I'm excited to announce that I'm revisiting my first original musical, Buried Deep! After conceiving this show at the National Musical Theatre Institute and putting on a virtual production at Drake University for my senior capstone, this musical had been living in my back pocket for the past four years.
However, I found my mind straying back to this script and the themes of what we pass down through the generations. But my mind was also alight with themes of self-worth and expectation. Not to mention, my songwriting has come a long way since my senior year of college. So the time felt right to take the outline of this show and breathe fresh life into it to make it something new:
"Ruri is a Japanese-American woman falling short of every expectation and stumbling along from day to day. But one fateful night, she is roped into a feud between the ghosts of her ancestors: a noblewoman from the fall of Japan’s shogunate and a man interned in the US during WWII. Can she make peace with these two wounded souls, while making peace with herself?"
AAPI Heritage Month felt like the perfect time to make new ground. Over the first half of the month, I've been releasing demos of new and revitalized songs so you can follow the show's journey. We still have the second half of May and more material to release, so follow me on Instagram and Soundcloud to catch new music from this show!
There are a lot of new directions I want to take this show, I hope you'll tune in for the ride! To give you a sense of where I'm going, listen to the opening number below:
April 11 - 13th, 2024 @7:30pm
18th and Union, Seattle WA
We have an important update on availability this week: all three performances are sold out! Thank you to everyone coming out to support "Currents" and the other productions performing in Spring Shot 2024!
If you still want to see the show in-person, there's a standby list at 18th and Union that starts one hour before each performance!
If you want to see the stream of our final show, you can get access here! If you get access, the video will be available on-demand thru April 27th!
Lastly, we had the pleasure of doing an interview with KUOW for their podcast, Soundside! Hear our librettist, AC Petersen, discuss the roots of the story and listen to behind-the-scenes snippets of the rehearsal room.
Listen to the 10-minute interview and read the write-up here, or listen on Spotify and iTunes!
April 11 - 13th, 2024 @7:30pm
18th and Union, Seattle WA
"...this impressionistic arc of five songs reveals emotion and ties of family members torn apart by choice and by force, and trapped on both sides of the Pacific Ocean during World War II."
Check out this article in the North American Post to learn more about Currents! It's been a fulfilling story bringing life to a Japanese-American story with a fully Asian team.
For those in Seattle, get your tickets for April 11-13 and see the show in-person while you can. If you can't make it, get access to stream a recording of the show from April 13-27 here!