This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Joe Barros: The music of tomorrow is being written today.

[0:10] Joe Barros: The music of tomorrow is almost ready to play.

[0:18] Joe Barros: Experience the musicals of tomorrow today.

[0:21] Joe Barros: Get a glimpse inside the blueprint of an original musical being developed in real time.

[0:26] Joe Barros: With New York Theatre Barn's podcast, The Musicals of Tomorrow.

[0:32] Joe Barros: The music of tomorrow.

[0:40] Joe Barros: I'm Joe Barros.

[0:42] Jen Sandler: And I'm Jen Sandler.

[0:44] Joe Barros: And we're the hosts of The Musicals of Tomorrow.

[0:46] Joe Barros: As the Artistic Director and Associate Artistic Director of New York Theatre Barn, we make space to speak in community with musical theatre writers and their creative teams.

[0:56] Joe Barros: Lifting up songs from original culture-shifting musicals in development and introducing them to a global audience has become a major part of New York Theatre Barn's evolving story.

[1:06] Joe Barros: Each original musical's intention, content, and journey are unique and extraordinary to the storytellers who create them.

[1:14] Joe Barros: We believe that there is no formula for musical theatre except authenticity.

[1:20] Joe Barros: We recently spoke with the creators of An Incomplete List of All the Things I'm Going to Miss When the World is No Longer, Dante Green and Lyle Hintz, and the writer of Garden of Starflowers, Masi Asare.

[1:30] Joe Barros: Our first musical is An Incomplete List of All the Things I'm Going to Miss When the World is No Longer, which has book, music, and lyrics by Dante Green and additional music and lyrics by Marlee Gordon and Lyle Hintz.

[1:43] Joe Barros: Following a global announcement of the date and time Earth will be terminated, a community decides that the only reasonable thing to do is to gather together.

[1:51] Joe Barros: An Incomplete List invites you into a glance at the last shitshow ever through a retrospective of cherished and tragic memories to celebrate and mourn the delights and deceptions of the human experience.

[2:03] Joe Barros: And now, here's our conversation with the writers of An Incomplete List of All the Things I'm Going to Miss When the World is No Longer, Dante Green and Lyle Hintz.

[2:13] Jen Sandler: So welcome, we're excited to talk to you about your show. Dante, you are a writer and composer of the shows Johnny and Skid Go to the Moon and Levi's Big Leap. You're also a musical director and community organizer and you're the founding artistic director of the Makers Ensemble, which is awesome. Your work has been seen at Ars Nova, the Public Theater, Pig Iron Theater Company, Fringe Arts, the Wilma Theater, and the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.

[2:37] Jen Sandler: Lyle, you are a true multi-hyphenate artist that seems to have his hand in many theatrical pots. You're a writer, visual media designer, and director. Your work has been presented with the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble, Philadelphia French Festival, Painted Bride Art Center, and Interact Theater Company. Your work has also been nominated for the Barrymore Award for Media Design.

[2:57] Jen Sandler: So Dante and Lyle, what inspired you to tell this dystopian end-of-the-world story? And why have you chosen to make the action celebratory in the wake of destruction?

[3:09] Dante Green: So when Lyle and I first started talking about this show, it sort of came out of inspiration from a different play called When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell. And it premiered at the Wilma Theater a couple years ago. And after seeing that show, I was just so obsessed with the ideas that the show was talking about, which were climate change and also this multi-generational family and how their family struggles sort of mapped onto the climate change issue that was happening in the world of this play.

[3:45] Dante Green: And so Lyle and I started to have a lot of conversations about these ideas of climate change. And also a conspiracy theory started to get roped into there because I think conspiracy theories always come up when we start talking about what's going to happen at the end of the world. Yeah, from there we really started putting together this piece that was very from a place of home and from a place of community. But it also was during the first year of the Trump presidency and there was a lot of stuff going on in the world that just didn't really feel great. But what felt really great was getting into a room together and making stuff together. And so I think that's why we decided to focus on the celebration a little bit more because we really needed each other to be celebrating in order to make the thing happen, if that makes sense.

