U-M Creative Currents

Perpetual Sunshine & the Ghost Girls

• Arts Initiative • Season 2 • Episode 6

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Today on U-M Creative Currents, you’ll learn all about how musicals get made. In this episode, we’re spotlighting one of our “Arts Research: Incubation & Acceleration” (ARIA) grant projects: Perpetual Sunshine & The Ghost Girls, a new musical theater work that tackles the exploitation of women workers in the early 20th century.

Mark talked with playwright-lyricist, Sara Cooper, whose recent works include the Broadway-bound show Silver Linings Playbook and HoT, and Lynne Shankel, a faculty member with School of Music, Theater and Dance (SMTD) and a fantastic composer, orchestrator, and music supervisor whose Broadway credits include the shows Allegiance and Crybaby. 





saracooper.me

lynneshankel.com

https://www.lynneshankel.com/works/perpetual-sunshine-the-ghost-girls

https://research.umich.edu/arts-research-incubation-acceleration-aria/ 



Season 2, Ep. 4: Sara Cooper, Lynne Shankel

Mark Clague: 0:07
Welcome to UM Creative Currents, a Michigan Arts podcast where we discuss collaborative creativity and how the arts can spark meaningful social conversations. I'm your host, Mark Clague, and today we're spotlighting one of our ARIA grant projects, Perpetual Sunshine and the Ghost Girls, a new musical theater work that tackles the exploitation of women workers in the early 20th century, the labor laws they fought to change, and what all this has to tell us about today. I'm joined by Sarah Cooper, a playwright, lyric whose recent works include the Broadway-bound show Silver Linings Playbook, and Professor Lynn Schenkel, a faculty member at our own School of Music, Theater, and Dance, and a fantastic composer, orchestrator, and music supervisor whose Broadway credits include the shows Allegiance and Crybaby. They are working on a show called Perpetual Sunshine and... The Ghost Girls. The Ghost Girls. So I'm assuming this is a typical musical, so it's really happy, and there's a big love story. High comedy, romance, tap dancing, all the things. Yeah, so Sarah, tell me about that.

Sara Cooper: 1:14
Oh, sure. Yeah, it's this really beautiful love story. It's not. It's not at all. It's a deeply tragic. It's based on the true story of what is often referred to as the Radium Girls. It's these women who in the real factories in New Jersey, and I believe Ohio, ours is in New Jersey, and also in Queens, they were painting the faces onto watches in the factories in the 1920s, which is a major part of our show. obviously, and they... The company found out before they did that it was causing radium poisoning. The company did not stop it, and pretty much everybody who worked in those factories licking the brushes died of radium poisoning. It's a horrible story. But the good thing that came out of it, if such a thing could happen, is that all these labor laws were spurred as a result. It's like these incredible women who took it to a lawsuit. So our story is sort of like, it's not about the lawsuit. It's about the act of sort of rebelling against capitalism and not allowing your body to be used in this particular And

Mark Clague: 2:10
it's an all-female cast?

Sara Cooper: 2:12
All-female cast. There's a couple of male characters who are played by women. Yeah, it's a cast of eight. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, a cast of eight, and it's kind of reverse Shakespeare Lynne Shankel: in a way, where women play all of the characters, whether Lynne Shankel: they're men or women.

Mark Clague: 2:27
exactly. Lynne Shankel: right? Lynne Shankel: Yeah, for sure. Lynne Shankel: Definitely.

Sara Cooper: 2:32
consumption of women's bodies. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. Lynne Shankel: I mean, there are moments that are quite funny, and it's Lynne Shankel: not... Oh, yeah, for sure. Lynne Shankel: sure. Lynne Shankel: It is enjoyable, but we do kind of want it to, you know, Lynne Shankel: kind of feel like a bit of a deep hell ride. Lynne Shankel: Right. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, yeah. Lynne Shankel: It's like a fever dream. aim. That's our aim. Yes. Oh, and it's also through composed. So there's no, I mean, there's a little bit of spoken dialogue, but there's always music underneath. It's like, the idea is that it's like this current of hell that just keeps going. But again, funny. Funny hell. Funny hell. Funny hell.

