This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Martín Acuña: Hi everyone, I am Martín Acuña and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:20] Martín Acuña: All right, welcome back. Today I have the fortunate opportunity to be here with Victoria Campbell. Victoria is the writer of a new musical, a new eco-musical, called Treason. So, Victoria, I'll let you introduce yourself.

[0:40] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Martín. So, my name is Victoria. I go by Vicky, so it's nice to kind of keep things a little colloquial. So, where to begin? Yes, I'm the sole writer of the book, music, and lyrics to Treason. It's my first and only musical so far. So, maybe I'll rewind a few years back and kind of let you know where my musical journey began. So, I was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, which is in the northwest corner of the United States. It's a beautiful environment with lots of nature and forests and lakes and water nearby. And I've been exposed to musical theater in some form or another my whole life. My parents had old VHS tapes of old movies like The Sound of Music and Grease.

And I recall those movies in particular because I watched those on repeat, like over and over and over again. I really loved those films. Also, being born in the 80s, I grew up watching all of the famous Disney movies of the 90s. But when it came to musical experience, I will say my first exposure to really doing something musical was around vocal performance. So, not writing, not creating, just singing in choirs. But I grew up pretty shy. I really hated speaking in public, and the idea of singing in public was just nerve-wracking, and I never thought I would do it. My mother, however, was really encouraging, and she would tell me, you know, Vicky, when I was your age, I would sing karaoke at the neighborhood block parties.

It's fun. It's easy. Just do it. I was still just very shy, and no matter how my friends encouraged me, I just did not want to try it. It wasn't until I moved schools, in middle school, so I'm probably age 13 or 14 when I felt like I could kind of reinvent myself as a teenager, and so that's when I started going by my middle name, Victoria. I started auditioning for solos and got like really good positive feedback, and so the more I did it, the more comfortable I got performing. I took piano lessons as a teenager, but didn't get very far. You know, I learned just enough piano to learn my parts in choir, and I got really involved in musical performance in high school and college, won a lot of awards, but like most teenagers, when you're 17 or 18 applying to university, you feel like you have to make a decision about what it is you're going to study, and so for me, I was trying to decide between, you know, do I try to continue the singing thing and major in vocal performance, or do I do something what my mother would call more practical, and so I decided to study psychology.

I did minor in music, which really meant I took like five classes in music in university, and so I went all the way through graduate school. I got my PhD in psychology, did human resources and consulting for about 15 years. I never really intentionally brushed aside music. I just didn't make time for it anymore. You know, life kind of got in the way. I will say, though, that as now I consider myself an emerging artist and learning a lot about myself and my capabilities and skills as a writer and a musician, I will say that my business backgrounds and my psychology backgrounds have really enhanced and complemented my skills as an emerging artist, and you know, how do I tell a good story? How do I hook people?

How do I get them interested in the journey I want to bring them on? So that's kind of Vicky in a nutshell, you know, focused on musical performance and then switched gears to psychology and HR, and then really this year, 2020, was like another time of reinvention where I focused on creating musical theater.

[4:39] Martín Acuña: That sounds awesome. I know your journey and your background in HR and psychology is perfect for content creation in general and specifically for character creation, and during college and your years in high school where you were involved in theater, did you write anything else, like silly writing things before embarking on this journey?

[5:16] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah, so I guess I did a lot of journaling and a lot of poetry. I live in Switzerland now, so I moved from the United States to Switzerland last year, and I wish I brought my journals with me from high school and college because I feel like that would be really good source material as far as like new lyrics. So I, you know, even though I don't have formal experience writing theater, being a business person, you have to write, you know, speeches and presentations for executives, and you have to hook employees on new programs and company initiatives, and so I do feel like there's a lot of overlap, maybe not a lot, but there's some overlap in transferable skills from being a business person to being a musical theater creator in particular.

