MMTS MUSICALS
MMTS Original Musicals
Each year we endeavor to write and produce a completely original production that allows the students to have the unique opportunity to bring a fresh story to their community complete with elaborate set design, costuming, branding and music. Each musical takes on a life of its own.
Madness: The Musical 2023
Madness: The Musical came boiling to fruition through the painful recognition that the muzzling or silencing of emotions by a friend, a parent, a spouse or a community leads to the inevitable repression of feelings that will eventually come out in aggressive or nasty ways.
Crisis means a decision point has been reached that will have actual implications in and upon your life! A point from which there is no turning back. A crisis involves a process of transformation where the old system can no longer be maintained.
When the little indignities of life mount up and the hidden (or not so hidden) hostilities and crushing injustices of a cruel world dawn on us, we are forced to face just how little control we actually have over it all…..and we hate it. It’s then that we can “see red” as the cork on all that has been bubbling up beneath the surface pops, the final straw breaks the weary camel's back, and in short…we lose it!
No one chooses a dark night of the soul. No one desires to be carried through a tremendously painful passage of time that transforms them forever. But life doesn’t ask for volunteers. It just slaps you in the face with reality and often, people just don’t handle that very well.
Be it relational, vocational, marital, political or societal - people suffer under the pressures of their own lives and sometimes seem bound to blow their top even as they endlessly strive to maintain their cool. Once the damage is done our Dr. Jekyll must come to terms with Mr. Hyde within.
Madness: The Musical has served as a pathway to explore this inevitability with MMTS students who are learning that these masks we wear (or the parts we play) teach us and equip us for a life that is wildly unpredictable, beautifully broken and painfully redemptive. As anger is transformed into peace, confusion to clarity and bondage to freedom we are finding, through the stories of others, the courage to accept and then be changed through the stories of our own lives that are still being written.
I’m so very proud of these students. They’ve worked tirelessly, honestly and bravely to tell this story well.
Wigs: The Musical, 2022
Children are always encouraged by adults to live life while they’re young. You hear it all the time “ Life is for the living, kid, so don’t waste a minute!” and “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!”
Enter the pandemic. The mixed messaging was on full display. Well meaning adults everywhere felt it necessary that we stop living life for a little while. Cover up, lay low, be careful, stop what you’re doing, don’t get together, stick to your pod! In all directions there was constriction of the togetherness that feeds our souls. All of this seemed to be born out of a deep fear of death. The fear that always exists but stays comfortably beneath the surface most of the time.
The effects of choosing to “not live” because of the fear of dying seemed to be a contradiction in terms. The pandemic caused all of us to face our mortality afresh as the wheels of all that we’d set in motion in our lives came grinding to a halt. We sat, we waited and we reflected.
The universal fear of death and the implications of dying young do not at first glance seem like good fodder for a musical, but I felt compelled to write and then examine a story wherein the children had learned what adults seemingly could not. Namely, that life is for living ….even when we are surrounded on all sides by the nagging presence of death. It turns out, to live is to look our mortality in the face and smile (or dance and sing) because death is surely as much a part of life as being born.
Simply put, it seems to me that really being alive is making peace with death well before it comes. Beholding hope in the eyes of our fellow sufferers is the surest way to pass from life to death to life again in the arms of love.
We’re all gonna die. But are we all gonna live?
What is it we fear most? What really keeps us up at night? For five kids whose deepest fears have become reality, hope is found where they least expect it. When a kooky janitor with a hidden past brings treasures their way, these young sufferers might learn that when there’s nothing left to lose, freedom is closer than ever.
Join cranky Nurse Vespers and Candy-Striper Peggy along with a whole host of larger than life visitors for Wigs: The Musical - a hilariously honest adventure that sings and dances right to death’s doorway!
Long Story Short: The Musical (2021)
The irony that "Long Story Short" is a musical a year and a half in the making is not lost on us at Magill Musical Theatre Studio. We are honored to present it to our community after such a long time apart!
