g-RAD School

Hi all!

it's been ages since I last posted. I've started graduate school. In 21 months I'll have my MFA from NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. It's an amazing place. I was telling my advisor yesterday that I don't think I've been this happy and excited about life since I first moved to New York seven years ago. I think I've really found where I need to be and I'm doing what I need to do. I'm good at this, and I love it and I want to be challenged by it.

Anyway, our first lab was today (we've had other classes already), and my first collaboration went up. I think overall it was very well received. The lyrics and the music were both complimented, but it wasn't all patting people on the back either. I knew there was something clunky within the song, and I couldn't figure out what it was, so the feedback was perfect. They just highlighted exactly what needs to be fixed and I think I know just how to do it. It's exciting to be able to get critiques on the things I create. I think the most exciting thing about the whole lab experience was that as soon as it was over, my other collaborator, and I got together and found all these moments in our song that we realized need to be fixed. We just went through the song moment to moment and said "why" to every line and if we couldn't justify it intelligently, we worked on fixing it or replacing it until we could. We tweaked little bits in both the music and the lyrics to help them match up more exactly as well. Anyway, I'm not really supposed to blog about collaborations in order to keep the atmosphere in class safe and open. So that's all I'll say about that. No names, no specific song details.

This is how ridiculous I am when it comes to musical theatre. I just spent the past hour putting together an iTunes playlist of just "I Want" songs from all the different cast recordings I have. It started as an exercise for myself to see if I could easily identify the "I Want" songs, but it turned into a weird anal retentive need. Anyway, I have about four hours worth of "I Want" songs on my laptop. I think I should get an external harddrive, don't you?

What I actually SHOULD get is Microsoft Office, but I keep putting it off, because I need to ask around to see if anyone else needs it. It's cheaper to get a pack with three licenses and split it than to just buy on licensing of it. I also need to buy a keyboard soon. Holy cow! Finally getting a keyboard!!

Okay, I must sleep, but I'll write more this weekend. I need to write about NYAS soon.