"Sin" scene 01

During rehearsals for my show “Ecstasy” in 2009 I was inspired to create a rock opera…I’d always wanted to do a story completely composed of pop-rock songs in the vein of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Tommy” and “Evita,” the idea being you can enjoy the show as an evening of songs alone but there’s also a story that unfolds. 

For my next show I wanted to do something a little more edgy…I took some of the characters from my current show and “re-cast” them in a story about the struggles of relationships.  I’d always liked the idea of “The Great Divorce” from C.S. Lewis (which was in turn inspired by Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”) but literalized it—what if God and Satan were a divorced couple going through the challenges of an ended relationship? 

The rest fell into place quickly and easily.  I conceived of four characters to reflect the symmetry I always seek and created the story with mathematical precision.  On one side, a thwarted, passionate “devil” figure named “Santana.” I never mention any names in the show, I wanted it to be grounded in reality and thought of the religious figures only in a mythological/philosophical sense, but Santana represented “Satan.”   

On the other side was a God-like figure, “Luis,” (or “lui” as in the French for “Him”), a cold, emotionless business-minded CEO-type. 

The opening song sets the scene in hell where “Santana” is going over her scheme.  The song “Fire is Burning” is one of the first songs I ever wrote.  A college friend named Mari Takushi was a singer and also aspiring lyricist—she’d hand me her words and I’d try to make songs out of them.  In the case of “Fire” I tried to make it a song like “Berlin” might have recorded (“Masquerade”).  I’ve done the song about a million times trying to get it right.  I recently did a retro version that was probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to the sound I was after, here: 

https://youtu.be/QmASuB7NpHk?si=ilXTwCtyjofjB-6Z

But Saudia’s version was perfect for the show.  She’d be waiting in the wings as the audience arrived, came strutting in, stared down the crowd and launched into the first song.

When the show starts “Santana,” bitter, cast out and feeling thwarted, has come up with a plan to out “Luis” as a hypocrite.  She’ll use a corrupted young man as an instrument to stage a morality play for the world to see,and the conclusion will make it clear who the real “bad guy” has been all along. 

Her plan is to get the corrupted man to lure in and manipulate a naïve, reverent young pop star into risking her own faith for a life of success that comes with corruption too. 

If “Devlin,” a failed music producer, can bring “Faith,” a bright young pop star, over to the dark side, Santana will make Devlin successful again.  If not, she gets his soul. 

The events that follow from there compose most of the story and everything circles around to the end where Santana makes her final case and the conclusion that results. 

Obviously this was a pretty dense plot for a rock opera, but that was my plan…you could enjoy it as a night of music alone, you could get into the story of the warring, on-again-off-again couples…you could go deeper into an examination of Christianity-based notions of faith and loss of faith, further, you could dissect the mathematical aspect…there were four “corners” and everything was set up to have a parallel, a “dark” and “light” version, as each character crossed back and forth across across the lines of who they “are.” 

I composed the entire show over the course of a difficult time, in 2011, when I usually only had Sundays off from my animation job.  I’d drop everything on my one day off to compose another of the songs, lyrics and instrumental backing tracks.  In the end, I had 75 minutes of material, composed of 24  tracks, 19 of which were complete songs, the rest being narrative/story points.  Having only recently started getting into actual “opera” in earnest, I put what I knew about opera into the piece I created, at least structurally—there was an introduction, recitative, arias, leitmotifs, ensembles and a chorus (represented in the live version by the dancers). 

I highly doubt anyone noticed all the trouble I went into to follow actual opera outlines, but most of that stuff was for me alone anyway; I really just wanted to create an entertaining evening for adults, showcase a lot of my songs and do another live piece to see how my material worked out. 

After recording the tracks and writing the lyrics I was lucky enough to assemble an incredible amount of local talent to do the demo recording, which I distributed myself on CD in early 2011.

Later that year I worked with the director/choreographer of my first show, Kay Cole, to put together a live “sing-through,” that is, a performance of the piece with minimal staging.  I decided it would be best to perform the show in a bar.  It seemed like the material lent itself to a dark, seedy kind of place where people are drinking and lounging rather than doing it as a traditional theater piece.  It was intended to be dark, ribald, edgy and ultimately “rock and roll” more than theater. 

Kay and I assembled another incredible cast to do the one-night-only performance at a small, interesting bar in the theater district of North Hollywood, and I started advertising it locally as a free show event. 

We conceived the show as a 4-microphone “staged reading”-style performance with minimal choreo.  I created a video backdrop to be projected on a small screen and, as a gimmick, the video was tinted red with neon-based colors and the people in the audience were given special glasses that would make the video look 3D.  Not many people were interested in that angle and I couldn’t blame them, but it was fun to play with it, and it gave the whole show an appropriately lurid red-tinted flair. 

The night was tremendously successful—everyone did a fantastic job performing and the free event was standing-room-only.  I couldn’t have been more thrilled—people really “got” it and, what’s more, they liked it—the songs, the performers, the humor, and even the story.

I wasn’t sure what to do after that and had to go back to work anyway, so Kay, the cast and I put it all aside for a while.   We arranged a meeting to discuss doing “Sin” and my first show “Ecstasy” as double bill evening in Vegas but after a week of trying to work it out there I wasn’t convinced Vegas was the right market and it would have required putting up a lot of capital, so it never happened. 

Eventually the visual effects company I worked for folded and I was very concerned about my future, so I focused on getting a new career as a teacher and forgot about musicals for a while.

 By 2015 I was pretty stable in my new life and felt it might be time to try “Sin” again, with a proper run of some kind.  I found out about the Los Angeles “Fringe Festival” and knew right away it was the best way to go…I could keep costs down as well as expectations if I did “Sin” as a Fringe show, I felt.  I could do another limited-staging performance in a bar environment in the heart of Hollywood and not have to risk too much to see if the show actually really did work with a short run, more than as a one-off. 

Having learned a lot about how to do shows from my first experience, I took on all duties myself, including promotion, and it was exhausting but educational, and fulfilling too. 

I was able to amass another group of incredible performers, chief among them being the star of the show, Saudia Yasmein.  I found her on a casting service and asked her to come in and audition.  At the audition she took my hand and sang “At Last,” the Etta James classic, and I nearly melted on the spot.  I knew she could do it, but wasn’t sure if she’d want to…it was a ton of songs and lyrics in a lot of different styles, along with acting and performing in a show that was a little on the edgy side, where she was in nearly every scene and would be the face of th whole show in many ways—good or bad. 

I was fortunate Saudia, who could sing rock just as well as soul, jazz and just about anything else, was interested in the project and agreed to do it.  I told her to make it her own, and she did, and I attribute the tremendous success of this incarnation of the show to her as much as anything else. 

We rehearsed for 4 weeks or so and were finally able to get into the venue for the final tech rehearsal.  The Three Clubs in Hollywood was a perfect home for us, despite the fact that there was no proper dressing room area then, and we weren’t sure until the day before opening night if we were even going to have to mic the performers or not (we ended up using standing mics last minute, forcing the performers to re-think all the choreography we’d set up, but they were all troopers thankfully). 

We had some serious bumps along the road, but opening night came and everyone knocked it out of the park—and knocked people’s socks off. 

I knew right away we had a hit and it felt great, like no other feeling I’ve ever known—I understood what the draw was for theater people at last...cheering audiences who signal they love you with their applause. 

Another interesting thing happened—I naively purchased a review from a local prominent theater website that was offering them.  In doing so, I was part of a huge controversy that went all the way to London’s West End and back.  For the month of June, 2015, it seemed everyone in theater was discussing the ethics of buying—and selling—reviews…could a review truly be honest if it was paid for?  Was a negative review (which I ultimately got from the verbose and self-obsessed reviewer I paid to come review my show) worth the purchase price? 

None of that mattered ultimately—all it did was bring attention to my show.  I remember the scheduler for The Three Clubs approaching me before our show one night, he was smirking as he said, “You’ve got everyone’s attention. You’re on. Have fun.” 

Ultimately this resulted in sold-out shows for the last half of our 6 performance run.  In the end I was hiking up prices to $25 or more and getting it—unlike my first show, where I lost my shirt, having given away most seats at a discount or for free, “Sin” paid for itself with a little left over…I was stunned, and thrilled. 

We ultimately did not get any nominations—or support, for that matter—from the Fringe community, the theatre community, anyone from the Three Clubs or anyone involved in showbiz, which I found interesting…but the audiences loved us.  We had repeat viewers who had memorized the whole show, sitting front and center every night, singing along.  The bar atmosphere lent itself to a lot of crowd participation (in a respectful way) and invigorated the performers.  Everyone in the cast maintained a professional demeanor the whole run and I had a ball sitting and watching my show, running as perfectly as I could have ever hoped, night after night. 

I was thrilled, after every show, to have audience members approach me, wanting to thank me for an entertaining night or talk about the show.  I had many “fans” tell me this was the first live-theater piece they’d actually ever enjoyed. 

As important as anything, from the start I’d had a vague hope that “Sin,” very much influenced by my love of the work of Charlie Smalls in “The Wiz,” Michael Schulz’ direction on the (also rock opera) “Sgt Pepper” movie of the 70s and even Sheila E’s 2000’s-era light-jazz work I’d just found and fell in love with, could be made to appeal to a Black audience, and the reception it received from members of the Black community was one of the crowning honors of my career, and life. 

Like all shows, “Sin” ended its run and we packed it up and that was that. I didn’t see a future for it where I was putting up a lot of capital with only a wish and a prayer that we’d find an audience and see a return—again, we got absolutely no support from anyone professional—they were actually rude and arrogant to us and soured me on live performance quickly.  It was so different for me, coming from film where, if it makes money, it doesn’t matter if they “like” you or not.  My small steps into the theater community taught me that while I have tremendous respect for those who dwell in it, I personally did not belong.

I got some recordings of my show for posterity and we did a soundtrack recording, but there’s no way to replicate what it felt like to be there. 

I assembled some of the cast for another show (“Ruby,” a reimagining of my first show “Ecstasy”) the next year at the Fringe and it, too, did solid business…but I knew my time in theater had come to an end, at least for the time being.  I’m a firm believer that once you get what you want you should quit, and I couldn’t have had a better time with my shows than I did.

 Yes, I’d love to see them done with live musicians, with bigger budgets, reach a bigger audience and be able to continue to explore the medium—perhaps even turn a profit or see them take on a life of their own.  But I did it—we all did it—we were successful, and did it well, and made a lot of people in the audience happy, and that’s about as good as it gets I think. 

I’m presenting some newly edited highlights from the show on its 10th anniversary for posterity, for myself, for anyone interested, including insights into each song, with alternate versions showcasing the amazing array of talent I’ve had the privilege of working with as this piece evolved.  I owe a great debt of thanks to the performers, to the technicians, to the audiences and to anyone who takes some time out of their day to pay attention…it’s what we create art for, ultimately, to communicate, share and, above and beyond, entertain. 

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the entries if you will, and live, love and laugh at it all…

Here is Saudia Yasmein singing the official version from the 2015 Fringe run: https://youtu.be/fFY_-jqjuc4

Here is the original demo version of “Fire is Burning” sung by Tricia Rigway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CAI5FO8bO4

Here is the version as performed in the first “sing through” starring Terri Olsen as Santana:   https://youtu.be/VffwqXHOq6E