and took a job working for Helena Morve (aka, slavery). She puts up with it in hopes that eventually her dedication will pay off and she will be called upon to take the stage. But the longer she stays with Helena, the more her hopes of ever being in front of the curtain again diminish.

-Carol Anne Ausband

T.J.'s Influences Pt. 3: Musical

Only one more thing to add for this Influence series (that sounds vaguely like a limited edition perfume line), or at least mine. James and Mitchell and Megan may want to weigh in later. This one was saved for last because I feel it applies to both James and I. The reason for that is these are the heaviest influences on this show.

The first is the awesomeness of Joss Whedon. For those that don't know, Joss is one of thebest screenwriters in Hollywood right now. Naturally, he was in favor of the writer's strike but it affected him in a strange way. He's not just a writer, he's a director and producer. Now, because of his inability to work because of the strike, he got bored. So he figured out a way to get around the writer's strike. The result? Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apEZpYnN_1g

James and I were both affected by this because it was brilliant for starters. It was also the first time that I had seen a musical that a group of people created for fun. Granted, Joss could retire from the DVD sales of just Firefly (WATCH THAT SHOW NOW!) so he's rolling in cash but it was still something he did without a backing studio or another producer, it was all on his dime.

Second, and this one was the heaviest, in 2009 a group of theater major graduates from Michigan produced their own play, filmed it, and posted it on the internet resulting in, now, almost 2 million hits. This indy musical was, the Very Potter Musical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwM_AKeMCk

A mutual friend, Jana Zahn, posted this link to her facebook on Aug 23 last summer. James watched it, then he made me watch it and it is amazing. We both became moderately infatuated with it and it was fresh on our minds when we were writing our one act. The rest is history.

-T.J. Mercer

T.J.'s Influences Pt. 2: Writing

The largest and earliest influence in both my writing and my sense of humor is the comic genius, Bill Watterson: author of the previously mentioned Calvin and Hobbes. And I mean earliest literally. I learned how to read with Calvin and Hobbes. I've been told reading them helps to understand me. And not just what I talk about or my worldview but the way I am. That's a heavy influence for a comic strip.

I was also heavily, heavily, heavily influenced by (and don't worry, though it's not saying much, I'm better at dialog) Star Wars. For you girls that don't quite understand how guys work, let me explain something about Star Wars. When you're a boy of seven as I was and you see a movie that has people sword fighting with LASERS it is the absolute coolest thing you could ever imagine. A running joke with my sisters for awhile was saying, "You have to try/see/hear (blank, though usually a white chocolate mocha). It'll change your life." But when I saw Star Wars, it did change my life. I was totally enthralled. From the very beginning it sucked me in and it left a permanent imprint and defined what I love in movies.

I would love to say that J R R Tolkien was an influence on my writing, and I love Tolkien. He is one of the best authors of the 20th century and the greatest fantasy author ever. Why? Because in fantasy there are two eras; BT and AR. Before Tolkien and After the Rings. No other author of any genre has ever split the history of his medium like he did. You can read any fantasy by anyone and tell if it was written before or after one of Tolkien's specific works. Tolkien did. As you can see, I love and respect Tolkien to no end, for this reason I cannot list him as an influence as it would be an insult to his legacy.

I really don't remember what the first book to make me love stories was, so instead I'll talk about the two biggest influences in that area, my parents. My mom first gave me a love of stories at a very young age. She did this by reading to me and my sister every night when we were little. Not just reading them mind you, she would get into them. For those of you that have read The Cat and the Hat Comes Back, when my mother read us that, when the "voom" showed up, she'd yell and shake the book like the voom was actually unleashed. She made stories exciting. When I was four years old I wrote my first story but I couldn't write. So what I did was I drew the story, and then dictated it to my mother as she wrote it as captions. In typical mother fashion, she still has it. As I got older, and more intelligent I started writing my stories myself but my mom was still involved. Now she's moved up to editor. She critiques most of what I write, and really critiques it. She tells me consider doing this to improve this, rework this whole sentence, figure out a better way to say this. It's amazing and it's helped me so much. There's also the fact that I was homeschooled so my mom taught me how to read and write in the first place.

