How To Succeed in Musical Theater

While browsing YouTube, Alison H. Rich ’09 stumbled upon a video of a University of Michigan student performing a song entitled “Blue Hair.” Struck by the song’s unconventional yet identifiable character, Rich immediately tried to contact its writer, Joe Iconis, in order to get a copy of his sheet music.

“I loved this song,” said Rich. “I Googled him and found his MySpace, and set up an account to message him.”

To her surprise, Iconis, who is 26 and an acclaimed young voice in musical theater, responded to her MySpace message within the same day.

“You don’t know what’s going on with these people. I was quite lucky to catch him at a time early on,” says Rich. “You know he’s doing super-important things, but he’s still making time to get back to people.”

Rich and Iconis began to trade messages via MySpace and email. After discovering that they were both from Long Island, Iconis asked to hear Rich perform “Blue Hair” and the two arranged to meet last spring. Since then, Rich has worked with the Harvard Office for the Arts’ Learning From Performers series to bring Iconis to campus in order to lead a four-day student workshop that culminated in a performance last night.

‘SUBURBAN SITUATIONS’

A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of Arts Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, Iconis received a Ed Kleban Award in 2007 and a Jonathan Larson Award in 2006. He is currently working on several projects, including “The Black Suits,” a musical about a teenage garage band, and “The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks.”

“I write about suburban situations, and very normal people and very normal situations. I like writing about people who don’t normally get songs written about them,” Iconis says. “If there is a theme, it is sort of accidentally about young people feeling like they have so much they want to prove and want to say and not enough time to say it and do it.”

Some of his songs, such as “Joey is a Punk Rocker,” follow clichéd tropes—in this case, popular cheerleader falls for punk rocker.

Others begin with the familiar, but end up far from the expected. One song begins with the age-old breakup excuse “It’s not you, it’s me,” and concludes with the revelation that that the girl is a lesbian.

TAKING THE STAGE

Workshop rehearsals were casual affairs, held in a small room in the basement of Adams House. The 12 students who attended—chosen by audition from a pool of 30 candidates—sat listening to their peers’ performances while casually taking notes of their own on notebooks and laptop computers. Iconis accompanied each soloist on the keyboard.

Students, eager to experiment with Iconis’s music, were encouraged to bring their own interpretations to his pieces. Occasionally, Iconis stopped to give suggestions or to push for further experimentation.

“My favorite thing is to be able to actually work with people and develop the songs with them, and just see different people’s approaches to the song,” Iconis. says “Every actor is completely different. That is exciting to see. I hope for bold interpretation of my stuff.”

Rachel E. Flynn ’09, a self-described “musical theater buff” and roommate of Rich, was excited to participate in this workshop.

“I think it’s such a crucial opportunity, given that we don’t have a theater concentration here. Being able to work with new composers and new music is basically how we stay in training,” she says. “[Iconis] is part of this next generation of musical theater writers, and it’s such an incredible opportunity to see where Broadway and musical theater is going.”