If you like fast paced soap opera comedy and music with meaning beyond the surface then What Girl In Danger is the show for you. “Un-Block the Music” saw the show, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael J. Jackson and suffice to say I was breathless. Aside from wanting very much to see Michael’s follow-up to Tony winning best musical A Strange Loop, I was excited to see so many of the people I have interviewed for this blog and my upcoming book involved with this show, specifically, Eric William Morris (actor), Carin Ford (sound), Meg Zervoulis (music supervisor) and Lynne Shankel (orchestrations). I have attached links to some of these stories at the end of this piece.
First off, the show has a limited run at Second Stage Tony Kiser Theater, NYC, through May 21st… So hurry. Tickets here: https://cart.2st.com/events/2560?view=calendar&startdate=2023-04-01
The plot goes like this:
“The citizens of the soap opera town Allwhite face high-stakes drama and intrigue all the days of their lives. But Keesha Gibbs and the other Blackgrounds have been relegated to backburner stories of slavery and police violence for all of theirs. Keesha is determined to step out of the Blackground and into the center of Allwhite’s juiciest stories. Can Keesha handle the Allwhite attention—especially from the Allwhite Killer on the loose? What role do the other Blackgrounds play in Keesha’s Allwhite schemes? And just whose story is this anyway?”
“Un-Block The Music” spoke to Meg Zervoulis before the show. It’s not the first time she has worked with Michael. “I worked on another show called Teeth and this past summer I did the workshops for White Girl In Danger. They hired me to assist Rona Siddiqui who was the music director on A Strange Loop.”
“White Girl In Danger is intended to be manic soap opera extremism. Because of that, the music goes to a lot of different places. In most shows there are a total of 40 or 50 cues. In this show, there are 75 cues total,” Meg explained. What is a musical cue? It is a section of a piece of music that is intended to signal the time for a performer to carry out a certain action. For example, a piece of music played during a theater production could be a signal for an actor to run across stage, or deliver a line.
“The reason there are so many cues in White Girl is because there is so much underscoring. It is supposed to be like you are watching a crazy sitcom or horror movie,” Meg said.
While watching the show, the audience can’t see the musicians because they are on another floor in an isolated space. There is a band of seven plus Ableton which is a program that enables you to trigger multiple stems of audio in live performance.” In other words, in addition to the live players, there are additional orchestration stems playing along with us variously through the evening,” Meg explained.
If you want to know more about Meg, who has been playing piano since she was three years old, who went to Juilliard Prep and Carnegie Mellon and was ultimately mentored by non-other than Mary Mitchell Campbell, stay tuned for my book….I swear it is coming soon! So many women to interview…it’s gonna be great! And, if you don’t have patience for that…you can experience Meg’s work at Funny Girl on Broadway! A dynamic woman for sure!!!
Another side note, it was just announced that the musical “Teeth” will be part of Playwrights Horizon 2024 season. Not much info available just yet. Stay tuned.
Other stories you might like:
Un-Block The Music 
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