Mark Clague: 3:07
Yeah. So you've written the music, Lynn? I have, yeah. And so it's set in the 1920s, 30s? Or do you evoke that musically? Lynne Shankel: tell us about the score. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, sure. Lynne Shankel: The show is set in the 1920s, and we describe the score Lynne Shankel: as a kind of 1920s, 2020s mashup. Okay, so Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, the Flapper. Lynne Shankel: Exactly, exactly. Lynne Shankel: It is that plus sounds of the 2020s that are quite synthetic Lynne Shankel: and some that are quite... Lynne Shankel: poppy and a little bit industrial. Lynne Shankel: And we've kind of, you know, tried to find a world that Lynne Shankel: melds the two and that goes kind of seamlessly back and Lynne Shankel: forth between the two and, you know, sometimes incorporating Lynne Shankel: it all at the same time. Lynne Shankel: So that's been a big adventure. So do the words come first? Do the music come first? Or do they come together? Or how do you guys, what's your working method? We have words.

Sara Cooper: 4:05
We have words. We have something we call the vomit draft.

Mark Clague: 4:08
Yes.

Sara Cooper: 4:09
In which I pitched this to Lynn.

Mark Clague: 4:10
one of the secrets that creatives should know about, right? Exactly.

Sara Cooper: 4:14
you think, wow, these people, everything was like this from the beginning. Oh, look at what they do. Yes. I mean, which we should probably preserve, but we won't. Yeah, so I pitched this to Lynn, like our other show, too, and wrote what we call the vomit draft, where I just spend a few weeks doing something crazy and writing this really nutso, as far... Because my sensibility is more experimental and strange. And then Lynn's like, let's make this into an actual thing. And then we get together and she writes me and then I write more words and we go back and forth until we have a piece.

Mark Clague: 4:42
So how did you come across this story?

Sara Cooper: 4:45
I saw it on Facebook. I had actually never heard of it until, this was like three years ago now? Lynne Shankel: Yeah, well four now because we started in 2020. Lynne Shankel: Pandemic has robbed us of time. Lynne Shankel: I know, I know. I saw this like clickbait on Facebook and I love clickbait. So I clicked into it and I was shocked that I had not heard this story. It's like, it's so crazy and so atrocious and so, I just like, filled with rage, and so I told Lynn about it, and I wrote this vomit draft. Oh, I'm gonna tell this story here. Okay, so I was in this fever pitch of couldn't stop writing it. It was three and a half weeks. I wrote an entire 70 pages or whatever, and it was like, it's all sung through, so it was this very crazy thing, and then the day after I finished it, I talked to my uncle, who I don't speak to that often, and he was like, oh, what are you working on? I told him about it. He's like, oh, that's so crazy. Your great aunt worked in one of those factories in Queens. Wow. Yeah, so that was...

Mark Clague: 5:40
have a personal connection.

Sara Cooper: 5:41
even know that. Yeah, it was like this, like, I don't believe in ghosts, but if I did, I would think it was this. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, I kind of think your auntie was somewhere over your Lynne Shankel: shoulder because that draft came out really fast. Lynne Shankel: Really, really fast. Lynne Shankel: It was like three weeks. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, it sounds like the ghost girl had something to do Lynne Shankel: with it. definitely. She did not die, though. She was not one of the watch face people, but she was in the factories.

Mark Clague: 6:00
see. So how do you tell such a dark story with humor in a way? I mean, musical theater, I mean, it sounds like a potential bait and switch. You bring people in. people in for some fun evening and then you hit them with this heavy stuff, even though there's an optimistic conclusion in a sense, right, that these laws came. And, you know, it's an interesting time right now because people have forgotten all of the problems that all of these regulations solved, right? Since now they see this as just got to get rid of all these regulations, got to rewrite these rules or inhibiting economic development.

Sara Cooper: 6:33
Very scary.

Mark Clague: 6:34
But people are used to being safe. They're used to being able to go where it could not die of poisoning, right?

Sara Cooper: 6:39
Yeah.

Mark Clague: 6:39
a good point. But we've forgotten all that stuff. So in a way, bringing that history to life is super important.

Sara Cooper: 6:45
Yeah, thanks. We think so, too.

