It’s 3:37 AM as I’m beginning to type out this note. I’m currently sitting at my desk and waiting for one of my edits to render out as I make some last-minute tweaks to the show. Only three more days until the premiere! That’s wild! I genuinely have no idea how I ended up with eighty minutes of original music for this show. I started writing these songs at the beginning of last summer because, why not? There was such a freedom to this project that I loved. I knew the themes I wanted to tackle and I knew it followed college students on their summer breaks, but the opportunities were endless — if I wanted to write to work through an emotion I was feeling, I could. If I wanted to write the exact opposite of what I was feeling as a means to escape, I could do that too. Or, if I wanted to write to a specific situation or character I had thought up, like a little creative writing exercise, this was my chance.
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Okay, I went back to editing for a bit but it’s rendering again. It’s 3:54 now! Even closer to the premiere! Anyway, though I try my best to approach every song, every chord, and every note with as much purpose as possible, I’ve found that I’m not very good at coherently talking about my songs, so hopefully they speak for themselves and make you feel something! I hope that these songs connect with people of all walks of life and even make them want to sing along! That would be SO cool! If anyone out there reading this covers any of these songs, PLEASE share them with me! That would absolutely make my day and never ever get old. Seriously! The plan is to publish sheet music and backing tracks online, but if I haven’t done that yet, reach out and badger me about it! Please! This is meant to be a show for YOU, and I very much hope that you enjoy it and are able to relate to it, now more than ever. Lyrics about being stuck at home and having anxiety about your health hit differently these days in a way that I never could have imagined when I wrote them. Maybe these songs can make you feel just a little bit better, and remind you that we can get through anything, together.
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I’m back again — 4:38 now! I mentioned earlier that I have no idea how I ended up with all this music. While that statement is absolutely true for the question of how the heck I wrote the thing, I can tell you the answer for how the heck we produced the thing — you’re looking at the dedication and talents of seven star cast members, five rockin’ band members, two awesome featured musicians, and one brilliant co-director. It’s thanks to them that you don’t have to sit through eighty minutes of me trying and failing to play and sing these songs at a fraction of the quality at which these artists have performed them. They brought to life what I heard in my head. They made sense of my ramblings. We all get to watch this show because they generously gifted me with some of their time this summer, when they could have easily been baking sourdough bread or re-watching Tiger King instead.
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It’s 7:12 and I’m about to go to sleep. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for watching our show.
—Michael Gribble
Composer, Lyricist, Co-Director, Orchestrations, Post-Production, Piano, Percussion, Melodica
