newcritics

Slammer! is a new musical about women in prison written by Chan Chandler and Steve Adams which premiered Monday night, the 20th of August, at the FringeNYC theater festival.

My participation in the birth of Slammer! began two years ago when Chan walked into Smoke and Mirrors with a song called ‘Solitary’. Chan became a regular, and in the end Chris and I ended up recording most of the songs for Slammer!, though much of it was recorded by David Murray at Murray Music in Chan and Steve’s hometown, Austin Texas.

In the spring of 2007, we mixed and mastered the demo that Chan and Steve featured as part of a promo package used to generate steam behind a possible production of their musical. To that end, a reading of the play was held in Los Angeles, and graciously hosted by Chan’s sister Kim Chandler and her husband actor Saverio Guerra.

That possibility became a reality soon after when they were accepted to the FringeNYC festival.

It was time to take the play off the paper, out of the studio, and onto a stage.

Egads!

During the summer Chan and Steve called in every chit they had stockpiled over the years. There was a show to do, and there was no money.

The core group who developed the show came together at that time, and has tirelessly donated their services without financial recompense. Director Rod Caspers, Choreographer Ann Presley, Set Designer Kim Chandler, and Producers Scott Ihrig and Elliott Forrest, along with Chan and Steve designed the show, cast it, and somehow found a way to do quite a lot with very little.

The set design, which features rolling beds and grilles that create the prison feel, coupled with the casting of two actor/stage manager/stage hands was a stroke of brilliance, and given the constraints the show had to be able to work within, was a necessary stroke of brilliance.

The show would live or die on the scene changes.

Elliott Forrest donated the Riverspace in Nyack as a rehearsal camp for three weeks, and that’s where the dirty work happened, most of it without yours truly, as I was brought in for the last week of Nyack rehearsals - when the band arrived - to take my self-appointed place as Band Bitch.

It’s one thing to put on a musical, such as West Side Story, or My Fair Lady. They’ve been worked through. We know how they work, and we know what works within them.

It’s quite another story to develop a new one. There is no reference.

That is why it has been amazing for me to see this thing come to life, as it truly has, before my very eyes.

The other core member of the Slammer! creative team is Chip Dolan, Musical Director, and my own personal feudal lord. Chip took Chan’s arrangements and brought them to life – with help from our demo, I’m sure!

Chip in turn hired the band: his brother, drummer Bob Dolan, guitarist Gabriel Rhodes, and bassist Mark Spencer.

These guys are seasoned, quality musicians, and they bring the whole show a sense of authenticity rarely heard in musical theater, as well as providing the melodious glue, and thru line during the set changes and fight sequences.

So I spent that week buying guitar strings, batteries, and picks. I set up and broke down the band gear a dozen times, and generally hung around backstage like a real rock n’ roller.

I enjoy that part. It’s familiar. Just another gig, how’s the sound, we need more vocal in the monitor – next?

I can’t say I enjoy the waiting around bit. Never could stand it. I guess that’s another reason I gave up acting. I have no patience for those who don’t ‘get it’ quickly.

Working on the other side, however, has made me see it was I who wasn’t getting it; some shit just takes time to work through, like lighting……

The cast is great, at any rate, and they have been putting in many more hours than I have.

We moved to the venue, the Skirball Theater at NYU (LaGuardia and 3rd), on Friday the 17th of August, and that’s when things got nutty.

The FringeNYC folks do things a bit differently. Slammer! shares a stage with three other productions, and each gets the exact same amount of limited time to tech the show and rehearse on the stage - about six hours. Each production is only given fifteen minutes prior to each performance to set up, and fifteen minutes to strike after the show.

What?

Yep.

So, in fifteen minutes we have to get fifteen people into costume, set the stage, set up the band, mic the band, and mic the actors.

There is no sound check, just a line check – “okay, everything seems to be okay….”

Well it can be done, and it was done in rehearsal, and it was done again on opening night, much to the relief of Stage Manager Chris Munnell, who gets the Tire Tracks Across the Back Award for his work on Slammer!, and Sound Designer Thomas Bergeron, who seems to have kept his hairline intact throughout some hairy moments.

But that’s not the end of my duties. No sir, one must wear a number of hats on the Slammer! gig, and I got appointed to Spot Light #1. My counterpart, Steve Barcus, also known as Spot Light #2, and I jump on a spotlight for the run of the show and listen to Casey McClellan, Lighting Designer, whisper cues in our ears that we haven’t yet heard.

With the first show under our belts, the cast is confident, the crew is relieved, and we anxiously await our next three shows.

And then it will be over………

……for now.

This is just the beginning.