Q&A With Co-Writers & Directors of "No Place Like Home": Soroya & Andrew@

NO PLACE LIKE HOME is officially one week away from Opening Night!  We took some time this week to sit down with co-writers & directors Soroya Rowley and Andrew Steele to give our fans some insider information on the exciting new musical.  Check it out:

Soroya & Andrew

What inspired you to develop No Place Like Home? 

SOROYA: I moved to San Diego in 2005 and one of the first things that struck me about the city was the large amount of people living on the streets.  This was not something that I saw in the small town I came from. I started to write about the issue but felt my perspective was severely lacking in knowledge and understanding.  Years later I had the opportunity to work with PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) through the Old Globe Community Voices Program.  Katie Harroff and I taught a playwriting class for some of the permanent residents at PATH.  To become a permanent resident at PATH you must have a legal disability and you must have suffered from being chronically homeless.  I grew to love our students for their humor, passion, strength and brutal honesty.  Their heart wrenching and moving stories inspired me to write this piece.

ANDREW: My greatest inspiration for this piece was my dear friend and co-author Soroya Rowley. Since I have known Soroya she has expressed an interest in the issue of homelessness. When she approached me about helping her develop a musical around it I thought it was brilliant. It’s something that there is a lot of fuel for artistic inspiration. Soroya's passion for the subject as well as my own desire to push my artistic limits really helped inspire me to develop this project.

What are your main sources of inspiration for the style of the show?  

SOROYA: Of the 6 people I interviewed there was one particular story that stood out to me the most. A beautiful young woman, the same age as me, who suffers from Cerebral Palsy and was kicked out of her strict Mormon home at the tender age of 19 inspired Daisy, the main character of No Place Like Home.  I had a major, visceral connection to this woman.

Musically, I immediately was drawn to the blues for this show.  The roots of blues music, coming from a community that was severely oppressed and underrepresented, provided the perfect emotional foundation for this story.  I listened to a lot of the classics like BB King and Bessie Smith to get me in the groove. Beyond that I was also inspired by my personal musical taste for pop, folk and rock music.

ANDREW: All of the "Chamber Musicals" that I grew up with were a big source of inspiration for me. Works such as Tick Tick Boom by Jonathan Larsen and A Man of No Importance by Stephen Flaherty really inspired the tone and approach I took with the music. They were small in production but due to this minimalist approach were huge in emotional payoff. That is a style of theater that really attracts me.

Beyond that, my largest source of inspiration for this piece was all of the cast members. We have such a unique and muli-talented cast. Working in a room together with them really gave me all of the best ideas and concepts that we have developed. You can really see the thumbprint of all of the actors in the piece because we developed it around the ensemble and what really moves us as artists.  

3.   Why do you think audiences will enjoy it? 

SOROYA: The music! The score includes some of the best songs Andrew and I have ever written.  It’s catchy, intelligent and full of soul.  The music and the dialogue merge beautifully to take audiences through a story that is devastating and then uplifting, and startlingly relatable to even the most privileged among us.

ANDREW: Audiences will enjoy No Place Like Home because it is a piece of visceral theater. It is not trying to be anything more than an honest and simple piece of live performance. The simplicity of it really allows the content to shine through. The story is devastatingly alien and painfully easy to relate to all at once. The music is catchy, the staging is raw and the cast is so genuine. We have struck a wonderful balance of grit and beauty. I feel confident saying that everyone is going to leave the theater with a few of these tunes stuck in their head. Even more important they will leave with a new perspective on homelessness and with a greater sense of compassion for all of mankind. 

'No Place Like Home' Guest Blog: Taylor Wycoff!

Photo of Taylor by Rich Soublet.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep.”  -Scott Adams

Few things in life are more terrifying than walking into a new project where you know everyone has extremely high expectations of you.  The impostor-syndrome kicks in and you figure it’s only a matter of time before someone calls you out and you’re respectfully asked to leave the project.            To say this was how I felt walking into No Place Like Home would be an understatement.  Every fiber of my being was screaming, “don’t you dare mess up or they’ll give you the boot for sure!”

Lucky for me, I happen to work in an industry where experimentation is applauded and “mistakes” are quickly forgiven (making it that mush easier to tell my inner critic, on these particular occasions, to shove it).  Though it’s easy to forget, especially when the majority of your training has been through an academic setting in which every aspect of your ability is graded and critiqued.  Instinct and the desire to play it safe take over… But let’s be honest- when you’re putting together a new rock-musical about homelessness, the last thing you should be doing is playing it safe. 

Since our very first musical rehearsal, I’ve been in awe of the guts of the people working on this piece.  Every session, our musical director (and my dear friend) Andrew Steele, tells us to keep exploring and finding what works for us and our voice.  And between the missed notes and cracked vocal chords and uncompleted phrases due to poor breath support, everyone keeps going for it. 

This cast is fearless.  When asked to, “try this note,” or, “try ending on that chord instead,” or, “can you try it with the emphasis on this beat,” without fail everyone says yes and goes for it 150%.  I learned fast that “playing it safe” would be “playing it boring,” and to my pleasant surprise, nobody gawked the first time I hit a sour note while trying out a new riff.  Or the second time.  Or the third time.  Or the umpteenth time since…

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s still a challenge to let go of the predictable musical phrase en leu of the unfamiliar.  But day by day, this production continues to show me how beautiful the cracks between perfection can be.  Not only that, but how informative they can be.  I am twice the musician I was at the onset of this production, and I can only imagine where I’ll be come the closing of the show.  And I know I owe so much of that to this company of artists who know the value of “making mistakes.”