Mark Clague: 6:47
how do you do this in the show? Are there particular ways you bring the audience through the connection to these characters? Yeah. How do you tug on their heartstrings?

Sara Cooper: 6:55
Well, so for us, humor and comedy and tragedy are so closely aligned. They're so right next to each other. So a lot of our rage becomes comedy, which then makes the audience feel complicit. So it's kind of like a back and forth dance of when When is it really dark? When is it dark comedy? Lynne Shankel: I think it's also, you know, a big part of our job is making Lynne Shankel: you care about these characters. Lynne Shankel: And I think that when you care about a character, you know, Lynne Shankel: you're invested for the ride. Lynne Shankel: You know, it's like, look, even, you know, the musical Titanic, Lynne Shankel: we all know that the ship is going to sink at the end. Lynne Shankel: It's been that true since Greek tragedy.

Mark Clague: 7:35
ends badly. Lynne Shankel: Exactly. Lynne Shankel: But you do find yourself, you know, in the middle of it Lynne Shankel: thinking, oh God, maybe it's just gonna work out. Lynne Shankel: And you're like, oh wait, no, it's not, it's not. Lynne Shankel: But that's part of the job of drama.

Sara Cooper: 7:48
Absolutely, and we actually, so our main, so the five sort of women who started the lawsuit are the characters, are the ghost girls in our piece. And they're sort of telling the story from, both from out of time and in the 1920s. And our main character and her mother are fictional characters. So that gave us sort of the opportunity to explore the things that are more contemporary and put those issues into the 1920s away.

Mark Clague: 8:09
And what's the Perpetual Sunshine then?

Sara Cooper: 8:11
Oh, so Perpetual Sunshine is a real product that was in the 1920s. It was like a beauty product that made women glow and also poisoned them. Right. The glow of the radium. Exactly. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. Lynne Shankel: Because that was another thing that we discovered when we Lynne Shankel: were researching for the piece. Lynne Shankel: Radium was like the kind of the Botox of its time thought Lynne Shankel: to be. Lynne Shankel: It was thought to be a fountain of youth. Lynne Shankel: And so there was, people would go to the spa to have a radium Lynne Shankel: bath there were radium face products you know radium makeup Lynne Shankel: like all of radium tea radium tea all of the stuff that Lynne Shankel: you know that had radium in it that no one knew that it yeah and it wasn't only targeted at women but it was largely meant to make you feel glamorous and so it was like in the 1920s when women were sort of maybe like the war just ended this is in our piece also the war had just ended and you know women were starting to get like a sense of like oh we can be in the workplace we can have our own money and of course that wasn't as true as they'd hoped but suddenly they were like oh I can I can feel sexy I can be a person who's not just like an object that somebody else owns and so these products were very appealing to people to try to have that sense of

