Sci-Fi Musicals Double Feature April 2026

On this Double Feature we discuss some of our favorite films related to sci-fi musicals and we speak with our guest Kit Goldstein Grant who shares several of her sci-fi musicals with upcoming readings and news.

Show Notes:

• Kit's websites 
  • kitgoldstein.com
  • paperkitearts.com
• PGE Event (Kit's show on May 2) 
• Verse Intro Cabaret (May 3)

Transcript

Welcome And Double Feature Setup

SPEAKER_03 0:09

All right. Hi everyone. Welcome back. We are here with our Sci-Fi Musicals double feature podcast for April. We are your hosts. I'm Andy Lee Carter. And I'm Jonathan Lynch. So our double feature episodes are when we talk about all the stuff that's happened in between when we first recorded our episode and what's going on now, with maybe updates on our guests, updates on the shows we talked about, and a chance to talk with new writers who are writing sci-fi musical theater right now, today.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

We do have a great musical theater writer coming on the show today. So tune in for that, definitely. It's a loose format. We're just going for it. We're flying by the seat of the pants.

Amazing Digital Circus Goes Musical

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I got one bit of news. So there is an indie animation thing called the Amazing Digital Circus. And for a while it was just like hijinks in this like digital world, very like mid-90s, late 90s, like graphic textures and things like that. A little bit creepy, a little bit fun. And then in the most recent episode of it, the sort of main villain of it sings a big musical theater song about how they are going to torment everybody involved in this digital circus space. So I think that definitely qualifies it as a musical. It's also based on the short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, which is this very like dark science fiction work set in a future where there is one robot who is controlling everything in the world and leaves six people alive to torment them for all eternity. The big announcement has come up that the final episode of this show will air in the movie theaters coming up in June. I mention this now because people are predicting that these tickets are going to be selling out. So if this is a thing that you're interested in experiencing in the movie theaters and supporting indie animation that also has musical theater tendencies to it, I would suggest getting your tickets now for it. And no, we are not paid by the Amazing Digital Circus or Glitch Productions or anything like that. But we're willing to be. Though if Glitch did want to sponsor us, please do. There's some controversy about it going into big theaters, like contractual negotiations that had to happen with it. I'm I'm all in favor of it though. Let's get the let's get these people the success that they should have. The Amazing Digital Circus, wild science fiction show coming out in theaters in June. So if you want to go see it, buy your tickets now.

Superman Updates And Supergirl Hype

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Some updates on the Superman musical. As far as I can see, there's nothing playing right now that's being licensed regionally, but there was a recent production in Long Beach, I believe that's California, that just closed in March. So it's being done a lot, I think. And keep your eyes out on the interwebs to see if you if it's a show that you're interested in seeing or maybe being a part of. It seems like local companies are doing it. Related to Superman, we have the Super Girl movie coming out, which is directed by Craig Gillespie. That's coming out June 26th to movie theaters. And we just love the DC universe now. It's James Gunn's universe, and we're all just living in it. That's right. We love that James Gunn's in charge and he's and Peter Saffron. They're really doing an amazing job.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

And we all love the Superman movie. We're looking at the Supergirl movie now as being like weird and wonderful, and like seeing the James Gunn influence on the project, like Guardians of the Galaxy or something.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

I really liked Millie Alcock's cameo in the Superman movie, and it made me really excited to see the Supergirl movie as well. I don't believe it was a musical, but I'm sure because it's James Gunn, music is always an important part of the storytelling.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I'm very excited about it too.

James Gunn And Musical Storytelling

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I secretly think that James Gunn is right on the cusp of creating musical theater when he creates his movies. And that is because of the way that he uses the pre-existing musical material to illustrate character and to show character growth and change as these movies go on. There's a very specific thing from Guardians of the Galaxy One that I will teach to my students when I talk about what it means to like have music in a musical, like the sort of musical theater realm. And I'll say that Star Lord is on this desolate alien planet, and it's ruins and it's dark, and there are like spouts of like volcanic activity coming up and like weird alien lizards crawling around. And Star Lord, he puts on his headphones and hits his walkman, and then it's the music starts going, it's come and get your love. And he's dancing around all the obstacles, and he's the coolest guy in the universe at this point. And he like picks up a lizard and uses it as a microphone. He like uses his jet boots to go across a chasm, and he is so cool. And I say that is what music in a musical is. If this were in real life, it wouldn't be like that at all. And then I will refer to Avengers Endgame, where they go back in time, and we see that scene from two other characters' perspective. And Star Lord is a big doofist. He like puts on this stuff. They can't hear the music. Yeah. He's like singing out of tune and like he's stumbling along. And he's just like, he's this ridiculous clown. And they're like, really, this guy is a hero? This guy is gonna be a guy who's gonna like help save the universe. The scene in Guardians of the Galaxy is what's happening in a musical. And it's a moment of heightened reality where we get to see the characterization come forth and we see it in a way that is very unrealistic. But in the second time we see it, when it's the other character's perspective, that's what would really be happening in real life if the character were even singing at all. And that is it's not heightened, it is just the reality of the situation. It's some character doing karaoke on some weird alien planet.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

And also like the way that he uses music, especially in Guardians of the Galaxy, in the opening moments with like Groot dancing, and also in the final battle of the first movie is also a musical number. I think that it's definitely adjacent to what we do in musical theater with music and dance, and how when characters can no longer speak, they must sing, and when they can no longer sing, they must dance. So it's very west side story to me. Very, yeah. Right on par. They're doing the same thing, really. Yeah, yeah. Less snapping, but same idea. Yeah. Let's

SpongeBob Licensing And Why It Works

SPEAKER_03 6:46

see. Then we've got SpongeBob. We talked a little bit about is SpongeBob licensed? And yes, I found out it is. Hooray! It's been licensed. I don't know who was licensed when we were talking about it then, but it definitely has been open to licensing for a while now. And in fact, the accompanist for my chorus here in Central PA has done a production of it recently. Awesome. Great. Yeah. So I know for sure that there are local schools, there are regional community theaters doing the show, and I think I found some yes, there is a company in New York in probably Long Island. Northport. Do you know how that is?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

I know Northport. Yeah, is that the Engaman Theater?

