BROADWAY OR BUST? WELL. MAYBE NOT BROADWAY, BUT NEVER BUST! So, three women decide to create and produce a full length musical theatre piece about body image. They have no clue, but they are determined to make it happen. First they form a production company; then they begin to build a team. They hire a serious entertainment lawyer and commission a composer and lyricist. And then they start creating. All along the way, they meet and fall over obstacles but they never give up. Never! Sounds like fodder for a sitcom or reality show? Probably. But this is for real.
I am Liswrite and I am one of the three women. The other two women are KC and mjoy. And this is our BLOG where we will document and share our foibles, our adventures, our failures and our successes, as we work our way through the mind boggling experience of creating and producing a show.
If you keep reading, you will learn more about the roots of our project.
It all started a little over three years ago when I read a study that found adolescent girls to be more fearful of gaining weight than of nuclear war or getting cancer. This blew my mind.
I told everyone I know about the results of the study and no one seemed the least bit surprised. Every single person I spoke with had a lot to say about their own body issues.
Back then, I was working on becoming 60. I was pretty depressed about my aging body. When I looked in the mirror, I have to admit, all I saw was an old lady with belly fat, giant sagging boobs and a double chin.
I was determined to find a unique and effective way to explore body image issues.So, I went to the core of myself, where I store all sorts of passions, and Lo! And Behold! I found an incredible song my friends, Dan Martinand Michael Biello had written. The name of the song is IN MY BODY and this song represents so much of what I wanted to say about body image issues and about trying to find a good home in our bodies. By the way, Dan and Michael are the composer and lyricist for our new production and they are also collaborating with us on the "book," which is theatre argot for the story/libretto/script. Please pretend you are impressed by my knowledge of the theatre. HA!
Anyway, Inspired by Dan and Michael's song and by the photography of LeahMacdonald, www.leahmacdonald.com , I decided to use the Arts as a vehicle toexplore body image. Of course! The Arts! What a great way to influence positive change!
I gathered up an amazing group of artistic collaborators and, together, wecreated a very successful first phase of the IN MY BODY project, culminating in January of 2011, with performances of a short musical theatre piece at the Painted Bride Arts Center in Philadelphia.
It was that little musical theatre piece that bit me really hard and puttheatre stars in my eyes. I already had cataracts in my eyes, so the stars made it even harder tosee anything---especially reality. Perhaps this is a really good thing, because for the last year, five ofthe original In My Body project collaborators have come together determined to develop afull length musical theatre production, called the In My Body project. AND we are undaunted!
We would love to have you read our BLOG and comment about what you read.
We would love to have you read our BLOG and comment about what you read.
You can read more about the past history of our project at www.inmybody.org
And now (Tah Dah!) it's time for us to make some theatre history. We invite you to come along for the ride!
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