My mom has been the hands on teacher and influence of my writing but my father is the secret hero of my storytelling. Like any young boy, I idolized him. I wanted to do everything exactly like him. What he thought was the most important thing in the world to me. I still love and respect him more than anyone alive but I've gotten my idolatry in check. Anyway, when I was real young, nine down to like three, I would tell these insane stories. Not lies, though that did come into play, but I would make up these incredibly illogical crazy stories and my poor father was always my chosen audience to hear about them. But through all of it, no matter how insane they got, no matter how long they got (we have video evidence, as a kid I would not shut up. My parents couldn't wait til I learned how to talk just so they could understand what I was going on about) he would always listen. Not just let me go on either. He'd LISTEN. He paid attention to everything I said and acted like it was normal (sidenote: it wasn't). After I finished or in the middle of it, he'd ask me questions about the story and make me think about it more than I had. The world would be so much better if more fathers were as encouraging as mine.

I owe both of my parents a lot. This whole thing wouldn't be happening without them.

-T.J. Mercer

T.J.'s Influences Pt. 1: Parodies

Strangely enough, my largest influence was not Weird Al. I love Weird Al, don't get me wrong, but he's not what gave me an appreciation for parodies. Instead, the first time I ever heard a parody was Ray Stevens's "Surfin USSR". I was only four or so and for years I thought that was the actual title of the song. Then years later I heard the original and I have to say I was disappointed.

Years later came my second parody artist and first stand up comedy exposure, Christian funny-man Mark Lowry. It was the best thing ever to a ten year old kid. He is who inspired me to write my first parody, an answering machine message.

Just sit right back and leave a message

For us to listen to

In just a little while we

Will get right back to you

We'll get right back to you*

It wasn't until I was fourteen that I really appreciated the art of writing parodies. This came from one of my favorite bands throughout high school; ApologetiX. They were different from Weird Al because while they did write humorous songs ("Bethlehemian Rhapsody" is hysterical), they also would change the spirit behind the song and make it serious sometimes ("Corinthians" and "Look Yourself" are both incredibly lacking in laughs but still enjoyable). They also used them to make some very very deep songs when you compare them to other Christian artist's fluff. Example: Their song "You Booked Me All Along" (take a wild guess what that's a parody of) is about and serves the purpose of Biblically evidencing predestination. Most pastors won't even go there.

-T.J. Mercer

*to the tune of "Gilligan's Island Theme"

Cast Bio I: Flunky

Flunky graduated college 4 years ago with a degree in theater. She has always loved the spotlight and enjoys the fame and attention that comes with being in Helena’s entourage. She was very enthusiastic about the job when she began, but after working with Helena for 3 years (and not exactly moving up in the world), she has become rather disenchanted. Yet she retains hope and is still eager to please in hopes of making the right connections and one day moving on to bigger and better things. Considering the weight of influence that Helena carries in the theatrical world, Flunky knows she could not - nay, dare not - displease or offend the diva. Her future career depends on it. But every day she finds it harder to grin and bear it...and Helena certainly doesn’t make it any easier on her.
On a personal note, Flunky views herself as a very artsy type, a creative spirit who lives to be “original.” Recently, in an act of extreme cleverness, she even created an original swear word for herself: “jurt.”

-Hannah Ausband

Awesome Cast

With every rehearsal I become more and more convinced that our cast is amazing. They've all jumped headfirst into this show and devoted so much to us and we're only halfway through production.

The talent that we have is really quite something as well. We have one actress who's taken a character that was totally flat and uninteresting on paper and made her completely likable, relatable, and real. There's several actors who have taken some very undeveloped minor characters, thrown themselves into them completely and created three dimensional, kooky people. One actress in particular is actually changing James and my perception of the entire plot, which is something since we've been eating, drinking, and dreaming this script for almost six months now.

We also have a lot of great actors because they stay in character when they're not talking on stage. They keep adding expressions and gestures without us even suggesting that they do anything there. It works well because we have a number of actors that are on stage a lot. One is on stage without dialog for about three quarters of the show. Yeah, you heard me. Things like that are a challenge for James and I because we don't want to put all of it on the actors and we try and think of something for eight or nine people to do. It's hard okay.