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Community Playhouse of Northport.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So I worked on a show at the Engaman Theater in Northport. Northport's a lovely town. I had a wonderful time working at the Angaman. And so I gotta believe that it is a thriving little theater spot out there in Northport.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Yeah, so it is running April 24th through May 3rd. So if you're in Long Island or near Long Island and you want to check it out, get your tickets at the community playhouse of Northport. That's the only one that I can find that's happening like now-ish. But again, I know it's been done amongst many schools and community theaters. So it's out there and it's just very exciting because it's such a great message. The music is so fun. I was asked last night what my favorite musical is, and I said SpongeBob. Nice. Which is true. I've already verified that via my Spotify playlist. You can show the receipts. I know it sounds silly to say that SpongeBob the musical is one of the best musicals out there, but I am someone that I hope can speak with some authority as a longtime fan and theater person and writer, that I'm not just blowing smoke. I really do love this show, and I think it's one of the best shows out there. And I think that people really missed out when they said, oh, it's just SpongeBob.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

This might be a controversial take on my part, but I believe that everything that gets to Broadway has something really neat about it. Like you can take the, especially in the past 30 years, because it's so hard to get something to Broadway. But it means that somebody with millions and millions of dollars, or some corporation with millions and millions of dollars, have believed that there's something worthwhile enough to invest all of that money on it and put it up and get other people to see it. What a great wealth of choice that we have through this history of this art that we can say, hey, all of these shows have a lot of quality to them. And this one in particular is one that really speaks to me, one that I really particularly enjoy. Great.

Across A Crowded Room Announcements

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Also, I wanted to talk about our guest, Doug Reside. We mentioned you gotta check out his book on Oxford University Press. I'll put the link again in our show notes. To reiterate, it kind of reprogrammed how I feel about musical theater history.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Go check it out.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

The other thing I wanted to mention is the program that we talked about that both Jonathan and I have participated in for many years called Across a Crowded Room is happening again soon. Jonathan, can you give us the details on that?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yes, I certainly can because I have a musical that will be going up at this next round of Across a Crowded Room. Wow, cool. Yeah, yeah. It is going to be on May 30th. And right now it's tentatively from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. They might be adjusting that time frame a little bit as we get closer and we find out how many different shows are going to be presenting that day. I love Across a Crowded Room. I've called it Summer Camp for Musical Theater in the past. I will continue to call it that in the future. It's so fun. The show that I'm writing, it's called Enemies to Lovers. And the premise of it is that there is a romance novelist who's having problems getting her heroine to do the things that she needs to do for the romance genre to work. It's a 20-minute musical, but it's like the split plot thing going on between the real world, well, the one with the writer is in, and then this fantasy world that's a little bit over the top, very like a court of thorn and roses thing. And I'm writing it with an amazingly talented word person named Rebecca Regan. It's the first time that I've worked with her. I hope to be working with her much more in the future, though, because she's very talented and very nice to work with.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Awesome. And yeah, you should definitely go check that out, end of May, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. And it's totally free. So as library programs are.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Just get your tickets early because it does it looks like it sells out, but there are always seats available because people come and go. So if you try to get a ticket, if you're in town, you try to get a ticket and it isn't available and you really want to come see it, don't give up. Just go there anyway. It should be okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Yeah. It's a big auditorium where they hold the performances and it's more like reading, right? It's not like a full out production.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah, we'll all have music stands. So there will there will be microphones. Some people track their shows, but for the most part, they're just like playing on piano. And there are moderators there, people who comment about the shows that they saw and give good feedback about it.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

They're usually people like who are very well known in the industry. Sometimes we have David Henry Huang or Michael John Lachusa, people that are friends of the library, but also important Broadway playwrights.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

We've had producers on there, we've had agents on there, we've had like literary critics on there, we've got artistic directors of theaters, directors, dramaturgs, publishers, all kinds of people come to give the good advice about it.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Yeah. And so it's also a great chance to network and meet not only other writers and actors, but these people that are really in the industry and doing it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

And I'm not just saying that because my show is going up. Come see him anyway. I'm legitimately invested in this program, regardless of what I do in it.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Yes, you just happen to be part of it, but because you've done it for years, but we're supporting it because it's an amazing program. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Not only the president, I'm also a client. Is that does that date me thinking about that? That makes me very old, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Yes, maybe. I just saw uh

Lost Boys Musical And Vampire Season Tease

SPEAKER_03 13:20

someone talking about the Dr. Zitzmore ads on the subway. But yes, but speaking of New York, if you happen to be in New York, there is an exciting new sci-fi vampire musical that just opened called The Lost Boys. Yeah, which is based on the movie of the same name from the 80s, starring Keeper Sutherland and the Coreys, Corey Haymes and Corey Feldman, amongst others. And gosh, I don't know if I saw the movie because I was a little young to watch it back then, but I'm very familiar with the lore of the movie. And so I I heard that the musical is good. I've seen people with their little playbill photos at previews and shows. And so I'm very interested to hear some of the songs and hear more about it. What do you think, Jonathan?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I don't know that much about this. I didn't see it either when it was out in the theaters. I remember it coming out, but I just thought, eh, I'm not something little Jonathan Lich is particularly interested in right then. And I've seen a few clips on TikTok, but it doesn't show that much. It's maybe eight bars, sixteen bars of a song. They sound great. It's big and angsty and and sexy vampires. And what more can you ask for?

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Yeah. We're gonna be talking about vampire musicals next season. So this is a little taste. So to speak. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Oh, yes. I'm rooting for it because I need there to be a successful vampire musical on Broadway, a commercially successful vampire musical on Broadway.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yeah. So I just looked up the writing team and it's The Rescues, which is an indie pop rock band who wrote the music. And the book is by David Hornsby and Chris Hawk. But do you know who David Hornsby is? Yes. Like from Always Sunny, from Mythic Quest, like that David Hornsby, like brilliant comedian, comic genius guy, that's good news. Yeah. So I didn't realize it's described as a comedy horror cult classic. So yeah, I'm super, even though I haven't seen the movie, maybe I'll watch the movie, maybe I'll watch the movie and go see the musical. Maybe I'll do what I did with Legally Blonde and watch the musical first and then watch the movie. But to me, I'm very interested in this musical. It sounds really fun and I've like I said, I've heard good things about it, and it's on my list of shows that I want to see. If that sounds like interesting to you, make sure you check it out if you're in New York. It's at the palace. Yeah. And Lost Boys is a reference to Peter Pan, even though it's about vampires. Right. So I was confused at first. I was like, is this a Peter Pan musical or is it about the movie? And then I found out that it was both. So I really need to watch the movie. All right.

