I CANNOT BELIEVE MY GOOD FORTUNE!
When Theatre Unleashed asked me to direct the West Coast Premier of The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility I was pretty shocked. I mean the title itself is longer than my tenure with the company! Needless to say I accepted because I've been wanted to direct a musical for years, plus I'm a comic book nerd so it felt like a perfect fit. The book, music and lyrics have the heart of a lion and the spirit of the piece was intriguing in every way. I had heard that this 'project' was a jab, no actually a hard right uppercut to the New York production which had been delayed countless times due to 'creative issues'. Having come from the Chicago storefront theater scene, where budgets were whatever the company members had in their pockets, I felt a kinship with the piece. I also knew, in my short time with the company that we had the right band of misfits to make this happen in Los Angeles. 

INITIAL STAGES
From the beginning the production team and I set out to make this an amazing experience for the audience from the moment they walk into the space until the last song had been sung. We knew that what ever we sent out into the universe that it must be creative and fun. Our space at studio-stage has a really cool wrap-around cyclorama that is going to look like the pages of a comic book come to life. The Marvel 'webslinger' has a lot of history from his debut in 'Amazing Fantasy #15" so we had tons of material to play with. After a pretty extensive search we were fortunate to land the talents of a graphic artist and music director to round out our production team. These ridiculously talented individuals are: Sebastian Kadlecik- whose work is going to blow your mind, and Jordan Ostrowski, whose aural sense music is always tingling!

CASTING INTO FIRST REHEARSAL
For the "Spidey Project" I wanted to use as much of our talented ensemble as humanly possible.  Five of our nine cast members are in the company! This is a very strong ensemble show, actors double as many as five roles- so it's going to feel like a cast of twenty! Now that rehearsals are in full swing we're just trying to make these characters sound like real folks talking to real folks. With the exception of, you know, the fact that they sing and have super-powers and stuff!! I am trying to spin an atmosphere of trust and encouragement for the actors, then just get out of their way.