As you know, having a background in musical theater, like anything, a musical is a business, and you have to be able to sell tickets and fill theaters, and so I think my experience as a consultant and as a business person has definitely enhanced my abilities to tell a story. What's the business case? What's the journey I want to bring, you know, not employees on now that I'm no longer working for a corporation, but what's the journey I want to bring an audience on? You know, why should they care? What's the character they can relate to or characters they can relate to? You know, what's the story I want them to walk away with? So there's absolutely overlap.

[6:43] Martín Acuña: Now that you're talking about the story that you want people to walk away with, let's dive deep into Treason, an eco-musical. Where did this idea come from? Because I've heard about, I don't know, XYZ, a new musical, the musical, but I had never listened to something called an eco-musical, so that was really, really interesting when you sent me a message through Instagram, and I was like, oh, this is interesting. I might like this.

[7:25] G. Victoria Campbell: Oh yeah, so yeah, the journey, of course, is fresh in my mind since I started writing Treason this year, and I would say, like most of the world, during the early days of the COVID pandemic, I was really evaluating, you know, who is Vicky? Am I going to try to continue to find a job here in my new home country, Switzerland, and do human resources and psychology again, or now that I have more time on my hands, is there something else I want to explore? And so Treason was born really out of the culmination of a couple things happening at the same time. So one, being unable to leave my house, being forced in lockdown, being unable to find a job, a normal job, I would say, a corporate job, and reading what I would say little nuggets of positive news.

So the early days of the pandemic, we were all just, like, reading all the sad things, all the bad things about, you know, people dying, people getting sick, you know, can't do anything anymore, and so I was trying to find something that was positive in all the news I was reading, and what I discovered was, yes, the pandemic really sucks. It's awful. I wish we didn't have to go through it, but one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that, guess what? Pollution is declining, and guess what? Wildlife is reclaiming their territories that humans have taken advantage of, and so I was like, that's something there. Like, that's good news. Like, how can I elevate this story to the forefront? I also was very homesick because I haven't been back to Seattle, to Tacoma, Washington since I moved, and so I was taking a lot of time to journal and reflect on what do I miss about Seattle?

You know, I miss the trees. I miss the water. I miss the birds. I miss just being out in nature in the Pacific Northwest, and so I was journaling just a lot of, like, reflective poetry, also journaling a lot of poems from the perspective of somebody who's apologetic to nature and just so sorry for all the harm that we've caused, and I noticed this theme of environmentalism emerging from my poetry, so I guess I maybe had a reality check. I never thought I would write a musical, but I noticed that these poems had a theme, and there was an important story to be told, and so that's kind of how Treason was born. I remember also, like, in maybe June, reading in the news that the pollution in China had dropped.

I don't know how many levels or how it is counted, but I remember that I saw an image of a map before the pandemic and after the pandemic or during the pandemic, and the, I think it was the CO2 level, something like that, and it was, it dropped, and it was like, maybe we needed, I'm not happy about the pandemic either, but maybe we needed this pandemic to happen for humanity to stop and re-evaluate such a lot of things, a relationship with nature, with ourselves, with food, with work, with money, with our political systems, and I mean, it was a lap, a reality's lap that I think we needed, and specifically with nature.

[11:02] G. Victoria Campbell: Mm-hmm, absolutely, I 100% agree. I love the term that you used. It was not just a reality check, but it was a reality slap in the face.

[11:11] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah, I would say a bitch slap, but it was a nature reality slap.

[11:16] Martín Acuña: Absolutely.

[11:19] G. Victoria Campbell: So, what does this story cover on the musical? It's based on the poems you wrote.

[11:26] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah, so when I was writing the poems, I realized that I had to kind of put not just a theme, but a plot in place. You know, what is the story I want to tell? And so, as I mentioned, a lot of the poetry was not just reflective, but it was apologetic. And it was evaluative from a personal perspective, like who do I want to be as a person moving forward, so I could be more environmentally conscious, more friendly to the environment. And so, Treason in particular covers, I think, a person that we can all relate to. It's about one man's journey toward ultimately finding purpose and redemption in life. So, he works for an unethical logging company. His name is Ash. He works for this company called Holz & Firma, which in German, fun fact, means wood company.