Project Hail Mary As Unofficial Musical

SPEAKER_03 16:23

So speaking of movies that are awesome and that I did watch and you did watch, I really want to talk about Project Hail Mary because it's something that I know both of us love the story. I know we've both read the book and we saw the movie, and um we feel like it's relevant to talk about because no spoilers, but there is singing in the movie, so it counts. And it reveals character. So I say it is unofficially a sci-fi musical. There is singing, so boom, it's a musical. Yeah. And I just wanted to talk about some of the sci-fi-ness of it, and we can talk about how music works in the movie as well. And I also wanted to say that I would like to write the musical version of this. So if Ryan Gosling, if you're listening, uh or Andy Weir, give me a call. I'm here, I'm ready. I already said I want to write the Martian musical, which is true. So I'm willing to write any musical version of an Andy Weir story.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Just call me. So what a musical that I'm writing right now, it's called How to Live in a Vacuum. Like with a lot of the musicals that I write, there are like three or four or five parents of the musical. It's like these sort of seed ideas that I like intertwine with other ideas to make something just like really cool and original and neat. So How to Live in a Vacuum, there are a bunch of parents to it, a few that I will never publicly talk about. But one of the big influences on it are the Andy Weir novels, and in particular Project Hail Mary, because it's about a stranded astronaut who is like way far out there and not able to get in touch with humanity who is in big danger. My show takes some very big departures from that.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

There's lots of stories like this, like stuck in space, trapped in space. Like it's not a new idea.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

When we talk about hey, like this would be a thing to write a musical on, like, yes. And I wanted to write the musical so badly that I twisted it into my own version of it. But I gotta say that something that, like, if I were writing the musical of Project Hail Mary, uh, I would lean into the tonal language from Rocky.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Yes, because the relationship between Rocky and Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling in the movie, is the core of this story. And not only in the novel, but also they really, like the directors and writers of the screenplay and the movie, really figured out that is what we wanted to watch on film. Although we do, uh, as hard sci-fi nerds who read the book, do miss some of that cool science-y stuff that they had to gloss over in the film.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah, and I understand why they had to gloss over the science-y stuff.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Yeah, because originally I think the cut was like what over three hours long or four, almost four hours long. And so they release the four-hour cut. The producers were like, no. So I I understand they had to cut corners there on the scientific stuff, but what they got right for sure was that relationship. And I think it's the same in a musical, you want to make sure that the relationships are forefront and that those are where your song moments are really gonna blossom from what the characters are going through with the other people that are with them in the room or in the spaceship. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Oh, it's so good though.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Yeah, I really and I thought that the way that they did the practical effects instead of relying mostly or only on CGI was fantastic. The way they did the puppetry with Rocky, and I've been seeing a lot of interviews with the puppeteer, James Ortiz. He's just adorable. The puppet is adorable, but James himself is adorable talking about it. And it's just it really also brings another level to the storytelling that I would love to see on stage. I don't know if you've seen clips of or things about Paddington that's happening now on the West End. Paddington is not a puppet per se, but like they've got like someone in a bear suit like on stage, which is just so fun and so interesting. And I think that it would be similar to to see that with Rocky on a stage would be really cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

It reminds me of the my neighbor Totoro show that was going on the West End too, where you've got like these creatures on stage and they're running around and it's brought right out of my dreams about what it should look like.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Yeah, I think it would be a challenge to to get the zero G stuff in there, production-wise, like how to figure out all the floating. Yeah, for example. But because some of that is related to the plot, like whether their gravity's working or not. And some people were mad about the centrifuge moment where it wasn't balanced. But yeah, I think overall, especially in the book, the science is really if we do the tech check on this movie and the book, it basically gets a 10 out of 10, even though it's set in a future and uh in eleven plus light years away, so scientifically grounded. Plausible. Yeah, that it's great to see something like that. It's very exciting. And that it and then it also has a heart because sometimes stuff like that. That can really lose heart. It can really lose like the emotional core when you're getting like too scientist too deep in the weeds with the science.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Look, and I get it. If you've done all of that work, if you've done all of that research, crunch the numbers that much, you want to show off the work. You want to be like, hey, look at all this cool stuff I discovered. And it's really easy for a writer to lose track of, oh, but it's actually about humans. And that is not a problem that Project Artemis uh that Project Hail Mary had. I was gonna say Project Artemis.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Well, Artemis, I know space and people will love it. I mean, we were just the just watched the Artemis II crew splash down the other day, and I was so glad they made it back. Okay, I was worried about that heat shield. Same here, yeah. But that was uh amazing. The fact that we haven't been to the moon since 1972, that's so awesome that we get to be in this moment of history. Like you and I were not alive at that time. This is the first time in our lifetimes that we got to see humans travel to the moon. That's incredible to me. I can't believe that we did that.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

It really brings out the wonder and just the sheer joy in science that we can do this, that we can that we can figure out how to do these marvels. Send somebody, send a small capsule of people around the moon. That is so cool.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Yeah, and we're gonna hopefully keep going with that. And again, NASA, call me, I'll write that musical. That was just so heartwarming. It really, in a time that the world is not really in a super great place right now, it's just really heartening to see like a little bit of joy bringing people together over the trip to the moon.

Kit Goldstein Grant Joins The Show

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I'm so pleased to be bringing you a very special guest today. She's an incredible writer, book, music, lyrics, does it all, and very germane to this show in particular, has a lot of projects that are sci-fi, fantasy, speculative, all kinds of things like that. I've worked with her in a whole bunch of different ways in many different capacities, music director, collaborator, probably a bunch of other things too. I'm so pleased to present Kit Goldstein Grant. Hey Kit, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 24:20

I'm good. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yes, welcome, Kit. So you have a dozen projects going on at any time. And I like I really appreciate that. I'm also somebody who needs a lot of projects going on all at once to feel that like nice forward momentum. Same. We're in good company on this podcast. Yeah. What you're working on right now that's particularly interesting or things

Animatronic Pizza Arcade Musical Preview

SPEAKER_01 24:45

that you got coming up. We'd love to hear about it.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

So, my next thing coming up is a show called Copilia at the Animatronic Pizza Arcade. Oh. And it is based on a French ballet copilia, and it's set in a 1985 Chuck E. Cheese style pizza arcade, pizza video game arcade, and it's got a lot of fantasy, supernatural sci-fi sort of elements in it. And it's something I'm working on with I'm Booking Lyrics on this project, working with UK composer Lucas Hal Jones. And we have a stage reading coming up. So we are really excited to finally get it on its feet in front of some audience, get some casco in here, have a we have a director, Joey Murray, attached. And it's going to be at this group the playground experiment on May 2nd. So we're zooming ahead toward that.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Do you have a music director as well?