Mark Clague: 9:19
so you're basically putting radioactive stuff on your face it's burning your you got it your face and you're glowing Lynne Shankel: exactly and the women the women would leave the factory Lynne Shankel: with you know a little bit of radium dust and it was a thing Lynne Shankel: that they would you know on weekends then like on Friday Lynne Shankel: night go out to the club yeah you know Thinking, what a Lynne Shankel: great job I have. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, exactly. Lynne Shankel: What a great job. Lynne Shankel: I get this stuff for free. Lynne Shankel: That's literally a lyric. a lyric in the show. That's so funny. That's very funny. See, you should have written it. No, I think you guys are well-placed. Thank you, thank you. So this is faculty research, Lynn? I mean, so you received a grant from the Arts Initiative in our very prestigious program with OVPR, the Arts Research Incubation and Acceleration Grant. And what has that funding meant to this project? Lynne Shankel: Oh, man. Lynne Shankel: It's really been incredible. Lynne Shankel: We've already started on a train of working on some new Lynne Shankel: demos for the piece because part of the stage of development Lynne Shankel: that we're in right now is that we're connecting with commercial Lynne Shankel: producers and possible non-profit partners to be able to Lynne Shankel: get our first production happening. Lynne Shankel: In order to do that, you send out a script, you have to Lynne Shankel: send out demos and you know and all of that takes a bit Lynne Shankel: of doing especially in the demo end of things so we I work Lynne Shankel: a lot part of my musical partner in crime in most things Lynne Shankel: is Tony nominated orchestrator August Eric's moment and Lynne Shankel: he and I are orchestrating the show together and he's also Lynne Shankel: just a master of production in the studio like brilliant Lynne Shankel: brilliant guy and and one of my dearest friends and so we've Lynne Shankel: been working together to create more demos. Lynne Shankel: And we've been doing, Sarah and I have been doing a ton Lynne Shankel: of rewrites, so getting that stuff ready. Lynne Shankel: And the ARIA grant, what we're really excited about is we're Lynne Shankel: looking forward to, in 2025, presenting the piece in New Lynne Shankel: York in a workshop setting. Lynne Shankel: And that is where we're looking forward to using the majority Lynne Shankel: of those funds. Lynne Shankel: And right now, Sarah's here in town because we're doing Lynne Shankel: a two-week workshop with the University of Michigan Musical Lynne Shankel: Theater Department. Lynne Shankel: Which is an absolute delight. Lynne Shankel: I love our department. Lynne Shankel: It's wonderful. Lynne Shankel: We have a beautiful cast and we've been rehearsing every Lynne Shankel: evening 6.30 to 10.30. Lynne Shankel: I don't know how they do it, really, after being in class Lynne Shankel: all day long and then they come to us. Lynne Shankel: Actual rock stars. Lynne Shankel: Actual rock stars. Lynne Shankel: Agree. Lynne Shankel: Agree. Lynne Shankel: So... Lynne Shankel: So we're going to do a share event here on Saturday, and Lynne Shankel: we're so looking forward to that, and we're learning so Lynne Shankel: much, and we're a bit bleary-eyed because we've been doing Lynne Shankel: rewrites like crazy this week. Lynne Shankel: We threw them new material yesterday. Lynne Shankel: We're throwing them more new material tonight. Lynne Shankel: That always amazes me. just get notes, and they put it right into action. Lynne Shankel: Yep, and that's how it works in the real world. Lynne Shankel: So this is what they're training for. Well, the quality of our musical theater program is probably the worst kept secret on campus. Everybody should know about this. Do they not know? We all know it in New York. It blows my mind when there's even an empty seat in any of those shows and there should never be because the shows are so incredible. So everybody listening to this, check out the next musical theater production because you're literally seeing feature

Sara Cooper: 12:57
on the stages here in Ann Arbor. That is definitely the reputation.

Mark Clague: 13:01
for sure. So is there like a typical plan for how a musical gets from Lynne Shankel: does this happen? Lynne Shankel: It usually takes five to seven years, you know, from inception, Lynne Shankel: from the first really small elements of development to getting Lynne Shankel: a major production. Lynne Shankel: It just, it takes a lot of time. Lynne Shankel: And part of it is that, you know, the piece kind of needs Lynne Shankel: to stew for a while. Lynne Shankel: It takes a while, that first draft, like, you know, we're Lynne Shankel: not going to put the vomit draft in front of people. Lynne Shankel: And we didn't even put, you know, the first draft in front Lynne Shankel: of people. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, that's true. Lynne Shankel: I mean, we went back and forth between us. Lynne Shankel: Mm-hmm. Lynne Shankel: before we put it out anywhere. Lynne Shankel: And, you know, so that's part of that time. Lynne Shankel: And then each time you put it in front of actors, you learn Lynne Shankel: so much.

Sara Cooper: 14:22
we love. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, Anne Yee is terrific and is one of our closest collaborators. Lynne Shankel: And she and I are collaborating on another project together. Lynne Shankel: And she's here in town with us. Lynne Shankel: And she's, yeah, incredible. Lynne Shankel: And we learn so much from, you know, every time you bring Lynne Shankel: someone else on of the team you just learn more and then Lynne Shankel: there's you know then we love rewrites and then there's Lynne Shankel: more stuff that we want to rewrite and more stuff that we Lynne Shankel: want to rewrite and then you know at a certain point you Lynne Shankel: get to a place where it feels like okay I think we're ready Lynne Shankel: to share this draft with some folks you know with potential Lynne Shankel: producing partners and that's kind of where we are now.