-T.J. Mercer

Song Selections

Selecting the songs was actually one of the more challenging aspects of the writing process. Some were very easy, some we mulled over for forever. The closing number in particular took a full three days to figure out and was not really decided on onto after the rest of the script was finished. The main problem was there was no set way for us to decide. Some of the parodies, like "Just Can't Wait To Be King" and "For Good", actually fit the original song's intentions. Others spit in the face of everything the original was even about.

The main thing that we wanted was for the mood of the music to fit what wanted to say. "Memories", for example, is a haunting song of remorse, regret, and almost lost memories. The music however is a slow build of heartache, almost like someone is listing everything they want to change about their life until they come to the absolute worst part. So we chose to use only the song's climax because it conveys a mood of this-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-happen-ever. That one's my favorite example because it's just so perfect for the situation and I feel that the lyrics actually are some of the best of the entire show.

The main thing is there are all kinds of different methods of parody. One is to mock what the original song is about or the artist who wrote it. A good example is ApologetiX parody of "Crazy Train" "Lazy Brain"; the opening line of which is "Ozzy shoves bats down his throat".

Another is using the original as a starting point and either changing the lyrics to make it about something else but from the same perspective or about the same thing with a different perspective. We did this with "Just Can't Wait To Be King". The original is about Simba wanting to be king as soon as possible. Our version is about Claire the understudy wanting to be the lead in a show as soon as possible. The reverse would be a parody about someone not wanting to be king anytime soon.

There's a couple of others but I won't bore you with them. I just wanted to give you an appreciation for how much thought we put into something as basic sounding as choosing the songs.

-T.J. Mercer

T.J. & Megan: Episode 1

Megan was the very first person I ever met at Master's. She actually doesn't remember it but I met her before Master's even started. It was at some meeting that I only arrived at the end of to pick up my mother so that we could go rafting on the Nantahala. She introduced herself to me because, I'm incredibly good looking.

We really didn't talk much after that because we had no classes together. Then came Bob Jones University. I hate Bob Jones University, but ironically I fondly remember the time I spent there. She and I hung out a couple of times and our friendship was cemented. She found out I was funny and I found out that she was weird in a number of awesome ways.

Megan has since become one of my most valued friends in a totally platonic way. I trust her, value her opinion, and love hanging out with her. She's one of those you can be yourself around and she'll only mock you as much as necessary. You may feel differently but if you normally keep your collection a secret, it's because you know it's embarrassing and worthy of chastisement.

Megan is an invaluable asset because she is the absolute queen of stage managing. She is one of the funniest, quirkiest people I've ever met but when she becomes stage manager, she goes professional and frightens cast members. Frankly, I'm okay with this because I don't have to.

-T.J. Mercer

T.J. & Mitchell: Episode 1

Mitchell was one of my first friends at Master's. It was a God thing because we were such an unlikely pair. We both hated people, I'm a rock and roll junkie and he hated it, I'm a devout GA fan and I first met him drinking from a GA Tech water bottle. We really had very little in common. On the surface. The third week, we found our connection: Calvin and Hobbes.

If you are unfamiliar with Calvin and Hobbes let me know and that will not be the case for much longer. One of my great loves since I was four was the comic strip. Not comic books, though I did get into those later, comic strips. They are just truly a unique medium. They are visual jokes, but you can tell a joke; you can't tell a comic strip. This love has caused me to read a lot of them, and everyone who knows anything about comics knows this to be a fact: Calvin and Hobbes is the greatest comic strip of all time. Not only that but it's better by a lot. Mitchell was the only person in my directing class that knew this to be fact. For this we had a connection.

We really had no big moments ala me pretending to shoot him in the foot, our friendship was a quiet build into trusting and caring for each other. We just always found things to talk about. We agree on most things but veer just enough to keep it interesting.