Make sure not to miss Taylor and the entire cast in "No Place Like Home" Opening to audiences May 23rd at the OB Playhouse!  Tickets are available by clicking the beautiful orange button to the left of this post!

A Note from Andrew Steele

For this week's blog we get to hear from our Musical Director/Co-Author of No Place Like Home Andrew Steele!

When my dear friend Soroya Rowley approached me and asked if I would be willing to help her write a musical I nearly lost my mind. I have dreamed of writing a musical since I was a little kid. I answered with a cool "Yeah, I'd love to." In reality I couldn't believe an opportunity like this was so easily within my reach.

Soroya and I have been making music together since the first week we met while both studying theater at USD. Since then we have been involved in many creative ventures together, both theatrical and musical. Not only do we dearly love each other as people, but we dearly love each other as artists. I am confident in saying that we have put this love into No Place Like Home and I am really excited to share it with people. Soroya has been working with Circle Circle dot dot since the beginning and, lucky for me, this opportunity for her to write came up. I am fortunate enough to have been taken along for the ride. 

What makes this all even more serendipitous is that two of our colleagues from USD have been able to join us. Stacey Hardke and Taylor Wycoff, another two of my dearest friends, studied with Soroya and I at USD. Working together has created a huge network of support for this show. It feels so special to be working with these amazing talents 5 years after we graduated. I knew we all had a lot of art to give, but getting the opportunity to work on this piece together was something that I could only come up with in my dreams. Every rehearsal we have, I look around and feel so lucky and inspired to be doing the work that we are doing. 

Speaking of inspiration, I have always been inspired by the kind of work that Circle Circle dot dot does. While at USD I developed a love for devised theater: Theater that is created through collaboration. Considering Circle Circle dot dot's commitment to community interview-based theater you might be able to see why I am in love with them. I can't imagine a better company to work with or for a better home for a story like No Place Like Home.  

Not only am I in love with the company, I am in love with this story. Homelessness is such a widely talked about issue. Everyone has an opinion about it but I rarely see art tackling the issue. I am honored to be a part of the first piece of theater I have ever encountered that deals with homelessness. 

The collaboration process is the lifeblood of this piece. When you put all of the members of the cast in a room together the energy is vibrant and tangible. This is visceral theater. Not overly complicated, not overly indulgent, just simplicity. Simply beautiful music along with simple human truths about perseverance, love, fear and what it means to find a home. 

The show runs from May 23rd-June 7th.  I really hope you can join us for what promises to be an amazing night of art. See you there!

Blog Break!

As is our standard practices- we are taking a little break from our blog at the moment after our successful run of "San Diego, I Love You 2.0".  Please check out all the action happening at the Arizona Journal blog, and check back for more CCdd fun soon! 

Why I love Site-Specific work by Patrick Kelly

Photo By Rich Soublet

It is my opinion that Site-Specific theater is when artists create a new performance with the purpose of presenting it in a very specific location that was not originally built for theatrical use.  This unique theatrical adventure makes me feel so glad to have had the opportunity to direct our first two iterations of our site-specific series "San Diego I Love You".

I remember first hearing about site-specific theater as a student at San Diego State University.  I learned about the happenings that swept the artistic underground of the 60's that then led to the site-specific creations of the 70's and 80's which brought impromptu art to unsuspecting audience members.  The idea of creating performances that fit with interesting surroundings and taking the patron outside of the comfort zone of a theater seat fascinates me.  It allows you to tell the story not only of the characters in the play but also of the area they are placed in.  It brings people to new places they may have never discovered on there own.  It keeps theater alive, vibrant and constantly changing.  It lets the audience get up close and personal to the action, sometimes even sucking them right into the story itself. It's beautiful to see a random couple innocently eating lunch go from shock and annoyance to being completely swept up into a sudden performance they did not expect.  It's simply amazing!

As we roll into the final weekend of San Diego I Love you 2.0, I am incredibly proud of my fantastic cast that has worked so hard to make the piece work in the beautiful backdrop of University heights.  I want to thank the amazing locations: Bourbon St., Red House Pizza, Diversionary Theater, Demi Cafe and the wonderful Kathy Hope for inviting us into their homes (in one case literally) and supporting us all the way.   This project is by far one of my favorites that we create and I hope we continue it for many years to come.  

In the spirit of interesting art I visited my alma mater San Diego State this morning and watched a staging of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet in the SDSU Library.  It is refreshing to know that the place I found my passion for non-traditional presentation is encouraging out of the box and in your face work to their students.  The performance was arranged by Arts Alive SDSU a new group created to promote the art that is done on campus and I hope that it does well.

Finally, Thank you to all the Circle fans new and old that have come out to support San Diego I Love You 2.0. For those who have not bought there tickets there are only a few left so grab them now before they disappear. We work hard to bring these pieces to you and it is always a thrill to see you at the shows.

Happy V-day,

Patrick Kelly