Clay Chapman's "Birdfeeder" a top play

The story, "Birdfeeder", by SCKBSTD's book-writer, Clay Chapman, has been recognized as a top American play. It has been included in the anthology "The Best American Short Plays, 2007-2008." Congrats Clay!

The book is available, of course, on Amazon.

Catching up with Bruce in Napa

Bruce was playing a solo gig in Napa this weekend and it gave me (David) a chance to see my first live Hornsby concert. It also gave the two of us a chance to catch up after the performance to chat about SCKBSTD. I also was able to introduce Bruce to Carla (my wife). Bruce talked about two new songs for the show that he's working on with Chip and making good progress. He also had a chance to express how pleased he was about one of the SCKBSTD songs, "Here we are again," that he played that night. "It's the first time I really nailed it live," he said. Bruce also played a couple of other songs from the show -- "Black Rats" and "Low Country."

There is now a nice 7 minute video to promote Bruce's new album -- "Levitate" -- that is up on his Facebook page. He talks about "Here we are again" and notes that it's the bands favorite song on the album. A couple of other songs from the show are also featured on the video. Check it out here.

Bruce features 8 SCKBSTD songs on "Levitate"

Bruce's new album, "Levitate" is now set for a mid-September release and eight of the twelve songs are from "SCKBSTD." The complete list is featured on a recent Billboard article. Bruce talks about his recent foray into film and theater in the Billboard story and in a separate article discussing his latest tour.

The album comes at a great time as we are in full conversation with several theaters about a developmental production of the show. We already have received considerable interest and are confident about staging our first production next year.

It all starts with talent

“Sick Bastard” June ’09 reading cast. Back-row pictured left to right: Darius De Haas, Mathew Saldivar, Louis Hobson, Tracee Beazer, Will Swenson, Anastasia Barzee, Anne Nathan, John Conlee, Sarah Berry, John Cullum, Shuler Hensley. Front row pictured left to right: Riley Costello, Brynn Williams, Bubba Weiler. (click on photo for expanded view)


From the opening monologue in the very first read-through of Sick Bastard this week, it was clear that a remarkable cast had assembled to breathe life into our little story. It’s been a bit like watching the shoot-around before an NBA all-star game. Wow.

Spending 5 days in a rehearsal room with that kind of talent is just fun. Teaching 16, songs and the entire book, to 14 actors in 29 hours (per Actors Equity) is ridiculous. The only way to do it is to start with a cast of the caliber we had. We can’t overstate the level of professionalism, talent and commitment. Watching one of our (15 year old) kids, Riley Costello, leave to take his regents exam in the middle of the day, then come back to work with Kim Grigsby and Bruce Hornsby until we literally had to pull them away from the piano is simply remarkable. Sending our book-writer Clay home at 4pm on Wednesday to come up with 15 new pages to put into the show on Thursday morning, then watching the cast react to the improvements in the script (in response to their questions) is just amazing.

Kathleen Marshall, our Director, and Kim Grigsby, Musical Director, worked with amazing focus to simultaneously rework the show in places, help get the characters right, and polish performances. Even this early in our process (this is only the second reading) they are finding the right points of balance between the darkness, suspense and humor in the piece.

The reading itself on Friday afternoon was breath-taking – if that’s possible to do with a bunch of actors sitting in street clothes around a table in a brightly lit room flipping through pages of a notebook while reading their lines and singing their numbers. But it was.

There’s a really nice buzz to a room in the wake of a successful reading…people wanting to hang around and talk about what they’ve just seen, asking questions of the creative team, giving you their thoughts and ideas and asking what’s next? The feeling of being at the beginning of something, watching it being born, is intoxicating. We hope we can keep most of our all-stars together as we take Sick Bastard to the next stage (pun intended).

A Stoke of good luck... the origins of SCKBSTD

Mike here. My son Dylan is 4 years old. When my wife, Kay, & I found out we were pregnant with Dylan we went out to dinner with two old friends, Brian Stokes Mitchell (in photo) & Allyson Tucker, who'd recently had a son themselves. During the course of our celebrations, Stokes slid me his ipod and played me three songs. The first ("Something's Coming") was from Stokes' first solo CD, the other two were cuts from Bruce Hornsby's CD Halcyon Days ("What The Hell Happened," "Hooray For Tom"). Man, we thought, this guy should write a musical!

So a few days later I called Bruce's manager, John Scher, who is a Broadway fan (he just won the 2009 Tony award for producing Liza Minelli). John liked the idea and put me in touch with Bruce who, luckily, didn't think I was crazy (a little sleep deprived maybe). We got to talking about our favorite musicals and the kind of story we'd like to tell. We kicked a few ideas around without anything really grabbing us. Then, a few months later, Bruce called me up and said "I've got a story for you." He proceeded to tell me about some goings on in his hometown of Williamsburg, VA and it's effects on some members the local population. It was an interesting idea, but needed a certain kind of writer.

Enter Clay Mcleod Chapman. I was given Clay's name by a friend at Playwrights Horizons. Clay had written two books (Rest Area, Miss Corpus) and wrote and performed theatre pieces under the rubric The CMC Pumpkin Pie Show. He had the right dark humored sensibility and, best of all, was a Virginia native. Clay and I flew down to Williamsburg to meet with Bruce and an old childhood friend of Bruce's, Chip Dematteo, with whom Bruce had written musicals in high school. We sat around talking about the idea in Bruce's studio and Bruce played us four songs he'd written that he thought might be right for the piece. Clay and I got excited by the very first piano notes of the opening number. Bruce has a great ability to invoke a sense of place, as well as create memorable characters, in his music. It's what attracted Stokes and me in the first place. Later, we all jumped in Bruce's car and took a tour of the environs where we imagined the story taking place. Our project was literally, and figuratively, up and running thanks to that initial "Stoke" of good luck.

Spiral Staircase: together again (after 22 yrs)

So 22 years after Mike and I were roommates in a NY flat with a creaky spiral staircase, we're together again to do something that doesn't require sharing a bathroom. Though we're now more than two floors apart (2,892 miles to be exact), we've joined forces to form a company (Spiral Staircase LLC) and produce an original musical. The show is called Sick Bastard (or just SCKBSTD) and is based on an original story and the wonderful music of Bruce Hornsby. The book is by a talented young writer named Clay Chapman. Additional lyrics have been created for some of Bruce's songs (which are all new) by his long-time friend and colleague Chip DeMatteo.

Mike has been developing the piece with Bruce, Chip and Clay for nearly three years, and asked me to partner up with him this year. Having co-authored a couple of musicals in my youth (obviously not enough to get it out of my system), it seemed like a good idea to say yes and dive in. And here we are.

We have the amazing good fortune to work with some of the top talent in the business to bring this to life. In addition to Bruce and his multiple Grammys, Kathleen Marshall is directing and Kim Grigsby is our Musical Director. They're extremely talented and are wonderful people too. Kathleen has received a couple of Tonys and Kim was Musical Director on the 2007 Tony award-winning musical Spring Awakening.

So we've loosely fastened our seat belts and are ready to drive off on this new adventure. Feel free to buckle-up and follow along.