BOTANIC GARDEN THE MUSICAL

book by Todd Logan
music by Lindsay Jones

We are actively seeking rolling world premiere partners through NNPN

GET TICKETS July 9 – 22

“I’M NOT HERE” SONG DEMO

TODD LOGAN, Playwright and Co-Lyricist

When I wrote Botanic Garden in 2006, I wanted to write a play about love, loss, and the challenge to go on. A close friend of mine died after a 20 year illness. She was the most courageous, vibrant, dynamic person I had ever known. Just before she passed, she shared her greatest fear: She was afraid as years passed her memory would recede for those closest to her. Especially her husband and children. I thought deeply about what she said. I lost my father when I was 13 years-old. I knew that when you lose someone so close, you never forget them. They are inextricably part of you. Including the pain. It’s a fools errand to engage otherwise. Yet…yet to be fully realized I think we all need to love and to be loved.

The play Botanic Garden is the story of Kate, a widow, who after several years, finally says, ‘yes,’ to a date to take a walk in the Botanic Garden. Panic and regret immediately overcome her. She turns to the one person who knows her down to her core, Jake, her dead husband. The play alternates from scenes from their marriage to the present. The plot point is whether or not Kate will walk thru the door after the doorbell rings. Her journey forward is both universal and excruciatingly personal.

Lindsay Jones created both the score and the sound design for the first production of Botanic Garden directed by Olympia Dukakis in 2008. Ann Filmer directed the 2016 revival of Botanic Garden at the Citadel Theater. Ann and Lindsay are rare birds. Brilliant at what they do and two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I think ‘yes,’ is the greatest three letter word. I was and am so honored, when they both said ‘Yes,’ when I asked if they wanted to collaborate on a musical version of Botanic Garden. A few months later Lindsay took our breath away when he played and sang the opening song, ‘I’m Not Here.’

LINDSAY JONES, Composer and Co-Lyricist

Because I come from a sound design background, I’m interested in creating works that really expand on what musicals can sound like through advanced technology. Botanic Garden The Musical, which is scheduled for production this summer at the 16th Street Theater in Chicago, will use only a single piano. But by using unusual miking techniques and audio equipment, we will create echoes, loops, recorded fragments, and multiple layers to make it sound like everything from an orchestra of pianos to a bare whisper of music to accompany the actors. In addition, we will be using audio technology to create new ways to present the voices, either through echoes in the space, moving the voice around, and other ideas that allow us to re-evaluate how we perceive musical performances. My goal is to create a new kind of musical theatre where audio technology and audio presentation is actually a part of the composition process, and not just something that gets added on once the production gets to technical rehearsals.

As someone who is very fluent in theatre technology, I believe we can redefine what musicals can do and the audiences it can reach. I’m most interested in reaching out to audiences who may not have a strong relationship with traditional musical theatre, but might be more interested in an unusual presentation that encompasses unusual sounds and current music production techniques. As someone who’s spent their life working in theatre, I believe strongly in the power of this medium and how we can affect audiences. But if I’ve learned anything in the past year, it is that we must adapt to meet the growing challenges of creating new audiences, and using new forms and ideas to achieve that.

In director Ann Filmer, Todd and I have found a creative partner whose careful guidance and enthusiastic support has given us the push that we needed to step beyond our traditional boundaries. It’s my hope that Botanic Garden The Musical opens new doors in terms of how we view and create musical theatre. I’m really excited to embrace the challenge and step into a new future.

MATT DEITCHMAN, Music Director

Botanic Garden The Musical is, by design, a small scale musical. As producers continue to seek out cost-friendly models of producing smaller musicals, they are often faced with the task of reducing Broadway scale scores to fit on smaller stages – both in cast and orchestra size, sometimes producing results that, unfortunately, reveal holes where previous artists once existed.

By designing a score that is specifically created to maximize the talents of three live artists, composer Lindsay Jones is creating a small-scale musical without apology. This is a score that takes simple technological tools quite familiar to recording artists and sound designers and incorporates them into the composition from inception, allowing a piano to expand beyond the confines of hammers and strings. Looping technology gives the appearance of musical ‘ghosts,’ allowing unexpected voices (both vocal and instrumental) to call out and create a full soundscape that contains echoes of the past and hints of the future.

Most importantly, the score is also designed with producibility in mind — with a simple mic and sound console, and two pieces of technology (one computer outfitted with QLab and one with Mainstage), even the most barebones of budget can fully accommodate the score as crafted and as intended – with rehearsal materials that lay out how to accomplish any technological elements so that any sound designer/music director combo can easily achieve a thrilling, fully realized production.