The Performing Arts 1: Beginning

 I’ve been interested in music and theater for as long as I can remember. When I was 6 or 7 years old I attended a performance of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN at the University of Maryland. My parents surely received the tickets as a gift. Even though the flood of story and song pouring past me was too rich, too swift, to grasp, I remember clearly being enchanted.

But I was purely a fan. My creative gifts are pretty broad, but they’re all fine-motor. I manipulate words, or paintbrushes, or fiber. I’m a hand worker.  It has never occurred to me to use anything else.

Two things have changed this for me recently. The first is novels. HIS SELACHIAN MAJESTY REQUESTS is about a rock star. Music is Cam See’s life, his path to both salvation and destruction. To write this book I attended concerts, quizzed buskers, toured performance venues and read every biography of rock stars of the 60s and 70s that I could get my hands on.

And then I immediately turned to OFF THE SCREEN, an SF novel set in the 22nd century. I’m rebooting American democracy, because it needs to be done. And, because AI has gutted live entertainment, the characters have resolved to revive Broadway by staging a musical. They wanted to do OKLAHOMA, but securing permission to quote the lyrics from the Hammerstein organization was beyond my power.

So I am doing the simpler thing: I’ll write the entire script of the musical they shall stage, and all the lyrics, the program notes and actor bios — everything. It’s always easier and less trouble to just make everything up yourself — Cam, in HIS SELACHIAN MAJESTY, hails from an entirely imaginary Asian country with a history and culture custom-tailored to my own needs.

Now, not only do I now own all the rights and intellectual property to this fictional musical. I can compel the in-story dramatic presentation and its development to  reflect the events in the actual plot of the work, which will reflect current events — very cunning and complex!

But the other thing? I have moved to within walking distance of a major university, where I can audit courses. Courses in theater! I dipped my toe into a class in the history of theater, and the instructor drafted me to sign on for a class in improv. I have never acted before! But I never say no — so, here we go!