Having Mitchell on this project is a huge blessing. He knows so much about music and he loves the theater. He loves bossing singers around too but fortunately he's but one side of our little triumvirate. He makes for an interesting addition. I'm the quiet joker, with a love of acting and emotional attachment to the script. James is the new director and leader who doesn't really enjoy telling people what to do. Mitchell is the stifled Type A who's love of ordering is bolstered by the fact that he actually knows what he's doing. James and I are kind of winging this, but Mitchell adds a level of professionalism to our chaos. Makes you happy.

- T.J. Mercer

T.J. & James: Episode 1

I was new to Master's my Junior year. I knew one person, an annoying state to be in when you're a devout anti-socialist (that's a double-entendre because I am both meanings but only one makes sense in this sense). I had never been very good at making friends quickly because I'm cynical, sarcastic, quiet, and very opinionated. A summary of me is I went to an art school for homeschoolers and was considered weird. The students honestly had no idea what to do about me because they really couldn't figure me out. Enough about me. Onto James.

James has told me that the summer before his freshman year, God flipped a switch and he tore from his shell violently and began to tap dance (he didn't use that wording but I feel it illustrates the drastic level of change that occurred). Prior to high school, James recalls saying twelve words to anyone and this year he decided to become a people person.

It had been around three or four weeks and I only had one class with James: elements of production, aka free labor. On the fourth week we were going over what we'd be doing. Our assignment was to take bits of wood, screw them into squares, and staple canvass across them. I was given the assignment of opening the new staple gun whilst Mr Howe described our assignment in detail. I opened it, checked it for staples (none), on a whim pressed it on James foot, and pulled the trigger. He exclaimed, and I quote, "DUUUDE!" His friend Corbin laughed, I laughed, it was a grand old time.

A week after that, we were discussing A Christmas Carol, the first play of that year, and someone brought up The Night Before Christmas. James mentioned that his favorite version of that was a reading by a guy named Edgar Bergen and his puppet, Charlie McCarthy. Now, to everyone else there, those names meant nothing. I am not most people. I freakished out. "You know who they are?" James was equally intrigued. "You know who they are?" This caused Fun and Fancy Free to be brought up. James hadn't seen it yet but he quoted his known Charlie McCarthy lines and I quoted mine. The conversation ended with James gesturing toward me and saying, "I like how you do Charlie's voice. It's funny." "Well thank you." That was the beginning of our friendship, a joint love for a radio ventriloquist (I don't see the point either) that had been dead for 26 years.

James and I have never really worked together before this, but we're finding that we're perfectly suited together. We're both writers but we approach it very differently. I'm an acting writer and he's a writing director. I think about the character and the wording, while he thinks about the image and the visual, this means there are two points of focus and they both come out. We've also, through God's grace and our friendship, avoided a power struggle. After completing the outline of the script James handed it over to me. This is not said out pride (well, a little) but the truth, I am the better writer. James knew this and pretty much just set me free. James is the better director; so consequently I gave him the script when I was done and set him free. We agreed on the titles Primary and Secondary because it best explains it. James was one of the writers and was a help when I was stuck but about 95% of the script was all me. I am one of the directors but about 95% of the directing is done by him. We know our roles and we fill them.

Could the future hold more collaborations between the two of us? We'll see. For now we'll just wait to see if we live through this. Regardless we shall always remember, "A friend in need is a friend indeed." "So what?" "So they need some steak."

-T.J. Mercer

The Story So Far Pt.3

James and I had our first reading. And it went well. I had already read through it four or five times and I believe we were reading draft 3 at that point. No major changes were deemed necessary, rhythm was fixed as necessary, unclear lines were clarified or cut, the usual. Then we did a very fool hardy thing. We made a video, announcing to the world what our intentions were. We jumped a shark that was holding a gun and threw ourselves past the point of no return. This was going to happen.

Later I had a second reading with my siblings and it was suggested, and I agreed, that some scene additions were necessary. This led to draft 6.

Our first step in preparation was one of humility. We made a list of all the people whose help we would need. It was a long list, and we're still in the process of enrolling, blackmailing, or kidnapping them. The first person contacted and roped in was the most pressing need. James and I know music the way stalkers know their stalkees. We could tell you a lot about what it does, where it goes, and how it gets there, but we don't really know music and we needed someone who did. Fortunately, we knew exactly who that someone was, Mitchell Yaksh.