Mark Clague: 15:01
How much has the show changed from that initial conception to now?

Sara Cooper: 15:05
So in some ways very much in some ways not very much so like The basic structure has actually stayed almost exactly the same. And the story has stayed the same, and the characters have stayed the same in concept. Something really, really big that's changed is that as we've been doing it, so my original conception was sort of like fairytale version, like fable. We're in this crazy, eerie ghost world, and our main character's the only one who isn't sort of part of that. And then as we've gone, we continuously get feedback like, oh, but what about the other women? And we've like... So the new draft is much more alive with the people, I think, I hope. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, I think so. Lynne Shankel: It's kind of a crazy concept to try to explain of what the Lynne Shankel: ghost girls are. Lynne Shankel: And so we kind of go back and forth in the piece with these Lynne Shankel: five women who were the actual women who formed the class Lynne Shankel: action lawsuit against the company and kind of their, I Lynne Shankel: guess, ghost selves that exist now, that exist in every Lynne Shankel: time scene. Lynne Shankel: that will exist in the future and we kind of go back and Lynne Shankel: forth between the 1920s reality and a ghost girl kind of, Lynne Shankel: you know, other omniscient, you know, kind of, yeah, universal Lynne Shankel: space. Yeah.

Mark Clague: 16:20
What do you think the show has to tell us today?

Sara Cooper: 16:23
Well, I think there's a lot. Unfortunately, a lot. Yeah, I mean, I think your point is very, I think that was very well said about the safeties being removed now. You know, also, like, bodily autonomy, not just for women, but for everybody, and specifically for marginalized people. Lynne Shankel: how often still that women's health concerns are not taken Lynne Shankel: seriously. Lynne Shankel: And that happened with all of these women. Lynne Shankel: Interestingly, on the death certificates for these women, Lynne Shankel: it said that they died of syphilis.

Mark Clague: 17:01
Wow. Yeah. Sort of almost condemning them. Lynne Shankel: their fault. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, it was 1920 slut shaming. Lynne Shankel: That's exactly what it was. Lynne Shankel: Which is a big part of what made us rage forward with this Lynne Shankel: show. Lynne Shankel: Absolutely, absolutely.

Sara Cooper: 17:15
Yeah. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, and it's very important to us also that this story Lynne Shankel: is told with a cast that represents multiple ethnicities, Lynne Shankel: multiple cultural backgrounds. Lynne Shankel: Body types. Lynne Shankel: Body types, exactly, so that we can kind of you know, we Lynne Shankel: want to be able to iris out to now and, and just in the Lynne Shankel: ways that, you know, that for women's health, that, um, Lynne Shankel: you know, the way that different women are, are looked at Lynne Shankel: possibly different from even from other women. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. is something that's part of the, well, that we're interested in exploring. Lynne Shankel: absolutely. Yeah.

Mark Clague: 17:59
Fascinating. So you guys obviously are really good friends and I can just feel the energy in the room. But I've been thinking a lot about collaboration recently and what makes for good collaboration. Because, you know, trained as a scholar myself, it was always sort of like this is a solo thing, right? You go off into the archive, you do your research, you write up the book or whatever, and you share it with the world and you never talk to anybody else because it has to be original and independent. And now it seems like so much of what's happening on campus is bringing people together. So what kind of advice do you have for people who might want to do collaborative work? How do you set up a positive working relationship? And especially as you talk about bringing on new directors and new people onto your team, it's not just about the two of you. Exactly. But there's got to be a whole kind of ethos happening about just, you know, it's a team sport in a way. Lynne Shankel: Absolutely. Lynne Shankel: Definitely. Lynne Shankel: I mean, I think that first of all, I think you have to be Lynne Shankel: really willing to be completely honest. Lynne Shankel: Absolutely. Lynne Shankel: About what you think, whether that's good or bad. Lynne Shankel: And I think having... Lynne Shankel: a real openness to other ideas and a willingness to let Lynne Shankel: things go and not to be precious about your work. Lynne Shankel: I think that's the biggest one, and I feel like that's something Lynne Shankel: that's really important to both of us, and that's something Lynne Shankel: that I really try to teach to my writing students here. Lynne Shankel: Everything is about rewrites. Lynne Shankel: Just because you made a draft, that's fantastic. Lynne Shankel: It's not done. Lynne Shankel: It's a draft. Lynne Shankel: And I can tell you for sure that every show that I have Lynne Shankel: opened on Broadway as part of a creative team, you get to Lynne Shankel: opening night and still you're like, man, if we had one Lynne Shankel: more week, we would do this and this and this and this and Lynne Shankel: this. Lynne Shankel: I mean, the good ones. Lynne Shankel: I think that's how you feel because it's just never finished. Lynne Shankel: And I don't think you should ever feel that it is finished. Lynne Shankel: It's art. Lynne Shankel: It's always evolving.