I am in Switzerland, and so I was learning German before the pandemic. So, there are some throwbacks and some callbacks to like my time here. So, he works for Holz & Firma, and he's set to inherit this company from his father, Don. Yes, the name Don was intentionally chosen. Holz & Firma is an unethical logging company that's destroying old growth forests. And so, he's having this internal struggle with himself, do I choose profits and make a lot of money and work for this company, or do I choose purpose? So, he has this internal conflict with himself. And as he's figuring out who he wants to be, how he can be a better version of himself, of course, he meets a lot of people who influence him.

He meets an environmental activist named Terra, T-E-R-R-A. He meets the elements, water, wind, and fire. He meets a bunch of other environmental activists and loggers, and Instagram influencers, and they kind of like help him on this journey towards who he wants to be. So, that's Treason in a nutshell. It's a musical about finding purpose by saving the earth. It's about environmentalism and climate justice.

[13:35] Martín Acuña: I love it. Just as you just described it, I just loved it.

[13:40] G. Victoria Campbell: Thank you.

[13:41] Martín Acuña: And I think with that, we covered the question of how would you describe the show to someone that has never heard it before? And this finding purpose, I think it just fits so perfectly with 2020, because I think a lot of us have re-evaluated our purpose as professionals, either our industry, whatever our industry is. And I'm excited about it, and I'm excited that this character, Ash, meets the elements and meets a lot of activists, and has to challenge, I guess, the executives from Holz & Firma.

[14:32] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah.

[14:32] Martín Acuña: And I just love it.

[14:34] G. Victoria Campbell: Thank you.

[14:35] Martín Acuña: I love it. I'm excited about it.

[14:38] G. Victoria Campbell: Thank you.

[14:40] Martín Acuña: I want to ask you about the music.

[14:43] G. Victoria Campbell: Yes.

[14:44] Martín Acuña: How does the music of this musical sound?

[14:47] G. Victoria Campbell: Yes. Great question. So, when I composed and wrote the music for Treason, I didn't really have any specific genres in mind. The music somehow emerged organically and kind of naturally to fortunately form what I would consider a unified and cohesive soundscape. But I would say, in a nutshell, it's a contemporary musical. Definitely with some influences of the greats, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Sondheim and obviously Disney. So, I listened to Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. I listened to Pasek and Paul. I mean, everybody. So, I'm probably influenced by a lot of the musicians and composers that I listen to. But I also am an American. I grew up in America and listened to a lot of jazz and blues and folk music growing up.

So, I would say the soundtrack emerged as really an Americana soundtrack. Americana music is kind of a fusion of blues, folk, jazz, pop rock kind of music. And it kind of worked out perfectly, actually, because the characters in Treason each have what I would think are unique musical profiles. So, for example, Don, he's a white man. He works for capitalists, corporate America. He kind of has traditional old school values. And so, his songs are more like country western music sounding. The elements, alternatively, Water, Wind and Fire, they're pretty sassy and they represent the conscience of humanity. And so, their music tends to be kind of jazzy and soulful, like New Orleans, like big band music.

And then, of course, you have Ash, the protagonist, and he's kind of living this very status quo kind of mainstream pop life. And so, his initial songs have more of a commercial pop rock sound. And as his character evolves, his musical profile also evolves. They're going to be more folk, earthy, organic. And so, I think it's just kind of cool that the characters each have their own musical profile, but still fit into this broader uniform soundscape of Americana music.

