Hi! We’re GrooveLily, a theatrical power-pop trio consisting of Valerie Vigoda, Brendan Milburn, and Gene Lewin. If you’ve never heard us before, listen to this:
We write musicals and perform in them sometimes, and we play concerts whenever we can.
Val said it yesterday morning before I drove up here: I can’t believe that people are paying us actual money to write and perform a show about *us*. An autobiographical show. It blows my mind. Doesn’t matter that this show has been in the works since 2005. It’s ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
Now, keep in mind–this show takes the reality of our lives and plays with it a great deal to make it more dramatically interesting–and all of our foibles are turned up to “11″ so that we become INFINITELY more dramatic than we actually are in real life. But by doing so, I think we get to the heart of who we really were during those heady days when we made the exciting mistake of moving into a used RV.
After a “let’s rip each moment apart as we reread the script again” festival, which we seem to do every time we get together, our scenic designer, Kate Edmunds, and our assistant properties master, Shay Henley, walked us through a bunch of proppy and setty stuff. There’s a scene early on where Val “plays” the touch-tones of a phone, while I type on a very clacky computer keyboard and Gene “plays” staplers and various office supplies, and we got to go hands-on with a bunch of potential choices.
These are instruments.
Percussion instruments.
What is that thing? The one that's been painted black?
Also, an old cell phone plays a very important role in the show, so Gene tried out a number of cell phones to see which felt the most “wildly hip 12 years ago” from the batch that the TheatreWorks prop department had on hand.
Something like this.
Val is starting to vlog about her experiences prepping for Wheelhouse. Here’s her first entry:
We loved every minute of our evening at MBar – thanks so much to everyone who was there with us, including our fabnastic special guests Matt Wolpe, David Rodwin and Alfred Johnson, and sound engineer Chris Luessmann! We were the kickoff event of the Festival of New American Musicals, which continues through the summer…and we’ve booked our next duo show: Monday, August 27 at NoHo Arts Center.
Leaving today for 2 months in Palo Alto for our WHEELHOUSE premiere…will be blogging about it right here, stay tuned!
We’re back, in Hollywood this time, and this show is going to kick even more booty than the last one in January. More musical guests, more behind-the-musical and behind-the-songs-for-movies stories, and mostly this is simply the best way to spend your first Thursday night in the month of May. Read More »