[4:33] Lyle Hintz: Of course, and I think that's how we got to where we are now. I think it was us all realizing what went wrong and we had to be together to make it right.

[4:40] Dante Green: Absolutely.

[4:41] Jen Sandler: So how did you two end up collaborating together?

[4:43] Dante Green: Yeah, so Lyle and I actually met when we were in high school. I think I was actually in middle school at the time and Lyle was in his first year in high school. And we were really into the musicals. We were really into the singing competitions in high school. And our artistic journey stayed really tightly knit over the following years. And we ended up both going to school together in Philadelphia. And from there, once we were both in college, the magic started happening.

[5:14] Dante Green: We were in a band together as well. And I think that's where the music that we had collaborated on in this musical in particular is actually music that is from when we were in a band together that actually made its way into this show. And so our collaboration has definitely been multifaceted and is always expanding.

[5:35] Lyle Hintz: It was interesting. We knew each other in high school. We both moved to Philly, but we went to separate universities. So our collaboration when we were in school was basically outside of our time in college. So I wasn't ever in a class with Dante, but we did hang out afterwards and figure, like, hey, let's throw our show in the Fringe Festival. Might as well do that.

[5:56] Dante Green: Might as well.

[5:59] Lyle Hintz: Yeah, our collaboration was kind of like another thing that we could do, like an extracurricular of sorts, but we forced it upon ourselves.

[6:07] Dante Green: Absolutely.

[6:08] Jen Sandler: What I'm also getting from your show is that there's this essence of we need to celebrate and explore the destruction in order to repair a lot of the damage. And it's like if we survive, we'll be changed. If we don't, it'll be a great party.

[6:25] Dante Green: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[6:28] Dante Green: And I feel like also that was like everybody right before the pandemic, too. It was like, let's get our party in and then we're all going to go away for who knows how long. And, like, coming out of it, I'm sure we'll probably see something very similar.

[6:41] Lyle Hintz: I think so.

[6:42] Jen Sandler: So, Lyle, we said in the beginning that you're a writer, you're a designer. How did that add to this collaboration? Because I know you didn't just give material to the show. You gave more than that.

[6:46] Lyle Hintz: Yeah. My contribution to the show was mainly, like, collaborating on music and that music was then used in the show by Dante. And then I helped fill in some gaps that needed a little magic. And also the first production of the show was alongside a play of mine in the Fringe Festival. And that was, like, just kind of a big thing that we did together. I think it was the same production team, different casts, but very separate.

[7:22] Lyle Hintz: But then the next time when we did Incomplete List, I think I was the projection designer slash set designer slash, like I said, just helping out. That was really where I dove into the piece and got to, like, kind of learn what it was about. Because it's about a lot of stuff.

[7:38] Dante Green: And it's vague.

[7:39] Lyle Hintz: It's vague in the right places.

[7:41] Jen Sandler: Yeah. Well, I showed my students today of Laura performing Here Again, the second song. And then I played them part of the more produced, orchestrated, sort of techno version of the song. And they were fighting over which one they liked better.

[7:56] Dante Green: I love that.

[7:57] Dante Green: Well, that was sort of the great thing when we asked Laura to do these songs as well. I sort of left it open to her to be able to cover them in a way if she wanted to. But also if she wanted to use the actual fully produced tracks, she was more than welcome to as well. And I think what she came up with ended up being something that actually has expanded the possibilities of the musical for me. She's created these versions of songs that I have never even thought of before. It's really exciting.

[8:27] Jen Sandler: Well, with all that said, tell us about our first song that will be performed by Laura Galindo, Back to Me.

[8:33] Dante Green: Yeah. So the first song, Back to Me, is sort of a memory song. It exists both in the past and in the present. And the song is sung by a character named Karina in the show. And she has recently lost someone who she loves very much, who has actually gone missing. And so this song sort of reminisces on the memories that they had together while also sort of questioning when he will be returning and when he will be coming back. So this is Back to Me.

[9:05] Dante Green: Whenever you're ready.