[17:00] Martín Acuña: I'm excited to listen to stuff. I mean, each character having its personal style, I think it makes that unique. I think that is, in character composition, specifically for musical theater, I really like when each character has a leitmotif or a specific sound. And this is really Disney. I'm a Disney fan too. So, each time I listen to a cast recording from any Disney show or any Disney soundtrack, I'm like, oh, I know this song belongs to XYZ character. And I just came to mind with Frozen, that each character has a leitmotif, and I absolutely love that. I love that each of them has a specific musical sentence that you can relate and identify. I just love it. Do you have any songs recorded or something you're going to release? Because I know you have a lot of stuff in your Instagram, in the musical's Instagram, but are you planning to release a cast recording or a studio recording of the musical?

[18:18] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah, I'm glad you asked. And so, I will take a moment to kind of plug. We just finished the original cast recording for the entire concept album, like a month ago. So, we have 19 songs, 65 minutes of music, featuring 16 super talented, amazing singers from seven countries. So, it was a very global effort, all recorded during the pandemic. We never met each other. So, it was a pretty cool accomplishment. And so, the album is going to be released on all digital platforms and streaming services on Friday, the 15th of January.

[19:04] Martín Acuña: That's awesome. That's so soon. I mean, wait a minute. That is so, so cool. I have to write down that in my schedule.

[19:11] G. Victoria Campbell: Oh my God, I'm so excited for you.

[19:18] Martín Acuña: Thank you. I guess I, you know, like I said, I've never done this before. And so, one of the, I don't know if it's a challenge or a benefit, but because I don't really know what the average turnaround time is, I kind of go into goals blindly, just thinking, oh, let's just keep chugging along, chugging along, chugging along. I don't know how to do it. I'll figure it out. And my arranger that I worked with in the UK, he's like, Vicky, this is absurdly fast. He was like, we can get it done by January 15th, if you think you're ready. But this is absurdly fast. And at the end of the day, I mean, I am confident to say that, I mean, we didn't compromise on quality at all. We didn't compromise on anything. It's a product that I'm really proud of, that my arranger is proud of, the singers are proud of. I gave them a little sneak peek. We had a little Zoom listening party a couple of weeks ago. So I'm really excited for the world to hear the whole album.

[20:06] Martín Acuña: And you just said this, you never met anyone during the recording process.

[20:14] G. Victoria Campbell: Okay, I lie. I met one person who lives in Zurich with me. I just remembered. There's singers in Zurich, but mostly, you know, they're also there in the UK, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Italy, the US and Ireland. So yeah, all over.

[20:32] Martín Acuña: How was that recording process? It sounds crazy.

[20:36] G. Victoria Campbell: Oh, it was crazy. Because like, I, you know, I figured a lot of this out as I went along and different time zones. It was just a lot of Zoom meetings, a lot of emails, a lot of being really crystal clear with my instructions. And you know, how do I, how do I musically direct people over the internet? So, you know, we had backing tracks, we had notebashes to learn the different parts and the harmonies. Sometimes if I would play back like individual recordings, and I would notice that the parts didn't line up, you know, sometimes I would ask the singer to redo it, or I would send like, I would send someone's take that came in early and be like, hey, here's one person's take, can you like match your parts to like align up with theirs? And so it was just, it was very iterative, very ongoing. A lot of backends, like production, mixing magic as well.

[21:28] Martín Acuña: Wow, I mean, this has challenged us to keep creating in such different ways. And I'm so happy that you could get this concept album out. I mean, in the middle of a pandemic, working with people and long distance, only talking to them through a screen or an email. And I have one really big question. Because this is your first musical. This is the first time you're writing for the stage. This is the first time you're recording a musical long distance. What was the biggest challenge and the thing you learned the most with this whole process?

[22:19] G. Victoria Campbell: Oh my gosh. Honestly, I think the thing I learned the most pretty quickly and early on was to trust other people and their expertise. You know, I had a vision, I had a story, I had some ideas, but pretty quickly learned I'm self-aware enough to know my limitations and that I'm an amateur. So I pretty quickly learned to depend on my arranger. If he had some pushback or if he had differing ideas for me, you know, he might propose.