Sara Cooper: 19:58
Yeah. And especially because it is so collaborative, our form, everything is changed by everybody else. So you might see something that like doesn't suddenly doesn't work because but you've never noticed it before because it wasn't in this one specific person's body it's really interesting Lynne Shankel: yeah and I think also you know just being able to I think Lynne Shankel: I do think the biggest thing is just being able to just Lynne Shankel: step back and not not take criticism personally you know Lynne Shankel: I mean that is that is the biggest thing because it is in Lynne Shankel: the rewriting you know it is a constant thing you rewrite Lynne Shankel: you know one section and then you and you feel good about Lynne Shankel: that and then you look back and you work through the whole Lynne Shankel: thing and then you find oh wow since we changed this the Lynne Shankel: thing that's right before it doesn't make any sense anymore Lynne Shankel: or the thing that's after it doesn't make any sense anymore Lynne Shankel: so you have to rewrite more and you just have to be willing and actually one of the students the students have been so helpful already in this like when Natasha called out not called out but like very kindly was like well I noticed that this one thing doesn't make sense it was like oh that's because we wrote the thing before yesterday thank you so much for that cash our brains you know we're not seeing those do because we're just trying to get the thing done. So yeah.

Mark Clague: 21:08
this is so powerful. And one of the things we think a lot about at the Arts Initiative grow as a person? And this whole notion of critique, which is so much a part of the artistic process, right? Having a teacher or mentor who's giving you corrections and you're constantly striving to make things better. What we actually do as artists is so different, I think, than the way we tell other people what we do. You know, like when... So I'm a historian, right? So I teach music history. And part of what you're throwing out there are all these genius people, right? And you're showing the final product of every single creative act they've done. I mean, here's Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Here's the perfection of the Ninth Symphony or whatever. Here's this amazing opera, right? So Borgian Bass or whatever. And it's always put in case that this is like perfection and this is a genius person. And it makes the arts feel so inaccessible and so distant. Yeah. the skills we're actually learning are, are basically being honest with one another and being open to getting feedback that makes your work better. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. know, whereas I think, I think that's hard for people. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. Lynne Shankel: It's very hard. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. Lynne Shankel: It's, it's hard to, to, to get messy. Lynne Shankel: Yeah. Lynne Shankel: You know, I mean, that's really what it is. Lynne Shankel: You have to be willing to, to let it be messy. Lynne Shankel: Absolutely. Lynne Shankel: Because it, you know, you, you, you change one thing and, Lynne Shankel: and it might feel like, oh my God, we've destroyed it. Lynne Shankel: What have we done? Lynne Shankel: You know, but, but you, if you work through that then the Lynne Shankel: the ideas that follow are sooner or later you're going to Lynne Shankel: come on the perfect come to the perfect idea the perfect Lynne Shankel: thing that is going to work but that's not going to happen

Sara Cooper: 22:49
and it is hard because it's very vulnerable like it's absolutely like with us it's not at this point like you know we're often like i'm going to say something and it's like don't it's not personal yeah it's not you know i never feel that but like you know when you're putting in front of an audience it it becomes very personal like it becomes a lot of There's a lot of risk. Yeah, there's a lot of risk. And even just having another collaborator read it for the first time is pretty scary. So at this point in our careers, I think it's kind of like, okay, if somebody doesn't like it, it's not for them. That's okay. But I know with students, it's got to be so hard. I do not know how actors do it and put their actual selves in front of people. I really admire that. I could not.