The 7th season of MMTS began in the fall of 2019 and who could have guessed what was coming. Though uncertainty surrounded us all, we clung to the beauty and possibility of live theater, believing that telling a good story still matters and doing so with songs, laughs and (eventually!) with an audience is all the better.
Each of us have endured our own quasi-abductions through 2020's historic pandemic and, more locally, through "SNOWVID". Narratives we would have written for ourselves were upended. Expectations were kidnapped. Our former hopes might have seemed held for ransom. It turns out we're not really in control - at least not as much as we would like to believe. Maybe learning that (even the hard way) is not such a bad thing.
We drive through life with only a rear view mirror and the path that awaits can't always be calculated and it's rarely safe. Walking through the development of "Long Story Short" we, at MMTS, have discovered how deeply it resonates with all of our actual fears and misgivings about life.
These actors have tirelessly leaned into the process of character development through improvisational work and they've rehearsed (and rehearsed!) dances, songs and monologues. I'm so grateful for the work they've done, their tireless participation (even a full semester of Zoom classes) has yielded a great harvest.
Art imitates life. Through one "plot twist" after another the students and parents of MMTS have remained committed to telling this story because it is, in the end, all of our stories. What looks like death can lead to life and what looks like the end of hope may just be the beginning of faith. Bringing this musical to the public has been a difficult labor of love. But what a Joy!Thank you for joining us and for supporting live theatre in East Texas. We couldn't do it without you!
The Palm Motor Inn (2019)
It’s not a mystery to me how The Palm Motor Inn came to be. This past September, after 5 years, Magill Musical Theatre Studio secured our very own space. Within the walls of a space barely larger than a NYC apartment these students have conquered fears, overcome challenges and looked at themselves in the mirror. That last bit might not seem to go with the first two, but I’m convinced really seeing ones reflection is the scariest act in the world. The large mirrors we sing, dance and act in front of at MMTS deliver the truth – the good, the bad and the ugly. But it’s only in the midst of community that one can really rejoice in the good, forgive the bad and laugh (or cry!) through the ugly. The shelter of grace is required for the truth to be received that it may do its hard but necessary work. The characters of The Palm Motor Inn are you and me, both simple and complex creatures coming to terms with an eventuality that awaits us all. A storm is coming and they’ll need one another to endure it. I join our entire studio in welcoming you to The Palm Motor Inn – we’ve been waiting for you to arrive!
Over Easy (2018)
A Note From The Director:
Back in college I suffered a brief stint waiting tables. Though it was the customers at The Olive Garden that really suffered. After introducing myself (with no shortage of pizzazz!) everything else was a struggle. I dropped trays of food, bungled the placement of dishes and found it impossible to remember who was drinking what. It was a means to an end and I didn’t really care about the people I was serving. In a fast food culture, where only the bottom line is embraced tables turn quickly as people are prodded through the dining experience like cattle at a feedlot. When the customer becomes a commodity, we have entered into something de-humanizing.
But not at this diner! Over Easy: The Musical is a meditation on the bouquet of colorful lives that fill one ordinary diner. The various vignettes, each a look into the lives of the diner’s customers, are presented by these five different classes.
Hospitality is a gift to others, making a space for them to be themselves and to receive the “art of service” and it requires esteeming the one you serve as more valuable than yourself. My assistant, Holly Tarkon, has been a true servant throughout our year together helping me in more ways than I can name and sharing with these students and their parents her whole, precious heart. What a gift she has been to us all! Holly, thank you! Hazel and Lois mirror us in so many ways and as we bid you farewell we pray God’s very best for you!
Over Easy’s score is a collection of standards from a bygone era (my favorite!). What a delight it has been to introduce these timeless songs to my students. They’ve embraced them in fresh ways that have made them new and even more beautiful to me.
