CALLBACK is now on youtube
okay here's the short version:
1. i wrote a musical called CALLBACK
2. we did a DIY production in august
3. you can now watch it on youtube!
quickest possible pitch
In the show, an aspiring comedian gets the opportunity of a lifetime when a streaming service holds local auditions. It's basically "Live, Laugh, Love: The Musical." It's basically also Family Guy (it will make you laugh and cry) (real)
longest possible pitch
(aka just a blog post)
I started writing CALLBACK in 2023. I had wanted to write a musical for most of my life, but it actually felt possible in 2023. This was largely due to my involvement in Hot Goss: The Improvised Musical, in which a troupe of actors improvise an entire musical on the spot every show. It was always fun, and sometimes brilliant, but a huge part of me kept thinking: hey, wouldn't it be better if we actually tried writing some stuff down beforehand? If we could write a whole musical in an hour and a half, surely I could write a whole musical over the course of a year and a half. Parallel to this, I was spending a lot of time at Imposters Theater in Cleveland, where I witnessed the amorphous local alternative comedy community start to take shape in this new brick and mortar third place. Imposters gave me two things: the vision for an actual pathway to production, and the perfect setting for a story into which I could pour all of myself. And I did.
CALLBACK was the deepest, most vulnerable parts of me yanked out from under my skin and spilled onto the stage. It was me, in the truest possible form I could muster. Ironically, in writing it and producing it, I have changed; so it's not exactly me now. But it was me, as pure and uncut as could be. My embarrassing compulsion to seek fame and fortune, my sheer anger at the unfairness of capitalistic merit-based valuation, my constant struggle between delusional desire and mundane contentedness; every single character is based on me. Some part of me.
And yet, I could not do it alone. I was not about to do a one man show musical (that would have been very bad for many reasons). Writing the thing was actually kind of the easy part. It was not easy, but it was contained. I could wrap my head around it. I never wanted to do more than write it; I thought someone else would produce and direct it. Why did I think that? I was dumb. After table read, a long bout of rewrites, a stage reading, and a painful period of uncertainty and frustration about how art is subjective, we did book dates for CALLBACK to enter the world as an independent production at Imposters. Independent meant it was up to me, for better or worse. So I got to work.
I think the best creative decision I made in the production process was assembling the core team. I knew from the beginning that I didn't know anything. I knew other people who knew things. I do take full credit for all of the abilities of the people I asked to help me. But we did it all together. And when we starting bringing other people on board, we readily embraced each individual's unique set of skills. What you can see, if you watch the recording, is seventeen individuals extracting some small part from themselves to frankenstein together a beautifully, collectively personal monster of emotional expression. ok sorry that's too much, all i'm trying to say is GO TEAM!
In all honesty, it is a true testament to the spirit of DIY that we were able to accomplish any of this at all. It required a herculean effort from pretty much all of us, and that effort is evident in every single scene of the show. In producing this, I liked to say I was not hindered by the burden of experience - that is to say, I was a total novice. Beginner's mind, etc. I think this lack of training and tactical understanding actually served the show. My gift has never been my ability to speak, but to hear. I listened to everyone, and I listened to myself, and we did this. There were moments in this show that I consider to be the most beautiful bits of theater I have ever seen. Of course, that is by design; I was the one who concocted this convoluted piece with only my own taste in mind; but I think it matters. This play is of little consequence; it has come and gone without changing my life in any tangible way; but it matters. I realized, through this process, that something doesn't have to be significant for it to be meaningful. And this show was and is.
CALLBACK has been my life's work, so I guess that means I don't have any more work for the rest of my life. Haha just kidding. I'll probably find a new "life's work" in the future. One thing I've learned about life is that there's only ever more of it. You only accumulate the months and moments; you never really shed them, even as you forget them. You could say I have experienced loss in my life, but I haven't really. I've only ever gained; more time, more experience, more life. So I think it's inevitable that a new lifelong labor of love will begin to develop eventually. But for now, I am satisfied to say: CALLBACK is the work of my life.
Honestly it's wild that you can just go to youtube.com and watch it. It's less than 80 minutes. You can, in 80 minutes, experience all of the hours and years so many of us put into this production, see it right there, just like that. My life's work, condensed into an hour and twenty minutes. That's shorter than most podcasts. So please go watch it!!!!
PS: One last thing I really want to say - if you, or anyone you know, ever, ever, have any inkling of wanting to write and produce a DIY musical, and you want any kind of help or consultation - please let me know. I have learned so much, and even though I am still an absolute beginner, I do have experience now. And I think this experience is unlike most legitimate theater experience; it is truly outsider art, folk theater, something that I haven't seen at this scale before. We conjured this show from almost nothing at all, with very little support from any establishment, and basically no knowledge of how anything works. It was fun. It rocked. And from completely illegitimate means, we created something legitimate. So please go watch it!!!!!
jmax.flounder.online/