(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

I guess you hear the story of Before the Dawn,
Back in eighty-five was when it got born,
When Mike wrote three songs and Zander wrote another,
And soon it involved every filker and his brother.

Or sister. Or wife. Or Warlord's daughter's music teacher's cat.

Well, they came up with this great big sprawling saga
And to work out the plot would drive a man gaga
And I'm not lyin' when I tell you, friend,
It took twenty-five years to make it to the end.

And that was just listenin' to it. So they decided to make a few
judicious cuts. 'Bout forty-seven songs.

Well, Before the Dawn got performed at last,
At a British filk con with an interstellar cast,
There was loud applause for each participatin' bard
And one member of the audience was listenin' hard.

Greek by blood. Born in Iowa. Married in a barn. Guess you know
who I'm talkin' about.

Well, Marilisa was this girl's name,
And she liked what she heard, thought she'd do the same,
She was young and dynamic, a real go-getter,
And she wrote a show that was shorter and better.

Character-driven. Gender-balanced cast. No need for expensive CGI sets.
Just a white balloon, a bench and a papier-mâché rock. A producer's dream.

She called her show Full Moon On The Water,
'Bout three men in a boat and their wives and daughter,
It opened at Cre2c3ndo, the British filk con,
And at the end the applause just went on and on.

Would have gone on longer, but there was the rest of the convention to go and
they needed the room.

So that's the story, from my own lips,
How Before the Dawn got totally eclipsed
By a jewel of a show that was quite unique.
So if you want it done properly--find a Greek!

Seriously. This was the high point of the con, like nothing else. Marilisa wrote, composed and directed a musical of her own, with little or no rehearsal time (the chorus was drafted at the con, as near as I can make out) and a completely original story, and it worked as nearly perfectly as anything under those circumstances could have. By now you'd think I would have been getting used to being blown away, but somehow you never do. The songs were beautiful, the cast beyond reproach and the whole thing genuinely merited the standing ovation it got. (Well, I know I made it from the floor to my feet somehow.)

And when we'd finished applauding, I stood there and I pointed at Marilisa and I said:

"Right!!!"

And I am still sweating cobs about whether I am going to be able to make good on that (implied) acceptance of the (implied) challenge. We'll have to see. I expect a lot of other, more brilliant writers are even now working on their own dramatic oeuvres for next year, and realistically the concom can only stage one or at the most two of those in one weekend. Competition will be stiff. Still, it got a laugh at the time, which was what I was really aiming for.

And then it was time for Heather and Ben's second set.

EDIT: oh, and a special mention for Abi Crook as the daughter. I wonder if her first appearance rang the same bell in pbristow's mind as it did in mine?

Comments

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I slipped into Porkypine mode.