I understand that you wrote Titus X in a couple of weeks, while you were waiting for grad school to start. Tell us a little bit more about that.
To be exact, the writing of the first draft took a couple of weeks. I had just moved to New York and was living in an unfurnished apartment. I had a cardboard moving box stuffed with blankets as my only chair. It was about a month before school started, and three weeks before my roommates would be moving in with the furniture, so I had a little time to kill. I desperately needed to come up with a plan to pass the time. I thought to myself, since I'll be going to musical theatre writing school, maybe I should have written at least one musical by then.
Back then I was also the company playwright for a student company at Catholic University called Fun With Classics. I sent them the script and they refused to perform it. So the script sat on the shelf for two years while I went to NYU. As I was nearing graduation, I met the very talented Raven Snook (journalist, diva, goddess... and now, mother). She had just performed in my thesis show at NYU and wanted to see what else I had. I got her into a practice room at NYU and played her my score for Titus. She picked out the songs she liked and suggested a composer to rewrite the rest of the show. I sent him a lyric as a test collaboration and waited.
At the same time, Catholic University was going to be presenting alumni work at the First Page-to-Stage Festival at the Kennedy Center. They asked me if I had any material I wanted to show. I spent the whole summer trying to write something new, but found I had a terrible case of writer's block after grad school. My brain simply refused to write anything else. Out of desperation, I told them I wanted to present a show I was then calling Titus! the musical? (yes, a question mark, I thought I was being clever... I wasn't).
I pressed the composer to set the lyric. He didn't. The deadline seemed to keep getting closer. I eventually realized I was only going to finish the show if I wrote it myself. So I did. Raven had been kind enough to leave ten minutes of the show in place, so I only had to write another ten minutes. I did. To my surprise, the new material was noticeably better. I had actually learned something at NYU.
We performed the show to standing room only and the audience laughed after we played the first two eighth notes on guitars. We knew we had them.
Gregg Henry, the awesome producer over at the Kennedy Center then twisted my arm into attending the reception for the festival. Not being a great socializer, I had intended to blow it off. But I was glad I went because I met Joe Banno, Artistic Director of Source Theatre. I told him about the show and he was intrigued and wanted to see a reading. I didn't want to tell him the show was only twenty minutes long, so I stayed up the next week straight and wrote the rest of the show.
I have been rewriting ever since. Each time the show is produced, the script is a little different.
So really it has been more like a six year intermittent writing process... and I expect it to go on a little longer.
You attended NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program. How did it feel walking in the first day with a finished show already under your belt?
I was panicked the first day of class. The teachers constantly made references to musicals I had never heard of. In our first lyrics class the teachers said, "Okay, who doesn't know what an AABA song is?" like it was common knowledge and I was the only student who... slowly... reluctantly... raised his hand.
I'd say most of the students already had written a musical. I was in a room with a lot of incredible incredible talent and I respected and admired all of them.
What made you choose punk music for Titus X?
Punk actually chose Titus X. I knew the kind of music I could write and set out to find a show that matched. That's the opposite of what most writers do, where they know the show they want to do, and then find the appropriate sound.
I had misspent my youth playing in DC punk bands. At the time I wrote Titus, punk was all I knew how to write. My skills have come a long way since then, and I'm actually writing klezmer-punk fusion for my new show.
You've credited the time you spent as a volunteer with Arlington Dance Theatre in Virginia as your inspiration to start writing musicals. How so?
As a 17 year old boy, mopping the stage for Arlington Dance Theatre was a dream job. I was in love with every girl in the company. Being a schlub with a mop didn't really make me very attractive to them though. Or maybe I was just too shy to talk to them, and too nervous when I did.
One of the first recitals I worked for them, they were dancing to music from A Chorus Line. I was watching the first night and thought to myself that it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. The music was funky and the dancing was incredible. I had never before thought I could just sit there and watch dance, but I was mesmerized. It was great.
At the time I had a mentor who guided my theatre youth. I went to the bar that he used to drink in (he's sober now) and told him I decided I wanted to write a musical, but didn't know anything about music (well, musical music... I was in a band called Yuk at the time, metal-funk kinda stuff). He told me I wanted to write the book. I agreed, not really knowing what he was saying.
A few years passed and I moved on from Arlington Dance Theatre and soon had forgotten about my interest in writing musicals. I had reinvented myself as a playwright in college. Then a composer friend called me and told me he wanted to write a musical. I told him I thought it was a great idea. He then told me I was missing the point and that he wanted to write a musical with me. I wrote a really rough book and a couple of bad lyrics. He set only one. But when he called me and played the song for me over the phone from Williams, I knew I wanted to write musicals. That script and one song got me into NYU. I was there less than nine months later.
Ever since then, I've been trying to write a show for those girls at Arlington Dance Theatre. However, I had a lot of growth to do as a composer. My first show was punk, then rock, then some folk, and now I'm finally working on a dance show with Jim Augustine.
You still live in Virginia, and teach Film Studies at a high school there. Tell us more about your class, how you got that job, and what it's like teaching high schoolers.
Well, even as I write this, I am chaperoning an event at the school. Clearly I am doing a great job. The event is called the Junior Variety show. Among my duties include accompanying Becca Ward's performance of “Angels in Montgomery” on guitar, and playing bass in the Faculty Band. This event is truly one of the highlights of being a teacher: actually getting to collaborate with incredibly talented youth.
I asked my student K-K Bracken to say something clever about my teaching. Usually she has tons of wacky things to say, but tonight she appears to be brain dead. But she does attribute me with her interest in writing her own musicals, of which she has now written two. I better hurry up and write more or she will quickly pass me. She also has this theory that I am a cult icon of the school. I don't believe her.
Teaching high schoolers changes from day to day. It all depends on how much sleep we've all gotten. If I'm tired I'm less tolerant of their behavior, and if they are tired, they don't find my lectures very witty or interesting.
I understand you're also starting a new theatre company. What's that all about?
My long-time collaborator and friend Shirley Serotsky and I recently formed Bouncing Ball Theatrical Productions. We wanted to do my new show Lunch at the CapFringe and it required a company. So we got incorporated and now we even have a check book with the company name on it. We've spent a ton of time begging people to do our shows, now we can do our own shows, and just need to beg people for money to do them. The power dynamic has shifted.
Bouncing Ball's mission is to put on innovative non-traditional musicals... in other words, shows I write. Though, I hope we will eventually grow beyond Shirley and me.
Sounds like your plate is full. What's up next in your immediate future?
Thanks to the performance of Lunch at CapFringe, Theatre J has commissioned a new show from me... hence the reason I've been studying klezmer music. I'm really excited about it. So far my collaborations with their Artistic Director, Ari Roth, who has agreed to personally dramaturg the show, have been incredible. I feel like I'm back in school, I'm learning so much from him. I admire the way he works and truly believe the best way to get better in this business is to work with people better than myself.
Shirley and I are also developing the new Bouncing Ball show. A dark cabaret version of a children's sing-a-long television show in which the songs all have bad messages, like, you won't be what you want to be when you grow up, and when you poo you lose a part of you. It appalled people at this year's Page-to-Stage (my fourth time in the festival).
Interview with Shawn Northrip was conducted by Michael Criscuolo October 2006.