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Funny you should ask, but yeah. Yes, Jonathan Lynch is our music director.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Hey, who's that guy? Music directing, a sci-fi musical? What? No, so out of character. What? Easy decision.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Jonathan's like my go-to MD, and I'm like, this is just uh perfect fit here. So yeah, thank heavens he was a fail.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And happily so.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

So can you tell us a little bit more without too many spoilers? Tell us what happens in this show, maybe about the characters.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

Yeah, so it's about these two kids, Franz and Hilda, and they are there at this Charlie Cheddar's, this restaurant and pizza arcade, and celebrating Franz's 12th birthday. And nobody but his friend Hilda showed up, and he's bummed about that. And then there's this gorgeous ballet dancer, Copelia, who comes on stage here, and he just falls head over heels in love with her instantly. And we've got some sort of high romance falling in love at first sight. And Hilda is not too pleased about this and thinks she's kind of a tomboy. She's not really into ballet, she's into softball, and she's also not ready for Franz to go off and be a grown-up adolescent or whatever, falling in love with people and having it not be her at the same time. So she's not too pleased. And yeah, but then, oh my gosh, I'll give one spoiler because this won't spoil the whole thing. Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Then there's something shifty going on with the pizza rat as well. There's a pizza rat. So, of course, and there's some there's something shifty going on there, and some sci-fi, some sci-fi plans in the works, which I won't go too deep into spoilers here on that. And yeah, and Hilda winds up having to save Franz from a plot. And in the meantime, work through her feelings on growing up and real versus robotic feminine ideals, if that makes any sort of sense.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Awesome, awesome. Yes, I love that. And I believe we have some music clips. We do.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Why don't you tell us about the first clip that we're gonna play?

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Okay, we're gonna hear a little clip from Welcome to Charlie Cheddars, and Charlie Cheddars is the animatronic pizza arcade. This is going to be the animatronics, welcoming the birthday guests to the restaurant.

SPEAKER_06 28:10

Come on in and meet the game for some dope time pizza theater fun! What do you say? Welcome to Charlie Cheddar's where my kid is free to play on a special day. Let's hear a hip hip hip hurray. Welcome to Charlie Cheddar's unbell pizza liter room with the buildings. No multi reins. Welcome to Charlie Cheddar and welcome to your doom.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

As you can see, there's a little bit of foreshadowing here.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Welcome to your doom. That is so funny. And they're very robotic as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Yes, we definitely wanted like robot y voices. The real human being voice there was Nino Rugeri. Um, the fantastic Nino Rugeri. And he's a real person. But then we have our backups are robotic, yes. But on stage, are did you hire robots to play the roles? On stage, we're gonna have real people do it. Yeah. Okay, okay. But with the option to have real animatronics in a future production.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

That would be so cool.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yes. Director's choice and producer and budget's choice.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Big budget, real animatronics.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Yes, exactly, exactly. I hear a lot of people like collect the old Chuck E. Cheese animatronics, reprogram them, and there could be something cool.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

I've heard that. I've seen videos of that. I've seen some of those. It looks really cool. Yeah. Next song, what would you like?

SPEAKER_02 29:39

So A Real Girl is where Franz has seen Copelia and the ballet dancer, and he has just totally fallen head over heels in love with her instantly.

SPEAKER_05 29:49

I go for some Pac-Man. You gotta get on track, man. Stop thinking. While Donkey Kong is eating, I may want to batter, but let's not wait to batter. But now it's time for Frogger.

SPEAKER_06 30:08

I'll skip the arcade. What? For the first real perfect.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

So we had Connor Marsh singing for Franz and Gabrielle Philo for Hilda.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

Oh my god, these lyrics. Are you did you write the lyrics?

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yes, I'm booking lyrics. Yes, I'm booking lyrics on this one. And I forgot to say, of course, that's Hilda being let's go play video games. Forget this ballet dancer.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Oh my god, these lyrics are amazing, like rhyming, Frogger, and Pac-Man, and the rhymes are incredible. I'm obsessed. I'm very into rhymes. It's a bit of a problem. Yeah. No, it's the best problem. It's a feature, not a bug. Yes. So you said there's a lot of video game references, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Yes, lots of video game references. The kids are really into Hilden Franz, they're really into video games and they're going to be playing at an arcade. So there's been a lot of research into what was 1985 arcade arcade games, what was available in the US, etc. Trying to get things right. We'll see. We'll see how I do.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Has your research led you down any fun rabbit holes?

SPEAKER_02 31:22

One thing I didn't know was that Princess Princess Peach from Mario was originally Princess Toadstool, which was a fun reference now in the show. My husband knows a lot more about the 1985 video games, and he definitely was like, check your facts on Princess Peach. I feel like I knew that. And I was like, She was real. I looked it up, and he's like, No, but check her name.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

That sounds familiar. I I forgot about that. But yeah, now that you say it.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

I saw this whole video at one point talking about the evolution of her name. And I think, and please, listeners at home, fact-check me on this one. She was Princess Peach in Japan. But then when they translated it into English, they said she's the ruler of the mushroom kingdom. So clearly she'd be Princess Toadstool. And that's where like you get that from. But then they're like, Oh, but we really like Peach though, that should still be her name. So in Mario 64, okay, I'm really geeking out here. In Mario 64, when in the opening cutscene, she signs her name that she is Princess Toadstool, and then like her nickname is like Peach. And then we're slowly moving into like Peach territory until we get like Jack Black as Bowser singing Peach Peaches Peaches. And no mention of Toadstool in there.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

I do remember as a kid it was Toadstool. I I remember that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Yeah, I'm clearly coming to you too for my research, also from now on. You can fact check me.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yeah, call us anytime. For you listeners at home, I am wearing a Super Mario Brothers t-shirt today. It's a new t-shirt, but it's very vintage style. He's like going for the one-up, and it's lots of fun.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Appropriate. Awesome. Okay, and our last song?