I first met Mitchell my junior year and James had known him even longer. Mitchell was a music lover when I met him, but held to the belief that rock in all its forms was dumb. At this first meeting, I vowed to change that opinion. My vow was scoffed at. But the mighty fell and he now loves rock and roll. Anyway, Mitchell and I graduated high school in '06 and he went on to study musical performance and composition. He knew music inside and out and had perfect pitch. He was our man. Especially after he said he'd do it.

The next step was casting. I decided to be silly about it. I suggested we keep with the theme of the show and announce our auditions in a video where we sing a parody of "Be Our Guest" because we didn't mess with any songs from Beauty and the Beast. It took us a full month to make the thing because our schedules only permitted one night of filming a week. Once we finally finished it though, we were very pleased with the result. It very neatly captured the silliness our little musical would revel in as well as show what it would be like to work with us.

Now we ran into a problem. We had this video announcing auditions would happen but people were unsure about the specifics. So we made a second, boring video that flatly explained everything you'd need to know about auditions. The strange thing was 67 people saw this video but no one we talked to had any idea what was in it. We would still like to know who these 67 people were.

There was another reading with the music director, and I created draft 7.

Auditions arrived and providentially we had just the right amount of people show up. Then we were struck with an unusual problem. We had the right amount of people, but there were a lot of smaller parts and a lot of really good actors. We had trouble deciding who to put where. With our initial considerations for the lead roles, we had at least 3 possibles for each of them. A near all nighter followed as James and I looked at conflict sheets and set up schedules for the rehearsals and finally, after three months of planning we had a cast for our show.

Let the rehearsals begin.

-T.J. Mercer

The Story So Far Pt.2

At this point James and I had to wait awhile to find out if our submission would be chosen. For some reason this was particularly hard on James. He even began to doubt the level of our genius. I'm a cocky little punk so I never wavered. But, to cheer him I had a great idea: regardless of whether or not our little brain child was chosen, we'd make and film our own version of it. This cheered James up for the simple reason that it gave him another creative outlet to focus on. Slowly he became more and more excited about the possibility. Then, on December 29th we got the e-mail telling us we'd been chosen. I was chosen twice due to my secondary and tertiary submissions but that's a gloat for another time and place. We were invited to the first rehearsal of the one act, but I was unable to attend. I called James afterward and he was very excited about the direction that Mrs. Howe was taking it.

I knew nothing throughout the entire process. I'd been out of Master's for four years and only knew who one of the cast members was. I was not nervous in the least despite this however. I was incredibly excited. I had written and performed things in the past but I'd never written something and handed it off to be used by someone else before.

Opening night arrived. We'd been talking about this thing for over a month so we had a number of people almost as ready to see it as we were. Now our only nerves were that we'd built too much of a hype and people would be disappointed. It was not to be. The little one act was incredibly popular, even with those who didn't know about it.

James and I basked in the adulation for a little while but our creativity would not remain dormant. I asked him about his vision for filming this thing. We began discussing options for when and who we'd want to help us, then I just casually made the comment that we would no longer be working with a time limit and we could probably add some stuff to make the plot and characters more developed. I've known James long enough to know that I had said something intriguing because I saw a mental click in his face. I had meant a mere extra five to ten minutes, but he was now thinking much much bigger. "What if we made this thing full length?" I responded, "That's risky, difficult, and crazy. I like it."

I went home but under strange circumstances, this time my brain was not buzzing. I was racking my brain but I could not figure out how to seriously extend this very basic story. Two days went by and I had nothing. Then, late at night, it dawned on me; that story was fine. It didn't need any changes. No, what this needed was more stories. Claire the understudy was not the only character in this show. We had Helena the diva, Toni the director, Addison the co-star, Parker the stage manager, and Sam the wisened actress. The original actors played these small parts so well that finding out more about them was intriguing. I told James this plan the next day only to be told, "Yeah, that's what I meant." Grumble.