[23:22] Martín Acuña: Awesome. I mean, I'm really, I'm really, really happy and I'm really excited. Not only for the concept album, but to what the future may bring to this musical. I mean, it's, it's once again, a reaffirmation that theater, no matter what will survive. Yes, the arts will survive no matter what. And it's just an example, another example of teamwork, of hard work, of perseverance, and honestly, a lot of courage. So congratulations. Congratulations to your team. And I cannot wait to listen to the album.

[24:10] G. Victoria Campbell: Thank you. I can't wait for you to listen to it. I'm so excited to hear what people think, because I have my ideas of what I think it sounds like. But like, you know, only the true audience members are you or our listeners. You know, it's not my family and friends who've like kind of supported my ego. It's the people who, the true, the true judges will be the rest of the world and just to kind of hear what they have to say about it. So it's nerve wracking, but also exciting.

[24:35] Martín Acuña: Yeah, the audience will be the endgame judges. So you've created, you've recorded. Where is this musical headed next?

[24:50] G. Victoria Campbell: Yes. Good question. You know, I think, as you know, everything is dependent a lot on the outcome of this pandemic. And I know there are a lot of shows that were put on hold right when the pandemic started. And so there's this queue of musical theater waiting to debut and waiting to take the stage. And so for Treason, I think we're going to be writing the coattails of what's already in the queue, but also focusing on just refining and making the script and the music better. You know, the demo is complete. I'm really proud of it. But I'll tell you right now, Martín, there's already some songs that have changed. Some lyrics have already been revised, have already been fine-tuned to have better phrasing, better rhyming, better storytelling.

I'm writing a couple of new songs for the show. And so it's just, you know, like, you know, writing is really about rewriting. And so focusing on contests and festivals and submission opportunities where I can hopefully workshop the show and get feedback from people in the industry to help me make it better. I ultimately just want this to be the best show possible so that the message lands appropriately. This very important message of environmental justice. You know, the end goal would be to make it to Broadway and West End. But like right now, I'll take what I can get. Like, I just want to make it better and put it on stage somewhere. Maybe it's Seattle, maybe it's Switzerland, maybe it's London.

But yeah, next year, we'll see where it takes us. But I'm very aware enough to know that the life cycle of a musical can be a long life cycle. And we're very, very early on in Susan's life cycle. It hasn't even been a year. So who knows? I mean, we'll see where it goes. Whatever the future may bring. Exactly.

[26:41] Martín Acuña: One question just came up to mind.

[26:44] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah.

[26:44] Martín Acuña: Listening to you, you like to play with names. Yes. Because you just said that Hosenfirma means wood company in German. Correct. Yeah. Where did Tresen come up?

[27:06] G. Victoria Campbell: Tresen came up. Oh, gosh. Good question. So it was actually like a backup name. The original name for Tresen was, I like things that are kind of punny and clever. So in the United States, there's a primary organization that protects the environment. It's a government's organization called the EPA, which stands for the Environmental Protection Agency. So originally, I was going to call it EPA. Everybody's personally accountable. But then my friends and family were like, Vicky, one, I think you probably have some legal issues using like an African-American who exists. And two, that's a mouthful. No one's going to remember. Everybody's personally accountable. So then I was like, OK, what is Tresen about?

It's about loyalty to the earth. It's about treating the earth justly and rightly. What has humanity done to hurt the earth? They've betrayed the planet. So let's roll with that. So what are some words that I could use? And so I thought of the word treason, T-R-E-A-S-O-N. And then I just changed the letter to T-R-E-E-S-O-N. So treason was born kind of like, it's a play on words. It means treason, betraying the planet, betraying the environment, spelled with the word trees.

[28:28] Martín Acuña: I like it. I like it. That's clever. I also like to play with names to the things, when the things are right. But that's clever. And I'm glad I asked that question.

[28:41] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah, thank you.