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Yes. So our Pizzerat, who we heard in the opening number saying, Welcome to your doom. Well, there's a bit of a revelation that he's not exactly everything he appears. And in fact, he would much prefer a higher class environment around him, perhaps with some ballet, some opera, etc. And instead he's stuck here with greasy pizza and video games. So we'll hear a little bit of his of his lament on the situation in this next song.

SPEAKER_06 33:29

You may read that I'm a villain who may think that I'm a chump, but I taught her how to play, and I taught her how to jump. Now this daddy's daughter does about it.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

He's basically like Phantom of the Opera, but Phantom of the Pizza Place. I want the immersive version of this one.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Oh my gosh, that'd be terrifying. Let's play the video games and let's have the musical going on around us. I don't think I would ever leave. That would be my happy spot right there.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

Yeah, I'll tell you maybe an embarrassing story, maybe not. I'm not embarrassed. So probably through age, I want to say 15, I had every birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. Quality. Nice. Way too late is what I'm saying. I love Chuck E. Cheese. And then after college, way after college, actually, when I was about 25, 26, I had just moved to a new place and was looking for work. And the only place that I could find that was hiring was Chuck E. Cheese. I was mainly a cashier, but I did one time have to wear the rat outfit. You did? Oh my gosh. And it was that was bad. It was stinky. And I really did not enjoy listening to the same like four songs over and over again. And if I hear since you've been gone on the radio, it's very triggering. But yeah, I love arcades. I love the animatronics. It's a very like core sensory memory for me. And so like this show I'm very excited about. And especially the idea of you getting like real animatronics is just very cool.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Fingers crossed someday.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Yeah. If I had the money to invest, I'd be like, let's do it someday, someday. That'd be so awesome.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah. We're having a lot of fun with this one. It's definitely the sort of thing where I originally we were fitching around ideas to each other with my collaborator Lucas. And like he's he's in the UK and where we don't have Chuck E. Cheese restaurants, right? But like talking about this and getting into the history of Chuck E. Cheese was just so interesting. And then we got off on this tangent, and then we were looking at, oh, but Copilia is so cool. And look, we're interested in like dancing, there's dancing dolls in the original ballet. And I remembered, I had this sudden moment. It was actually really cool because Lucas brought up that ballet after we were talking about a totally different idea. And he was like, Oh, that reminds me about Copilia. And I suddenly remembered that I saw that ballet as a kid and was like obsessed with the dancing doll, which had completely forgotten and I didn't know what it was because it was so long ago. But I just had this image on stage of that dancing doll. And I was like, oh my God, I saw that. I loved it. And I now suddenly it all comes back to me. And so it was just really exciting. And then it was the kind of thing that starts off as a joke. I believe I was actually telling this to my kid, the story of Copilia the Ballet, because I was just like so obsessed after I found out about it. And I have a little kid who, and I was telling it to the story to him and modern updating it things to make it fun for him to hear. And I was like, oh my gosh, and making it kid kiddy a little bit. It's like, oh my gosh, this is actually really funny.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Can you really quick tell the story of Copilia? Because I don't think I know it.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, it's very similar. Swanhilda is the main character's name in that, and it's also a comedic ballet. Her friend Franz totally falls in love with a dancing doll, who he thinks is a real person. And then she discovers similarly to in our show, she's the one who discovers that it's not a real person. There's also evil doctor Copelius, who made the dancing doll and has like nefarious crazy sci-fi plans in 19th century France version of crazy sci-fi plans. And so actually, the story is actually pretty similar. We actually stuck to a lot of the a lot of the originals. And I was also obsessed with this female character, like saving the day kind of stuff. I like figuring out like the guy has just fallen in love with long distance with just what he has as his image of beauty, and her being like, hey, that's not real. That's not a real person. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

It's very Pygmalion, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Yes, very Pygmalion.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I'm also gonna step in for a second and say that the ballet copilia is playing at the Lincoln Center from May 22nd through May 31st. So if you want to see what it's all based on, head over there. The reason I knew about it is because like I usually tend to bike by the Lincoln Center on my way to work, and there's this giant, like, three-story tall poster of dollface copilia there. And I'm like, I wonder if they're doing that. What appropriate timing.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Well, speaking of strong female characters, I hear you have a show

Ukrainian Witch Comedy And Motherhood Song

SPEAKER_03 38:48

about a witch.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Yes, nice transition. So, yeah, so this show is called Christmas Even Dekanka, and it's based on a Ukrainian story by Nikolai Gogol, 19th century Ukrainian-Russian author. He uh uh wrote this wonderful story about the night before Christmas, when in folklore the devil is allowed out from hell to create what mischief he can until the dawn of Christmas Day. And there's this blacksmith who's in love with the beautiful girl, but she won't marry him unless he gets her fancy, unless he gets her fancy shoes like those of the Tsarina by the next morning by Christmas Day. And he's like trying to get those. And meantime, he doesn't know that his mother is actually a promiscuous witch. And so he is, he he knows that she's promiscuous. He doesn't know she's a witch. And he has a iffy relationship with her. And so it's about uh it's a lot about the relationship between the blacksmith and his mother, this wonderful witch character who I am a little obsessed with. And she's just out there trying to live her life and have fun and raise her geese and have a good life. And meanwhile, her son goes around like punching all her fellows who call on her because he's super embarrassed, that super embarrassed by her, because what kid isn't embarrassed by their parent, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:10

And you wrote book, music, and lyrics for this one, yes?

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Yes, this one is I'm book, music, and lyrics on this one. And it's uh yeah, a very loose adaptation. Actually, it's also a mixture of it's set in in the original period, but also got a lot of modern reference sort of stuff going on. It's very meta theatrical narrator narration, etc. People playing multiple parts, fun things like that going on with it.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

And there's a lot of fun with play with people playing multiple parts as well. Oh, yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Yes, yes. Hopefully, like a lot of the witches' suitors are all played by one actor who's just quickly changing yes, and then going to hide in a sack and then secretly sneaking out back and coming in and again as another guy who then has to wind up hiding in the same sack. That's like the my favorite part when I originally read this story was just like how you wind up with all these guys stuck in a sack. So yeah. I just think that's comedy at its best.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

And then do you have any productions coming up or anything happening with this show?

