Postmortem

As difficult as it is to write about a work in progress, Postmortem is a project I am so invested in that I can't leave it unmentioned. Fueled by the high of a fruitful first musical theatre endeavor, it was only a matter of months before I started toying with ideas for the second.

Though the libretto contains only a few thousand words, a small handful of songs have already been passed to my co-conspirator and composer Sarah Palermo. "And Are We Born to Die," the first to be set, had its concert premiere at Palermo's 2015 composition recital. 

THE PERSONALITIES: 

Meet Matt: He's an Average Guy™ who recently graduated college and is working his way up from his entry-level position at a law firm downtown. He lives at home with his parents, but not for long—He has big plans and wants to make a name for himself. He has a super Fun and Quirky girlfriend, Jenn, who works at a flower stand and loves to paint, and a funny and supportive friend, Dan, who works at the same firm.  From the looks of it, Matt is living the life.

THE PLOT: 

That all changes when Matt is caught up in a shooting outside his office building and winds up dead by the end of the opening number. The next thing he knows, he's being guided through his memories by someone he can't recall-- not that he remembers much at all. Reconstructing his memory from the bottom up, Matt doesn't just watch as his life flashes before his eyes, but walks through each recollection with his new-found mentor. Even more mysteriously, Matt's journey is accompanied by the acoustic stylings of an in-story street performer. The guitarist's only commentary comes from adaptations of centuries-old religious text on death and the afterlife but despite her hand in the orchestration, her connection to Matt might be more than incidental.