My arts company Liberated Muse Arts group was invited to participate in “Up in All Night Musicals” as part of the 16th annual Page to Stage Festival at the Kennedy Center that took place this past weekend. I talk about it here.
WHAT IS UP ALL NIGHT MUSICALS: Five 10-minute musicals within 48 hours made by five different musical theater teams. LIBERATED MUSE was one of these teams. Each was challenged to write, compose, rehearse, and stage their musical within the space of 48 hours. NOTHING was to be created beforehand.
The Liberated Muse Arts Team consisted of:
Writer/Lyricist: Khadijah “Moon” Ali-Coleman (<—Me)
Composer: Ben Dawson, Jr. (<— my longtime producer & life partner)
Director: Khari Dawson (<—- our 13 year-old daughter)
Actors: Colie Aziza, Anonamas, Lori Madison, CynDiva Harcum (<—members of Liberated Muse + two talented women we have worked with before)
Two hours into the challenge that started on August 31, I had finished writing the play I called “Miss Trudy’s Birthday”. I spent the next three hours creating the music with my partner, Ben, who I call, Hook. I emailed the script and scratch vocals to the cast by the next morning. We rehearsed the evening of Sept. 1 from 6:30pm to about 10pm.
On Sept. 2, we presented “Miss Trudy’s Birthday” at the Kennedy Center!
We wound up winning the audience choice awards:
Thanks to Too Much Damn Theater’s Dara Singer for inviting us to participate in her challenge to write, rehearse and present a 10 minute play at the Kennedy Center in 48 hours. We wrote the play, composed the music and rehearsed in less than 10 hours total actually. Yay! The cast and crew thanks Kiana Lawyer for coming out to support and making it inside. We learned that some folks we know were not let in due to capacity. Thanks to CynDivaHarcum and Lori Madison for joining as honorary Liberated Muse castmates and Khari and Ben Dawson Jr for participating as Director and Composer respectively. Great job everyone with special shout to Colie Williams/AzizaMariama doing an amazing job in the title role and Anonamas Grooves giving us creepy, sexy, crazy face as Timeline 1. Visit my company’s website here to see what we have coming up.
LOVE YALL!
The Creative Midwife 