SPEAKER_02 41:13

There are plans. There is not something like actively happening I can write tell you about at the moment, but there are plans with I'm working with actually Theater Now New York, which is the theater lab that all of us here on this podcast are members of. Yes. Yes, we have some plans. And with I work with producer Judith Manacherian, who has been working with me on this show for several years to develop it. We've done a workshop version, a staged reading, a concert version, and we are working toward a full production in the not too far future, and also working with theater now and Judith Manacherian to make that happen. So we are excited to share that with you when it comes.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yes, absolutely. When you've got more firm plans, ones that you can like broadcast to the world, please let us know so we can talk about it on the podcast. So we just want to keep it on the radar, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Yes, you bet.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Okay, so let's hear a couple of songs.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

So the first one is going to be a woman over 40, which is where the witch character who we talked about, she laments how basically if a woman's over 40 and she still has a sex drive, everybody just assumes she's a witch. And she is a witch, but why would you just assume that? Just because she's over 40, come on. And still attractive? Yeah. Yeah. And she also people like assume like she's using charms to make herself more attractive. And come on, our clips were sung by Sierra Rain.

SPEAKER_04 42:40

And a woman over 40 with a sex drive. If she's sensual and charming, then she must have used a charm. Now it just so happens that I used a charm to make pheromones increase. But I use that charm exclusively on geese. That's why I have the biggest flock this side of DeConka. So she uses it for the geese.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Yeah, come on. Why are people assuming this stuff about her?

SPEAKER_03 43:12

Animal agriculture here. Yeah, that's it's misogyny.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

It's misogyny, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Classic.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And the next clip is I'll find you. So this is uh one of the more serious songs toward the end of the show. Her son, the blacksmith, goes missing. And people are starting to say that he's really gone off to he's really looking for those shoes that I mentioned. People are starting to say that maybe he's thrown himself in a lake or something. Maybe something terrible has happened to him. And even though they don't always get along great, she's still his mom. And people are like, Oh, why do you even care? You don't get along well. But she's like, No, this is my kid we're talking about. So we have a little bit of a more serious moment as she's getting her broomstick out and ready to fly and find that kid, even at the risk of people seeing her and Revealing that she is a witch, which is not the best thing to be in your small 19th century city here.

SPEAKER_04 44:07

To the far corners of the universe, I'll fly, I'll fly, let the moon wither and the lightning strike. I'll find you, I'll find you, I see you in the haystack or at the bottom of a lake. But if they think you're in your grave, they've made a grave mistake.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

I think this song is just really beautiful about a mother's love, and I'm sure that you're channeling your own experience.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yes, I did coincidentally have a son around the time I was starting this show and still want to live my own life being not being a promiscuous witch exactly, but writing musicals, which is close enough, you know.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

Yeah, pretty much. And also I love the image of her flying on the broom across the moon, and then everyone like, oh, she's a witch.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Yep. Yeah, I'm so into the larger-than-life situations, the characters that we can do in musicals, and the supernatural and sci-fi lend themselves so beautifully to the drama of musical theater.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

Absolutely. And speaking of things that are large, uh, I believe you have a show about something that on your face that gets rather large.

The Nose Musical And Publishing News

SPEAKER_02 45:27

Yes, absolutely. So this is the show called The Nose. It is actually also based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, although this one is a much more family-friendly adaptation. And actually, something cool with this is this is going to be published soon by Gittleman and Good Publishers. I'm very excited to get it out into the make it available to high schools, community theaters, and so forth. So I'm really thrilled that's coming soon.

SPEAKER_03 45:53

And I feel like I saw this show like 10 years ago, like a long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Yeah, I wrote it a while back. Musicals take a while, man. Yeah. So I wrote it and it was actually, it was at we did it at a theater festival. We did stage reading and then did it at a theater festival, and it did so well there, and actually wound up selling out and being like a New York Times like things to take your kid to this week. So that was really fantastic. And then has been produced like a number of times after that. It was produced at like this big theater, the master theater in in Brooklyn in a big Ukrainian and Russian area, which was just fantastic. And then also it's been produced multiple times in South Africa, which has been really cool to see it go international. And now we found a publishing home, which is great because that'll help it be out to you know more people. And of course, as with all shows, I'm still rewriting, right? You're like, oh my gosh, now that it's getting published, I gotta fix that. Two last things that were on my on my to-do list there.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Musicals are never done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Musicals are never finished. You're just like, oh, there's one little thing I can make better. I gotta do that quick. So yeah. So still doing my little fixes there.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

Yeah. So tell us the story of the nose, real quick.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Absolutely. So we've got this petty bureaucrat whose name is Kovalov, and he always is priding himself on his good looks, and he's trying to make it higher into civil the civil service and get a higher, excuse me, get a higher rank in the civil service. And he's so obsessed with rank and doing better in life. And meanwhile, his servant is like, but you should be nicer to people around you. So he knows what's up here. And he's he winds up making fun of her and it's not very nice for how she looks. And then one morning he wakes up and discovers that his nose is missing. And he has to try to chase down his nose. His nose has gone, it's turned into a person-sized nose. It's dressing up in a more important civil service outfit than he wears. He's trying to pass itself off as a more important person than he is. It's trying to win his girlfriend, and it's running all over St. Petersburg here, trying to be a bigger deal than him. And he's trying to get it to come back on his back on his face where it belongs. And meanwhile, everyone's laughing at him for how he looks now. And the shoe is on the other foot. So it's a family-friendly sort of version of kind of nose running around Petersburg and causing chaos here.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

How did you make the nose costume?

