Oh, but it pours…
March 2018
June is busting out all over for me. In the space of a week I got offered an Equity reading, an Equity workshop and audition requests by the directors of two summer shows, all slated for the same start date. As it turns out the reading and the workshop no longer overlap and I can do both. The first is another reading of the long-promised Susan Stroman directed, original musical, Little Dancer, with book and lyrics by Lyn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. The same show we premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2014, now with a revised book. Fingers crossed this beautiful production will one day be seen by New York audiences. The workshop is really exciting. It's a musical called Only Gold, conceived directed and choreographed by multi-Tony winner, Andy Blankenbuehler and a score by Kate Nash. She is the brilliant London-based alt-rocker who stars as "Brittannia" in the Netflix series Glow. We last workshopped this show back in 2013. Andy had a few little shows like Hamilton, Cats and Bandstand to get up in the interim. But now there appears to be a lot of energy focussed toward Only Gold, which I like to refer to as Andy's Opus. I get to play royalty in this show; an actual historical figure. A larger than life extrovert in mid-life crisis. Adding to this fun is the extraordinary pleasure of playing opposite, and partnering, prima ballerina assoluta, Alessandra Ferri, who plays my wife. The title prima ballerina assoluta is a rare honour, traditionally reserved only for the most exceptional dancers of their generation. More on this as it gets closer.