Two weeks later, on a Friday, in a snowstorm, at about 1 PM, I arrived at James house, ready to work. We locked ourselves in his room, pulled out the post its and set to work. Six hours later, we emerged. The original plot outline was written out on eleven post its and had six characters. We had extended that to twenty-eight post its and sixteen characters.

This time James knew how I worked and handed it off to me. I began writing like a fiend. Eight days later, I had taken a mere eleven page script and turned it into an eight-two page monster as well as added fourteen characters to the already added ten. All that was left was rewrites and then casting.

-T.J. Mercer

The Story So Far Pt.1

On August 26th, 2009 Mrs. Lesley Howe sent out an e-mail to Artios Graduates letting them know that she intended to put on a series of one acts February 2010. This had been done before but this time, being a writer herself, she wanted to give people the opportunity to write original plays for the show. I personally was immediately intrigued and my brain began buzzing with story ideas.

Very soon afterward, James Legg contacted me, equally excited and asked if I would be at all interested in collaborating with him on a script. I was totally fine with this because I had never successfully collaborated but I had been wanting to work on that in the interest of personal growth. We set up a meeting time on a Wednesday night, he brought the pizza while I supplied the root beer. Neither of us had any clue what our skit would be about because we both assumed the other had an idea but we didn't let that stop us.

Our first step was to settle on a genre. This led to us listing all that we could think of: SciFi, Drama, Comedy, Dramedy, and finally, as a providential joke, Musical. We wrote these down on post its and stuck them to a wall. Drama and SciFi were quickly removed for obvious reasons, but the more I stared at that little yellow square with MuSIcAl (my handwriting is really bad) written across it, the more I liked the idea. Finally, I looked at James and posed the question, "What if we did write a musical, James?" This was followed to the obvious question, if a song is two minutes long how could we fit that many into a ten minute one act. That answer was obvious, short songs. The next roadblock was trickier, could we write that many songs? I was confident enough for James to consider it, though I could tell he was doubtful. He picked up the guitar and started to pick around.

We next had to come up with a story. This led us first to setting. Again, ideas were freeform tossed about. We eventually got down to three options: a treehouse (James idea), a radio station (my idea), and backstage of a Broadway show (we can't agree on whose idea that was). Clearly, the first two were eliminated leaving us with the backstage of a show.

After that came plot. We had the starting point of the theme for the evening, "New Beginnings." What kind of new beginning can happen in a play about a play? Well we took the obvious route there: a new actress getting her first break. We decided to up the stakes and make it a sold out crowd. It wasn't dramatic enough so it was decided that we make her the understudy, so her break wasn't expected, thus increasing the nerves. We tossed around a number of ideas for other characters, one specific one to hit the chopping block was the understudy's obsessed fan. From there we merely organized the whole story using post its. The whole process at this point had taken a mere two hours not counting the forty five minutes we lost at the beginning of the meeting to go help a friend who'd locked his keys in his car. While with his girlfriend. And it was raining. She forgave him and they got married this past April.

At this point, James and I felt really good. We had a good and solid story that could easily be made very entertaining and we had decided on all the characters. But, looming over our heads was the horrid knowledge that we needed to write songs. And write them by the deadline. And we had no clue where to start. Then, we were saved by my adolescence and one of my favorite bands in high school. I set into a diatribe. "The thing that drives me nuts about musicals is how unexplainably, everyone knows these songs." "Where are you going with this, T.J.?" "What if all of the songs were parodies of showtunes?" "Can we do that? Like, is it legal?" I cited a supreme court decision in the early 80's that said it in fact was. That settled it. We immediately started considering what songs to use where and in thirty minutes we had the complete list: "Just Can't Wait To Be King", "Food, Glorious Food", "Memories", "ABC Cafe", "Anything You Can Do", "For Good", and "You're the One That I Want". James went home planning to work on the script over the coming weekend. He didn't count on God making me particularly enthusiastic. When he awoke the next morning and checked his e-mail he discovered that he had received the first draft already.

Two weeks and two rewrites later, James and I met again to read the craziness out loud. Revisions were made, and the final draft sent in. All that was left to do was wait to see if our script would be chosen.

-T.J. Mercer