![]() ![]() “Initially, I just kept thinking, ‘How in the world can they take that and turn it into a musical?'” he says. ![]() But members of the musical theater community in Charleston kept telling Brandenburg that the Footlight Players should try and produce the play, so Brandenburg finally sat down around six months ago and read the libretto and listened to the soundtrack. And hopefully if someone does come in and has no clue what they’re about to see, this discussion will help them make the decision whether or not they want to stay.”īrandenburg was unfamiliar with the 22-song musical, written by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy as well, though song titles like “Our Love Is God” and “My Dead Gay Son” will certainly sound familiar to those who loved the movie. It’s a dark comedy, so there’s a lot of humor in it. ![]() “We’re letting the audience know up front that you can still laugh,” he says. We’re certainly not making light of it because we think it’s a very serious subject matter.”īrandenburg said the decision to preface the performances came after colleagues of his that were educators reached out to him about it. But it’s mainly to prepare the audience before we start that this is some very serious subject matter that’s been made on the campy side, so they should take it from that perspective. “So we thought we would talk about the charities that have been set up to help students deal with the school shootings recently, and we will probably even take some donations that will go to those charities. “The subject matter is so prevalent in schools today,” says Don Brandenburg, the Footlight Players’ artistic director and the director of Heathers: The Musical. ![]() The sad fact of the matter is that the times we live in have dictated the pre-show conversation far more than the musical itself, which was first produced in 2010. The musical director of the play will come out and have a discussion with the audience, warning them that, much like the original film version from 1989 starring Christian Slater and Winona Ryder, the musical is a dark comedy with plenty of references to suicide, in-school violence, and bullying. With the advantage of Adobe Photoshop’s layers, I was able to build up light in different areas and in different captures.Then, I could assemble the captures as different layers in a Photoshop file and paint, or mask, the areas I wanted to keep.Each night, before the Footlight Players production of Heathers: The Musical begins, the company will take a somewhat unusual step. Of course, since the film had to go out to be developed, there was a large element of “I hope we got it!” involved. I either got all the parts painted on the film, or I didn’t and had to do it again. When I first used this technique, I was shooting on film. In a nut shell, it means that I used a flashlight to “paint” the light where I wanted it. And, to give it that ethereal look, I resorted back to an old style of light painting. An old ladder, shown only in an abstract sense, gave a sense of structure to the composition. In the meeting, we had discussed an overall color scheme and a minimalist scene, in keeping with the planned over all look of the production. The last time I had it out was in 2009 for a production of A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie for Paul Conroy at the Newton Country Players. For the poster cover, I pulled out an old pocket watch that I had purchased at a garage sale two decades ago. ![]()
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