[9:15] ♪ Musical number: "Back to Me" — performed by Laura Galindo ♪

[11:17] Dante Green: I feel like that's haunting. That's so many things that song. Thank you. I love hearing Laura's version of it as well. It's so crazy how different it is from the actual version of the song.

[11:28] Jen Sandler: So tell us more about the development of your show. I feel like it's been in a lot of really awesome places so far.

[11:34] Dante Green: So as Lyle said, the show sort of started off at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. And we were actually in rep together. Lyle was performing an original play of his called Simone RPT.

[11:45] Dante Green: And we were doing an incomplete list. And at the time, it was a play with music. And it felt very immediate to make happen. The show had just been written probably that January through April. And me and Lyle were like, the Fringe Festival deadline is coming up. Let's make it happen. And really, what it wanted to be was a workshop. But what it ended up being was this sold-out weekend of everyone, the university coming together and supporting each other. And it was a very beautiful experience. And from there, our hometown, Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble asked us to then bring the show to them that summer. And so we brought the show to them about a year later. And then after that, it went into more development.

The University of the Arts, which is the school that I went to, developed it through a week workshop. We then took it to a musical festival called Polyphone, where it performed at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. And then after that, it went to Antfest at Ars Nova.

[12:56] Lili Taylor-Johnson: And this show, when I first got sent it, I was like, this is an Ars Nova show. And I saw it had been at Ars Nova. And I'm like, okay, great.

[13:02] Dante Green: Yeah, absolutely. And the Antfest was like sort of perfect for it, too. Because it was like, you know, you only get one night, and you just got to throw it all together. And it's just one big party. And it was perfect.

[13:13] Lili Taylor-Johnson: Tell us about the song Here Again.

[13:15] Dante Green: Yeah, so Here Again happens sort of like, I don't want to call it the climax of the piece, but it's sort of like the grand release of the piece where the characters in the show have sort of gone through this experience together that involves some drugs. And now they're coming down. And the song sort of talks about if I had the chance to do anything over in this life, I wouldn't do a thing about it. So yeah, that's Here Again.

[14:00] Lili Taylor-Johnson:

[14:30] ♪ Musical number: "Here Again" — performed by Dante Green ♪

[17:06] Lili Taylor-Johnson: Well, Dante and Lyle, thank you so much. We can't wait to hear more from An Incomplete List of All the Things I'm Going to Miss When the World is No Longer. Awesome. Thank you. Our second new musical is Garden of Starflowers, which has book, music, and lyrics by Masi Asare. It's 2075, a metropolis in a dystopian world where humans spend most of their time in survival pods, taking shelter from an overheated planet. Plugged into virtual realities, they rarely venture out in person, except for organized mass entertainment events held under a shimmering festival dome. But Lucie, a misfit, has dreams of persuading flowers to grow in the scorched ground outside her pod. When Oscar catches a glimpse of her gardening on surveillance footage, he's convinced she's the incarnation of Anjelín, a digital pop star he stans in virtual reality and sets out to meet her.

Meanwhile, preparations are underway for Anjelín's first holographic concert in the dome. But there are glitches in the digital star's programming, as she seems to manifest her own will and emotions. Oscar introduces a reluctant Lucie to the festival scene, where she comes face to face with a virtual star who, uncannily, looks exactly like her. And then, Anjelín herself begins to have ideas about her purpose in the world, her connection to Lucie, and the dream of a real-life garden of starflowers. And now, here's our conversation with the writer of Garden of Starflowers, Masi Asare.

[18:44] Masi Asare: Hello, hello.

[18:45] Lili Taylor-Johnson: Well, hello.

[18:46] Masi Asare: That synopsis makes you want to see it right away.

[18:50] Lili Taylor-Johnson: Thank you.

[18:51] Masi Asare: Thank you.

[18:52] Lili Taylor-Johnson: There is definitely a skill to writing synopses that we all have to hone, along with all the other skills.

[18:58] Masi Asare: But thank you for reading all of it. I know it was long.