Mark Clague: 23:23
valuable that you're sharing this creative process with the student and you're modeling this sort of openness to possibility and change. That's really cool. So you do the reading this week. What's next? Lynne Shankel: Oh, boy. Lynne Shankel: We're looking towards, in the spring, we're going to do Lynne Shankel: some work on the piece in New York. Lynne Shankel: We're looking, we're trying, actually, our schedules are Lynne Shankel: so crazy between me and Sarah and our director, Anne, who Lynne Shankel: works a lot internationally. Lynne Shankel: We're just, we're holding on to a couple of pockets of time Lynne Shankel: that we're all available. Lynne Shankel: Fingers crossed. Lynne Shankel: Fingers crossed in the spring so that we can do a little Lynne Shankel: bit more work to just really hone the draft and then we Lynne Shankel: want to do we want to do a workshop in New York and that's

Sara Cooper: 24:12
so we have this we won the show won the Richard Rogers award so yeah congratulations oh thank you but we need to use that so hypothetically we have to do a reading in New York which we're really excited about so I say have to in the sense of Lynne Shankel: so that's sort of our next yeah and that's our hope is to Lynne Shankel: be able to combine the Richard Rogers award with the ARIA Lynne Shankel: grant you know and be able to really you know do something

Mark Clague: 24:37
that's great well maybe to wrap up each of you tell me your Lynne Shankel: oh wow that's hard it's like picking your favorite child

Sara Cooper: 24:49
one I'm like rolodexing through the show. You could just sing the whole thing right now. I can't sing. That would have to be Lynn. Lynn does the entire demo. She sings everything. She sings all the parts. She's got a great voice. I can't sing at all. Well, I like the funeral. I mean, I really like the funeral, actually, at the very beginning of the funeral, especially the music, right after the priest part, like when things start getting really strange. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, we like it. Lynne Shankel: Well, okay, should we tell them what our brand is? Lynne Shankel: Yes, go ahead. Lynne Shankel: Yeah, this is our second show that we've written together, Lynne Shankel: and we've decided that our brand, Sarah and me, our brand Lynne Shankel: is sexy and gross. Lynne Shankel: And that's what we do really well. Lynne Shankel: And so I think the parts that are really sexy and gross Lynne Shankel: are our favorites. Lynne Shankel: I think that's absolutely true. Lynne Shankel: So the funeral's a good place to start? Lynne Shankel: The funeral's a good place to start. Lynne Shankel: It gets real weird. Lynne Shankel: It gets very strange. Lynne Shankel: There's a number called Undark. personal favorite. I love the music in Undark, especially. Lynne Shankel: Undark. Lynne Shankel: Undark is the women, they start as the women, the real, Lynne Shankel: quote, real women in the 1920s, and they go into a club. electric speakeasy. Lynne Shankel: Exactly, that's what we call it, an electric speakeasy. Lynne Shankel: They go into the club and it becomes a world of the ghost Lynne Shankel: girls and so the music is a little bit industrial pop and Lynne Shankel: this it's a musical sequence that actually takes us through Lynne Shankel: three years so that when we come out the other side we're Lynne Shankel: getting into the meat of our story when things are getting Lynne Shankel: really bad and challenging at the factory. So now that you're saying that, yeah, that That's my favorite

Mark Clague: 26:41
part. Well, I'm glad you're in agreement. I'm glad Creative Currents listeners got to hear about this here first, about your new brand, and we look forward to seeing the show on Broadway. Lynne Shankel: Thank you so much. Lynne Shankel: From your mouth to God's ears, please. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been great to hang out. Lynne Shankel: Thank you so much, Mark. Lynne Shankel: This was great. Unknown: Thank you. Creative Currents is a project of the University of Michigan Arts Initiative. Please subscribe to hear more great conversations with artists, scholars, and arts leaders from across the campus and across the globe. Send your comments and suggestions via email to creativecurrents at umich.edu. This episode of Creative Currents was produced by Mark Clague and Jessica Jenks and our audio engineer is Audrey Banks. Our original theme music is composed and performed by Ansel Neely, a student at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance. To learn more about the University of Michigan's Arts Please visit our website at arts.umich.edu. Thanks for listening.