SPEAKER_02 48:26

It's been done a couple of different ways, depending on the production. We had a costumer here in New York who did a nose costume that goes just over the head, and the rest of the outfit is like a civil servant, more important person outfit. And definitely, of course, you need to leave a way that we can hear what they say and that they can see where they're going. And it was more cloth-based. And then in South Africa, they've used a humongous puppet style, more. I don't know if it's paper mache. The maker of that, Margot Wood, made some fantastic structure, which I can't tell you how she did it, but I tell you, I have a picture of it on my fridge. It's like my favorite thing. So I love it. Yeah. They're both fantastic, though. Like it's just been really fun. And kids go crazy to see like a nose on stage. That's a fantastic element. But then it's also got a lot of things for adults in it as well, with like police corruption and civil service, and a newspaper reporter who won't print an ad for a missing nose because who would believe it, but at the same time is can see that there's a nose missing for himself and just is like, eh, we already print a lot of lies. I'm not printing one more. That kind of stuff for grown-ups. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:33

That's hilarious. Okay, so we have some songs here.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

So The Strangest Things sung by Eliya Rode is the opening number, and this is the servant Matroyka who is introducing the world of this show.

SPEAKER_05 49:48

The strangest things are happening all the time. It's a marvel, it's amazing, it's a try aye. I've heard rumors of a hypnotist who put you in a trance, and a chair that decided to dance. A three-pack! Aye, I the world is crazy. Well, maybe crazy too. When snow is flight, there's no use trying to know if what you're seeing is true.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

That's great. I love that. We get the whole theme right there.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

You know, the strangest things are happening in this world.

SPEAKER_03 50:23

That's gonna be stuck in my head for the rest of the week now. And you don't know if what you're seeing is true.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

Absolutely. And the next song, Turpentine Lard and Soap, Graham Stevens singing. So this is when Kavalov, the main character, he goes to a doctor to say, Can you just help me out? I'm missing my nose here. And you must have noses and jars. Can you just paste one on my face? And unfortunately, the doctor cannot just use one of those noses and jars that he has because he's saving those. He won't do that. But he prescribes the same remedy for every single thing that somebody comes to him for. It's his old grandma's favorite remedy.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

If you swallowed your oysters raw and your stomach, you're likely to lose. There isn't a question to cure indigestion. There's only three things to use. Turpentine lard and soap. The three things to try when you've given up hope are turpentine lard and soap.

SPEAKER_02 51:27

So yeah, that's what he prescribes for the missing nose as well, of course.

SPEAKER_03 51:31

It doesn't help. Can't imagine it would. No, that's the kind of doctor you you don't want to go to. All right, kits. So you have so many projects. We can't talk about all of them in detail.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

We're gonna have to bring you back on to talk about more of them, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 51:47

I'll be back. I'm always up for sci-fi and supernatural music. But we are having you come on the verse intro cabaret in May.

Teaching Musical Writing And Dorico Shift

SPEAKER_03 51:56

Yes, I'm coming on May 3rd. I'm so excited. So, what are you bringing to that performance?

SPEAKER_02 52:02

So I'm bringing some songs from a show called Sophia and the Bee Man, which I'm writing with the collaborator Neil Raidish. This show is we've got some supernatural stuff going on in it. We have a B man. He's not a beekeeper, he's a B man. He loves bees, he lives with bees, his life is bees, and he's in this medieval/slash modern day village. And we have this young girl who is a sorcerer, a junior sorceress, and she is trying to transform him into something better than a B man. She does not think being a B man is a good life choice and is interested in doing some transformation here. So we'll be bringing a couple of songs to the to the upcoming cabaret.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

Amazing. So you've got a big weekend coming up in May. You bet.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

I'm not going crazy at all.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

We'll put links to both the PGE event for May 2nd for your Capellia and the animatronic pizza arcade, as well as first intro cabaret on May 3rd, so people can check out your work that's upcoming.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

You can always go to my website, kitgoldstein.com, and you can sign up to be if you'd like to be on my newsletter just to like infrequently hear about things I have going on as they they come up.

SPEAKER_03 53:13

And speaking of things that you do on your website, you also offer services.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

I do. Yeah, I have another website, paperkitearts.com, and I teach musical theater writing on there and related subjects. I have a musical theater writing workshops, which are like live online. I have asynchronous classes on music theory for lyricists specifically, trying to get you up to speed so you can start writing your own music. And I also am hoping to launch a class soon on lyric writing in specifically, which I'm obviously very into lyric writing. Yes, as you can hear. I am planning to do that coming up soon. So yeah, and if you want to sign up for a newsletter for that one, you'll be informed. I also do sometimes all have free classes on musical writing basics to get people. If you're looking to start this, where do you even begin? And I will also have guest teachers come in. Somebody named Jonathan Lynch has come and taught a class on some music notation software, which was incredibly useful for me. I took the class. I was like, I need to host this class because I need to take this class and Jonathan can teach it. Yay! So I took it. It was great. I learned a ton.

SPEAKER_03 54:22

Great. And we will put your website and all your websites in our show notes to make sure that people check those out. And yes, definitely sign up for those classes because if you are someone that is maybe interested in writing musicals or you've started writing musicals and you, you know, don't know where to go next, kit is someone who's an expert clearly in doing that. And she's written so many and can help you write as well. So definitely take advantage of that opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

I also love that they're over Zoom and that they're asynchronous as well, because so often there are resources available to musical theater writers in major urban centers. So if you're in New York, there are a bunch of workshops that you can do, a bunch of labs you can do. There are resources devoted to that. If you're in LA, there are some. If you're in London, there are some. But if you're like in the middle of, say, Pennsylvania, if you're in the middle of Idaho and you want to be a musical theater writer, like there are harder communities to get a hold of, let alone educational opportunities and workshops and ways to be supported in your art. So we need more things like this for sort of the democratization of the art form. So thank you, Kit, for doing what you do.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Yeah, that's absolutely I love that I have people taking my classes who are in like Luxembourg in Europe, and we have like people in Canada who account in your major center and people in California and areas that you don't have this kind of thing available in the middle of the country, Utah, like every place. And we're all able to be friends who have never sometimes never met in real life and who can like share this wisdom like farther from where we have to be geographically. And also I usually have a mixture of that you can do on your own time and have some live coaching, or you can be fully different versions of it so that there's like different options for people and their learning styles. Because I know with the Jonathan's class, I was like, I need somebody to give me homework, or I'm never gonna learn this.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

We had a lot of assignments in that class, and then in the class, we'd also like, in addition to these are things that you need to know, it's like what problems did you have along the way encountering these things? What can we talk about? How can we help you through these things? And there were a lot of moments where I had to be like, hey, this is a very interesting problem. I'm going to get back to you next week about how to fix it. Because Dorico is as much as I'm very comfortable with Dorico, and as much as I'm like great leading a bunch of people on how to do things on Dorico, it's still pretty new to all of us, really, that we only like when the shift happened away from finale to Dorico. Maybe I should explain for a second for our listeners at home.