[19:00] Lili Taylor-Johnson: Yeah, it really paints a beautiful picture. And the songs really evoke that spirit as well. So I'm excited for everyone to hear those. Masi, you are a celebrated composer, lyricist, and playwright. You're best known as a co-writer of the London-bound musical adaptation of Monsoon Wedding. Your other work includes The Family Resemblance, Sympathy Jones, and Mirror of Most Values. Your visionary work has been seen and developed with the Eugene O'Neill Center, Live and in Color, and New York Musical Festival, among others. You're a winner of the Billy Burke Ziegfeld Award for Women Composers of Musicals. And you received awards from the O'Neill, a Theatre Hall of Fame Emerging Artist Grant, and the Stacey Mindich Go Write a Musical Lily Award. You're also on the advisory board of MAISTRA, an organization we love, and on the theatre faculty of Northwestern University. So what sparked in you to tell this layered dystopian story?

[19:50] Masi Asare: Yeah, sure, sure, sure. And I do want to say thank you to Stacey Mindich and the Lily Awards who supported this project. This is the musical that they've commissioned that I'm currently working on. So what sparked it? I was teaching a class at Northwestern here in Chicago. I was teaching a class on vocal sound and race. I asked the students to make these curated playlists that were related to the readings that we were doing. And one student presented on the digital avatar Instagram influencer Mikaela, also known as Lil Mikaela. I don't know. I had not heard of her and it fascinated me. She made waves in May 2020 when she signed with the agency CAA as a CGI influencer. So she's not actually a person.

She's like a designed image of a person that is an Instagram influencer and has all these stories. She broke up with her boyfriend. So I was really struck by this, especially the fact that she was deliberately racially ambiguous. I think she's meant to be like Brazilian American. I was struck by that. And I thought, well, what about the people who actually look like her? What if you woke up one day and found out that someone who looked like you was a digital celebrity? You know, our faces and our skin tones as racially mixed people are not just sort of there to be kind of traded and sold. And also this idea that like people want to consume content about certain kinds of racialized people. But only when those personas can be like really carefully controlled.

You know, it's like the ultimate ideal celebrity from a corporate side because you can make her say or do whatever you want. We could say a lot about gender with that, too. So those were some of the things that got me started. And then I really, you know, during the pandemic, there is something about this idea of people being isolated, obviously, in our pods. And but there is something about the dystopian world we're living in right now that feels related to the dystopia of a planet ruined by climate change. And not too far ahead of us. And so I think those things kind of overlay. This is a long answer to your question. But so those are some of the things.

[21:43] Lili Taylor-Johnson: Well, it's perfect because it kind of sets to my next question. You know, we feel 2075. It's far off. Is it far? Were you cognizant of that when you wrote this show or was all everything you wrote about purely coincidental that it kind of mirrors now?

[21:56] Masi Asare: Well, I really started really writing more in earnest on this during the pandemic. So I think that's very much part of the fabric of it. I had kind of the working concept, but it got really rooted. But I think there's a lot of reasons that so many of us like started growing plants from like, you know, scallion clippings or like lettuce, you know, or like I never grow plants. And here I have like geraniums I'm trying to grow in the windowsill. So I feel like we all want to feel that there's still something of life and something of hope in our world. And so I think that's definitely part of it.

[22:29] Lili Taylor-Johnson: Well, I mentioned that the show was recipient of the Stacey and Indiggo Wright Musical Lily Award. And you also acknowledge that the Lily Awards recognize extraordinary women in the theater. Other recipients have been our friend Kirsten Childs and Emily Gardner Shue Hall. What's it been like to receive this award and to have been chosen to do this project?

[22:49] Masi Asare: It's really I'm so honored. I have to say, I feel like there have been so many women who have been opening doors for me in my career. The Ziegfeld Award as well, which, you know, if these were these are new awards, you know, if no one had had taken the initiative to create them, you know, I was the first recipient of the Ziegfeld, the second recipient of this Lily Award. There are so many things that I've gotten that just didn't exist. And I really feel grateful because there have been times when I felt like leaving this business or felt like, is there a place for me here? And, you know, the support of organizations like the Lily Awards and this amazing work that Stacey Mindich has funded have encouraged me to feel like, oh, I do have something to give.