[28:43] Martín Acuña: And now that you've started writing for the stage, at the moment, are you writing something new?

[28:54] G. Victoria Campbell: Yeah, so I'm not working on another musical right now. I'm working on a couple, like, I guess what I would consider more commercial albums. So the idea of activism via art is really important to me. And so I'm working on kind of like a folk album, you know, inspired by like, famous folk artists like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon. So I'm working on an album, maybe 10 or 12 songs that are like little mini messages for causes that I believe in. I also have another album, a completely different that I'm working on, more like pop rock, like power anthems. I really love like, you know, the modern divas, Ariana Grande, Beyonce, Sia, Katy Perry. And so I have like a couple singers that I met through recording trees in that I'm using as my muses.

They have really great voices and writing songs for them. So yeah, I'm just working on some like more, more like, I mean, any writing a song is hard, writing an album is hard, writing a musical is hard. But hopefully this will, I guess, be a little bit lower scale, less work. But yeah, I'm working on just a couple albums that are not musical related.

[30:09] Martín Acuña: I'm excited to listen to those two. Thank you. And I know they will be great.

[30:17] G. Victoria Campbell: Thank you. I think, I think ultimately it really comes down to being like true to who I am as an artist. And art for me is a form of expression. It's a form of expression for most artists. And so it's just making sure I stay authentic to the values that I believe in and the messages that I believe in and trying to use that as a platform to, to engage people and inspire people.

[30:42] Martín Acuña: I agree with you. I mean, I became an artist because one of the things I lead my life with is finding my happiness. And obviously this year it's been an ongoing question for me, but I always do things because they make me happy, not because they're going to give me money or they're going to give me recognition. I mean, those will come in the end, they will come, but I do art because it makes me happy. And the rest will come and will follow.

[31:28] G. Victoria Campbell: I love it. That's so important. You know, before I tried musical theater this year, my biggest, my biggest joy in life was making sure people found happiness in their work and finding joy in their work. Cause you spend at least a third of your life working. I mean, eight hours a day, if you have like a normal job, most people work a lot more than eight hours a day. And so it really makes me happy to hear that you're being true to yourself and you're embracing that, that, that goal of, of doing what makes you happy instead of, instead of what you, what you think you should do, because like your dad told you or society tells you, you know, you need to be true to yourself. What, what is important to you?

[32:09] Martín Acuña: One last question before we go. And this is a no brainer. Top five favorite musical theater shows. Go.

[32:15] G. Victoria Campbell: Oh, okay. Sound of Music. Phantom of the Opera. Oh my God. I, this is so hard. I'm just going to like off the top, say five. It's probably going to change tomorrow. Greatest Showman. Did I already say that? No. Okay. Greatest Showman, Phantom of the Opera. I mean, I really love Hamilton right now, like the rest of the world. Um, this is really hard. I don't want to leave anybody out. Um, okay. Um, I'm sorry. You can, you can edit out the pauses while I think, um, five, uh, cause I feel like I went so fast with the first four. Um, oh, I mean, I just recently saw Hadestown. I love Hadestown.

[33:06] Martín Acuña: Nice. You left Disney out.

[33:17] G. Victoria Campbell: Oh my God. I left Disney out. Okay. Well, I can do a bonus.

[33:25] Martín Acuña: Nice. Well, Vicky, thank you so much for being over. Um, I wish you the best with Treason. I know I cannot wait for the album to be out. Um, I think when, when I published this episode, it already will be out. So I will leave every link, um, in the, the, the episodes description, also your social media platforms, and I wish you the best.

[33:46] G. Victoria Campbell: Thank you for being here.

[33:50] Martín Acuña: Thank you so much, Martin, for having me. My pleasure.

[33:52] G. Victoria Campbell: See you soon then.

[33:58] Martín Acuña: See you.

[34:04] Martín Acuña: Thanks everyone for listening to this new episode of Backstage Talk. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Backstage Talk Podcast.