Once youth theater programs all over the world (no, really!) had done their productions of The Show Must Go Online!, the content beast gaped its hungry maw once more. It beckoned to the Makers of Musicals, “Quench my desire for a new socially-distanced youth musical!” and the makers sought at once to slake its desires.
Which brings us to Super Happy Awesome News! A Virtual Musical, the second in Beat By Beat Press’ series of musicals written for online, socially distanced, and/or hybrid rehearsal and performance.
While their first was a silly and ridiculous farce that reveled in the absurd challenges of people adapting to their new stay-at-home lives, the second one was written later in 2020, and it shows. It’s still fun and silly, but it has a really big heart. It’s the perfect musical for kids trying to process their less-fun feelings in a world that can throw them a lot of curveballs - written in a time when all of us were getting thrown quite a few curveballs.
“Two siblings launch rival good news networks and find themselves competing for the title of happiest news show. Soon, their correspondents are in a whirlwind of ecstatic musical reporting – from joyful weather forecasts, to cheerful cooking segments and blissful political updates! But, when vulnerability starts peeking through the euphoric facade, they’re left wondering: is there room for raw honesty on a super happy broadcast? This new virtual musical (designed specifically to be rehearsed and performed remotely), incorporates real stories from kids age 7-14, offering a positive outlet for them to express their emotions.”
This was a particularly awesome score to orchestrate - Denver Casado, the composer, gave me a lot of different styles and moods to evoke and play with, and it was especially fun to start dipping into electronic palettes - this was the first musical we’ve done together where I got to use a vocoder and a side chained synth, which means nothing to you but which is very exciting for, so just humor me.
Check it out! You can hear the whole score on the site linked above, and just below you can hear two of my favorite tunes from the score.