[23:59] Dante Green: Thank you for having us.

[24:15] Masi Asare: Yes, thank you!

[24:37] Teresa Attridge: So, Dante, let's start with you. Can you tell us a bit about your piece, "An Incomplete List of All the Things I'm Going to Miss When the World is No Longer"?

[24:55] Dante Green: Absolutely. The piece is really a reflection on what it means to cherish life and the moments we often take for granted. It’s set against this backdrop of an impending apocalypse, which sounds heavy, but it’s really about celebrating the human experience and the connections we make.

[25:15] Pauls Macs: That sounds fascinating. Masi, how does your work, "Garden Of Starflowers," connect to that theme of cherishing life?

[25:35] Masi Asare: In "Garden Of Starflowers," we explore a dystopian future where people are disconnected from nature and reality. Lucie, the main character, dreams of growing flowers in a world that seems barren. It’s about hope and the desire to connect with something real, even when everything around you feels artificial.

[25:55] Dante Green: I love that parallel. Both pieces deal with the idea of longing for connection, whether it’s with each other or with the world around us.

[26:15] Teresa Attridge: That’s a beautiful way to put it. How did you both come to collaborate on this episode?

[26:35] Masi Asare: We’ve known each other for a while through the theatre community, and our works just seemed to resonate with each other’s themes. It felt natural to come together and discuss these ideas.

[26:45] Dante Green: Exactly. It’s always inspiring to share space with artists who are exploring similar questions in their work.

[27:05] Pauls Macs: Can you both share a moment from your pieces that really encapsulates these themes?

[27:25] Dante Green: Sure! There’s a moment in my piece where the characters reflect on their favorite memories, and it’s a mix of joy and sorrow. It’s about recognizing what we’ll miss and what has shaped us.

[27:45] Masi Asare: In my piece, there’s a scene where Lucie finally gets to touch the earth and plant a seed. It’s a small act, but it represents hope and the possibility of growth, even in a desolate world.

[28:05] Teresa Attridge: Those moments sound incredibly powerful. How do you both approach the writing process for such emotionally charged material?

[28:25] Dante Green: For me, it starts with honesty. I try to tap into my own experiences and feelings, and then build the narrative around that. It’s about being vulnerable and allowing that to guide the story.

[28:45] Masi Asare: I agree. I often draw from personal experiences as well, but I also think about the larger societal issues at play. It’s important to weave in those elements to create a richer narrative.

[29:05] Pauls Macs: It sounds like both of your works are deeply personal yet universally relatable.

[29:15] Dante Green: That’s the goal! We want audiences to see themselves in these stories.

[29:35] Masi Asare: Yes, and to feel a sense of connection to the characters and their journeys.

[29:55] Teresa Attridge: What do you hope audiences take away from your pieces?

[30:15] Dante Green: I hope they leave with a sense of appreciation for the little things in life and a reminder to cherish their connections with others.

[30:35] Masi Asare: And I hope they feel inspired to reconnect with nature and their own dreams, no matter how distant they may seem.

[30:55] Pauls Macs: Those are beautiful messages. Thank you both for sharing your insights with us today.

[31:15] Dante Green: Thank you for having us!

[31:35] Masi Asare: Yes, thank you!

[31:55] Teresa Attridge: We look forward to seeing both of your works come to life.

[32:15] Pauls Macs: Absolutely!

[32:35] Dante Green: It’s been a pleasure.

[32:55] Masi Asare: Thank you!

[33:15] Teresa Attridge: And to our listeners, be sure to check out "An Incomplete List of All the Things I'm Going to Miss When the World is No Longer" and "Garden Of Starflowers."

[33:35] Pauls Macs: Until next time, keep celebrating the arts!

[33:55] Dante Green: Bye!

[34:15] Masi Asare: Bye!

[34:45] Teresa Attridge: Bye!