My hope for these students is that they come to understand a little more about themselves with each passing class. Together, week after week, I seek to encourage these students to connect with their humanity – the good, the bad and the ugly. To the degree that they do they’ll become better performers and better servants to a world dying for hospitality…even if they do drop a few plates along the way!
IN MY ROOM (2017)
A Note From the Director:
Last summer I drove by my childhood home. To my amazement the curtains from my old room were still hanging, albeit a little sun-bleached and tattered. It caused me to consider the way inanimate objects often take on lives of their own following us as they do through the peaks and valleys of our lives. The expression of my imagination within those walls allowed me to process my darkest fears, deepest insecurities and highest hopes. Those curtains watched me grow up and I wonder now what they might have beheld in the lives of those that followed my wild and imaginative youth within those walls on South Azalea.
In My Room: The Musical is a meditation on one possibility. The various vignettes, each a product of Penny’s vivid imagination, are presented by my fiver different classes. Admittedly my life was different from Penny’s, but in many ways it was the same: day dreaming, procrastinating and praying that I would become someone who I secretly feared I was not.
My hope for all of these students is that they come to understand a little more about themselves with each passing class. Winston Churchill once wrote, “When you’re going through Hell, keep walking”. Together with my students, week after week, I endeavor to explore life, not as we would like it to be, but as it really is. It’s profoundly hard work, but I’m convinced the payoff is well worth the effort!
Thank you parents for the privilege of teaching your children and thank you students for your vulnerability, enthusiasm and your sacred imaginations.
Keep walking!
THE MOMENT (2016)
A Note From The Director:
“Who have I become?” is a question that puzzles any intellectually honest person at some point their life. Am I simply the sum of my every experience? Am I ready for the roller coaster of life’s inevitable ups and downs? Am I shackled to my worst pain or completely bound to future hopes in a way that makes present peace impossible? Or can I transcend each moment and find calm amidst life’s passing storms?
Matt and I wrestled with these questions as I discussed writing another musical. Delightful songs and raucous dialogue makes digesting weighty themes possible. This is a kid’s musical but it’s packed with humanity’s biggest questions about identity, purpose and hope. The scenes in the musical are divided between my four classes each representing another memory for Jane as she contemplates her life.
My hope for all of my students is that they come to understand a little more about themselves with each passing class. Week after week, together, we have shared so many moments that have profoundly affected all of our hearts and minds. Thank you parents for allowing that to happen and thank you to all the girls for your vulnerability, enthusiasm and beautiful creativity.
LIPSHTICK:THE MUSICAL (2015)
A Note From the Director:
Last August Matt and I took a road trip. No kids, no plans, just the road before us and the road behind. After last year’s Little Miss Sweet Potato and with the phenomenon of Frozen ceaselessly ringing in our ears, it occurred to us that we too could write a musical together. As we laughed and dreamed through a possible story, the book and songs for LipShtick: The Musical came to life.
With all these precious girls taking class with me, we wanted to explore issues of identity and teenage angst. LipShtick examines the insecure child in all of us and the roots of true inspiration.
When Matt and I look back on our 20’s, we’re both so grateful we didn’t get all that we expected life would bring us. The disappointments and heartaches shaped us and continue to shape us. Anyone who knows us these days knows that our heart beats to the song of re-creation.
A look at the love, passion, character and grit exhibited by the women of one family throughout the decades allowed us to explore different genres of music and aesthetics as the script developed.
There is so much of “us” in this musical. Creating it together with Matt has been a wonderful experience and my students have done a bang-up job bringing the script and all the songs to fruition – I’m so proud of all of them!
Growing up in Tyler I was influenced in indelible ways by Pam Erwin and Thereza Bryce-Coates at The Dance Factory. They were unimaginably serious about their art and they conveyed that passion to their students unapologetically. They set a high bar and we rose to the occasion. I’m blessed with opportunity to impart my passion for musical theater to my students and the fruit of our work together will be clearly on display in LipShtick: The Musical.
Pucker Up and enjoy the ride!
