Havisham!

Change of plans! Back in December I found out I won the Arizona Artist Project Award, which is supposed to help fund the development of our next musical. In my proposal, I said I was going to write a musical based on old Parisian folktales. I still want to write that musical eventually, but you have to follow inspiration where it leads you and right now it is leading me to write a musical based on the character Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. I was making headway into the script recently when a computer problem erased about a week's worth of work and sent me back to square one. But that may have been a blessing in disguise, as my vision of the show is continuing to evolve. Here are some of the elements I'm thinking about: - Four actors. I know I'm supposed to write large-cast shows for high schools, but maybe this one will be different. - Bare stage cluttered with props and costumes, but no real set. Very theatrical and fluid. - Steam punk. In Great Expectations, Havisham lives in a decrepit mansion called "Satis House." In my version, she lives on a decrepit air ship! If you're not familiar with the genre, Steam Punk is basically a class of fiction that imagines futuristic steam-based technology in an approximately 19th century setting. An H.G. Wells universe, basically. My favorite reference for the genre is Howl's Moving Castle or some of the earlier movies by Hayao Miyazaki. But what is the sound of steam punk? That is something I had been wrestling with until I visited the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix the other day and saw THIS:


THAT is the sound of steam punk! Maybe mixed with a little bit of Lady Gaga. ;) Here's a giant nickelodeon like that one in action: