Blogging Bloodworks: March / Link

As I get older, I find myself needing many reminders.

Today I had my phone remind me to pay my credit car. Later it will remind me what I'm doing this weekend of if I need to bring something with me. None of this is new information. I simply need to start reminding myself of things I already know.

Christmas in Queens is such a reminder.

For example, before I started working with Eric, I had basically forgotten that I lived in Queens for awhile. The first apartment Olivia and I shared was right on the border of Astoria and Long Island City.  In fact, it was in Queens that Olivia helped me edit an application for a group called Youngblood about five years ago.

In my Youngblood application essay, or at least some draft of it, I wrote about how I had grown up doing plays, starting with a sprite in A Christmas Carol. I hadn't really thought about this for some time either. Not until I started working with Eric did I realize I was in a production of A Christmas Carol every year from 1992 until 1998, starting as a sprite and working my way up to a Cratchit child and eventually Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come--the best part of all. Years went by. Never thought about it or the fact that growing up there was almost no distinction between doing plays and celebrating Christmas.

So those are two things I knew, but needed to be reminded of. But here's the biggest one of all.

If somebody asked me what the best part of writing plays is, muscle memory might have me say something like collaboration. But now after writing my second musical with Eric, I'm totally reminded that this is absolutely true. Collaboration is the best part of writing plays. Don't think I can remind myself of that enough.

Christmas in Queens

a new musical

Music & Lyrics by Eric March

Book by Patrick Link

Directed by RJ Tolan*

with Matthew Baldiga, Helen Coxe*, Dylan Dawson, Alex Herrald, Todd Alan Johnson, Aaron Phillips, Eugene Oh, Rachel Resheff, Megan Stern

9pm at Ma-Yi Studio

260 West 35th Street, Suite #203

*member of Ensemble Studio Theatre

Blogging Bloodworks: Link/March Pt. 1

People often tell me that they can't imagine me as a child.

I don't really know what this means, but more than one person has said it to me. In fact, even I have trouble remembering myself as a young boy. But I know I didn't always speak in the baritone that I do now. I was once a child. And while I'll never be one again, I briefly felt like one while writing The Bone Wars.

I didn't have many toys growing up, but I did have dinosaurs--an awesome T-Rex and a pretty sweet Brontosaurus. I think there was a Triceratops in the mix too. Boy, did we have some crazy adventures! I even had an awesome book called Patrick's Dinosaurs--how frickin' cool! I couldn't believe there was a book that not only had my name as part of the title, but was ALSO about dinosaurs. Life was complete.

Yet, I grew up too quickly. Hollywood was calling, or at least the local community theatre was, and I had myself some musicals to be in. That's right. When I was nine I was a triple threat. I acted, I danced (4 years tap--oh yes!), and I believed that I could sing. While Jordan was winning NBA Championships, Link was making a name for himself in local musical theatre. And I was very, very serious about it.

But, again, I grew up too quicky. When I was 15, I "didn't want to pretend anymore." So I put these musicals away in the dark closet of my soul, right next to Patrick's Dinosaurs. I locked the key. Never to return.

Until I started writing a musical about dinosaurs with Eric March and Jeff Bienstock--a musical you can experience for the first time ever on Wednesday, June 22 at 8:30pm on the 2nd floor of EST. The Bone Wars is a musical adventure about two leading paleontolgists of the 1880s and their conflicting ambitions. It's also about fame, survival, and science!

But for me (and maybe just me) it's about other things, too. Like finding fossils not just in the ground, but in the caverns of your mind; fossils that form the child you once were--a strange distant creature that once ruled the earth.

The Bone Wars

Music and Lyrics by Eric March and Jeff Bienstock

Book by Patrick Link

Wednesday, June 22 at 8:30PM

Directed by RJ Tolan

Featuring Chris Hoch, Anthony Holds, Sarah Corey, Joel Rooks, Catherine Jones, Josh Davidson, Lance Rubin, Aaron Phillips, Steven Boyer, John Bennett, Shawn Randall, Matthew Baldiga, and Nate Weida.

FREE