Right after the readings in Los Angeles (after regrouping, and taking a couple of weeks off to recharge), Karen and I threw ourselves into a rewrite of the book. One of the benefits of “development” and staged readings is that we have been able to see what's great and what needs more work. Some of the changes we have discovered in the process are minor (a certain line of dialogue doesn’t work and it’s a quick delete or new line replacement) and some of the changes are major. Here’s a good example of one major change we made… We knew, coming out of the readings, that the relationship between Sean and Evan – who never find out they are brothers – was one the audience loved. Every time they were on stage together there was laughter, there were tears, and a real care for that relationship. We knew we needed to go even deeper with their friendship and brotherhood, before the war in Vietnam took its toll on them. We decided to change the entire opening of Act 2 to be a scene between Evan and Sean right after they get shipped out. And Dan Fans will love this… We added a song to that scene; a song that we heard from many of you on Facebook and in emails ranked as one of your favorite Fogelberg songs. THE RIVER. When we began to write that opening scene and we were looking for an appropriate song, I picked up Dan’s first album, hoping something would inspire, and saw The River. After the needle dropped onto the vinyl, I knew we had struck gold. Who would have thunk that Fogelberg would write a Hendrix-like trippy song with a verse like:
“I was raised by a river weaned upon the sky
And in the mirror of the waters, I saw myself learn to cry
As the tears hit the surface, I saw what had been done
I gave feet to my freedom and I did run”
This was part of our hero’s journey! Not only did it work lyrically for Sean to tell Evan about his upbringing, but also the music worked perfectly for the era. Another stroke of luck. We like to think of it as destiny more than luck. Thank you, Dan!
Besides rewriting, we had to decide what the next best step was for Part of the Plan. We were approached by a team of producers – who are currently involved in two successful Broadway shows – and they offered to co-produce a NYC showcase with us. WalkRunFly Productions would help us with casting, finding a director, a theatre, and bringing Broadway “lead producers” and investors to the showcase, the very people that we need on the team for our first commercial production.
We have always known that we need to develop Part of the Plan somewhere outside of New York City first – somewhere like Nashville, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Diego…really anywhere but New York City until we are really ready for a Broadway stage. Since our goal is to tour the heartland and have a long running Broadway show, we don’t want to blow our chances by taking Part of the Plan to the public and NY press too soon. This showcase will provide the Broadway community with the opportunity to become part of the team as investors, which is a critical part of the equation in order to go regional and beyond.
The other half of the equation is finding the right theatre! One of our dear mentors, David H. Bell, gave us a wonderful idea. David has been an artistic director in the world of regional theatre and he currently is a professor at Northwestern University, where he runs the American New Musical Theatre Project, as well as a very busy director in his own right. He told us about a national conference that happens every year where all the regional theatres congregate to exchange ideas, attend seminars etc… Once a year, they are all in the same city, and David suggested that maybe we could arrange a reading for these folks. We were happily surprised to find out that the 2014 TCG conference was happening in San Diego, just a couple of hours down the coast from us! So instead of doing one workshop in LA, as we originally planned, we decided to do TWO showcases – one in San Diego for the regional theatres and one in the fall in NYC for the Broadway theatre people that we need on our team!
Meanwhile, we decided to go back to NYC to begin preparations for the fall. I told Karen we needed at least a month. So with too many suitcases in hand (who knows what the weather was going to be like in NYC in April!) we headed East again to immerse ourselves in the Broadway scene.
Finally, we decided to go into the studio and record some of the POTP music! We thought it would be great to have some of the music, as it exists in the show, as part of our package for producers/investors. It worked out perfectly, because we also promised our Kickstarter Contributors downloads of a few of our songs as part of their “rewards.” Karen and I have decided to share the recording of Leader of the Band from that session with you all! Grammy award-winner Laurence Juber on guitar and Harley Jay singing the lead vocals. It can be found on the website, under the Project Elements tab, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed recording it!!!
As always, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to write to us through this website’s contact page, or leave a comment below; as well as on Facebook.
Until next time… where we will fill you in on April in NYC and the San Diego showcase…Ever On!
-Kate Atkinson
“I was raised by a river weaned upon the sky
And in the mirror of the waters, I saw myself learn to cry
As the tears hit the surface, I saw what had been done
I gave feet to my freedom and I did run”
This was part of our hero’s journey! Not only did it work lyrically for Sean to tell Evan about his upbringing, but also the music worked perfectly for the era. Another stroke of luck. We like to think of it as destiny more than luck. Thank you, Dan!
Besides rewriting, we had to decide what the next best step was for Part of the Plan. We were approached by a team of producers – who are currently involved in two successful Broadway shows – and they offered to co-produce a NYC showcase with us. WalkRunFly Productions would help us with casting, finding a director, a theatre, and bringing Broadway “lead producers” and investors to the showcase, the very people that we need on the team for our first commercial production.
We have always known that we need to develop Part of the Plan somewhere outside of New York City first – somewhere like Nashville, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Diego…really anywhere but New York City until we are really ready for a Broadway stage. Since our goal is to tour the heartland and have a long running Broadway show, we don’t want to blow our chances by taking Part of the Plan to the public and NY press too soon. This showcase will provide the Broadway community with the opportunity to become part of the team as investors, which is a critical part of the equation in order to go regional and beyond.
The other half of the equation is finding the right theatre! One of our dear mentors, David H. Bell, gave us a wonderful idea. David has been an artistic director in the world of regional theatre and he currently is a professor at Northwestern University, where he runs the American New Musical Theatre Project, as well as a very busy director in his own right. He told us about a national conference that happens every year where all the regional theatres congregate to exchange ideas, attend seminars etc… Once a year, they are all in the same city, and David suggested that maybe we could arrange a reading for these folks. We were happily surprised to find out that the 2014 TCG conference was happening in San Diego, just a couple of hours down the coast from us! So instead of doing one workshop in LA, as we originally planned, we decided to do TWO showcases – one in San Diego for the regional theatres and one in the fall in NYC for the Broadway theatre people that we need on our team!
Meanwhile, we decided to go back to NYC to begin preparations for the fall. I told Karen we needed at least a month. So with too many suitcases in hand (who knows what the weather was going to be like in NYC in April!) we headed East again to immerse ourselves in the Broadway scene.
Finally, we decided to go into the studio and record some of the POTP music! We thought it would be great to have some of the music, as it exists in the show, as part of our package for producers/investors. It worked out perfectly, because we also promised our Kickstarter Contributors downloads of a few of our songs as part of their “rewards.” Karen and I have decided to share the recording of Leader of the Band from that session with you all! Grammy award-winner Laurence Juber on guitar and Harley Jay singing the lead vocals. It can be found on the website, under the Project Elements tab, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed recording it!!!
As always, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to write to us through this website’s contact page, or leave a comment below; as well as on Facebook.
Until next time… where we will fill you in on April in NYC and the San Diego showcase…Ever On!
-Kate Atkinson
 Home Free! (The River!) |  Arranger Victor Vanacore and Recording Engineer Matt Pakucko |
 Steven Good and Robin DeLano "Make Love Stay" |  Power of Gold! |
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