SPEAKER_03 57:00

We're getting technical here. Yeah, I was gonna say this is kind of in the weeds.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

So if you're writing sheet music, you gotta use a computer program to do that. You can use something like Logic, which is the sort of recording software that does stuff like that, but it's insufficient for what a lot of people need for their music writing. And then I'm talking about like the dots on the page kind of music writing, not like MIDI, not like a demo, not like guitar tablature or anything like that, where or lead sheets or things like that. It's like that sort of traditional Western European style dots on the staves kind of writing. And over the years there have been a number of different kinds of specialized software devoted to this, like Sibelius, like MuseScore. The industry standard for the musical theater community in America for years had been a program called Finale. It was one of the first programs out of the gate, and a lot of people really drew on to it, and it developed a big community around how to get what you need out of the program for your needs as a writer. So, what, two years ago, three years ago, Finale announced that it would stop updating its software, which is basically anybody who announces that they're gonna stop updating their software means slow death of the software. Because pretty soon as other systems update, like Mac operating system, like Windows, it will make certain features in those softwares just goka put, like will not work anymore. So, what Finale did though is it said, hey, all of our users, you should all probably navigate to this other kind of music software and program called Dorico. And Dorico has a complicated history. It started when a bunch of people who were like formed Sibalius, which is another big music writing program, left the Sibalius organization and started from scratch for this program that was designed to also be integrated smoothly with things like iPads and other modern-day computing technology and things like that. So finale said, hey, all of you need to go to Dorico. And Dorico is a great program. It does a lot of things that are really intuitive and very easy to navigate, but there is a change. Like anybody who is very used to using finale suddenly having to switch to this new program for everything, that's a lot, no matter how easy it is using that other program. And I know people who like were using finale when it first came out, or like the beta testers on the program who've literally been using this for decades and decades. And now they're like, I'm not learning a new software program. What the heck? As easy and simple as it is. Clearly, there was a need for people to understand this new program. And I happily stepped in because I have to do a lot of notation. And I just I'm an early adopter, yeah. And it was during one vacation where like I sat around, I had to do a transcription for some music directing work, like something needed to get transposed. And I said, okay, look, I'm just gonna sit around. I've got the time to spend 12 hours figuring out this one piece of music. Let's go. And that's how that's how I figured it out. And then from there, I got very good at the software. And I'm like, hey, I could teach a class in this. So it's cool that Kit came to me about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

Yeah, and I think one of the big things for me is like trying to find community around learning as well. And so being like, I I know people can sit and watch a lot of YouTube videos about this. And I know there are resources available, but like we want some sort of community and somebody we can talk to about it. And when you get frustrated instead of having to go on a forum and type a long thing and then have a lot of people tell you, like, hey, why don't you just read the manual, dummy? Just go on Reddit. Exactly. Like somebody who you can go to who you know is there to help you guide you through it. And sometimes might even say to you, hey, that's weird, and confirm, yeah, you had a weird experience, and then help you like navigate like how to fix that because it's so frustrating, especially once you're into actually like doing something creative that has a deadline, and you just want to be creative and meet your deadline. You do not want to be like stopping every five seconds to look up how you do something and feel on your own. It's a lot is about like finding community with each other as we learn all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

And there would be a lot of times in the classes too, where somebody would bring up an issue and somebody else in the class said, Oh, I had this issue and this is how I got through it. And I'm like, Yes, community, love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

Exactly. Group community, community. Yeah. So we do a lot of that in my classes, like trying to build community and find other people to work with on who have similar challenges, whether it's on musical theater writing, lyric writing, composing, the software, whatever issue it is, like self-producing everything. We've had self-producing classes, things like that as well. Yeah, with yeah, and hopefully we'll bring more things in the future because there's always more to learn in this field.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

Absolutely. And we hope to build a community here with our sci-fi musical podcast, and we have the blog, which on my blog we wrote about Christmas in

Patreon Community Plans And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

Dakanka.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

Yes. Yay.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

And so, like, we love bringing in new musical theater writers, and we have our Patreon, which we're hoping to build as a place where we're starting a community. You can join as a free member to get more content about the podcast, get episodes early, but also we have a Discord. Maybe we should start like a Facebook group or something. I don't know. Is Facebook cool anymore? I don't think so. But yeah, that's a goal for us too, is to have this community that Kit is building as well. So, and someday, Jonathan and I want to do live shows. Live shows where we feature works from old and new sci-fi musicals.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:28

Yay!

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

All right, well, thank you so much for being with us today, Kit. It's been an absolute joy and pleasure as always. And we'll of course we'll have to have you back because you have so many more shows to talk about. We didn't talk about the new mother. Like you send us all these shows, and we're like, we got to like three and a half.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

I'll be back. I'll be back. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

Okay. Great.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

Don't worry, I can't stop. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

It's fine. And by then you might have another five shows we can talk about too.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:55

Oh god, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

I hope not. My calendar hopes not. But thank you so much. It's so much fun to be here. And to I'm just like delighted that you are doing this project on this subset of musical theater. So it's just like really cool to see to see this podcast growing. So yay!

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

Thank you. Thank you very much. And that's it for today. Thank you, everybody. And in particular, thank you to our guest, Kit Goldstein Grant, and for sharing all of her cool projects with us.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:25

Yes. And if you want more information about Kit and what she's up to, and all that stuff will be in our show notes. And you can follow us on all the socials. We've got Instagram, TikTok, the other ones, Facebook. The other ones. We are at Sci-Fi Musicals on the socials. And please be think consider becoming a Patron on our Patreon for exclusive content and more. And thank you for supporting the podcast and for listening and giving us those five-star ratings and comments. We see you. And we will be back next time with our episode on spaceships.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:11

How appropriate.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:12

Featuring Via Galactica and Earth Girls Are Easy. And our guest will be my collaborator, Brianna Harris. Yay. Make sure to tune in next time, and we'll see you then. Thank you, everybody. Bye.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:28

Bye.