#drowsy chaperone reference

[being-serious-off-main]

The bond I share with the girl who’s graduating and moving away will never be matched. I wish I could tell her how much I love and appreciate her but we never had the kind of relationship where we said it out loud - we would sing and talk about theatre and play tennis and joke around and go thrifting or see shows or get food and energy drinks at seven eleven before rehearsal, but I think we’ve only ever hugged three times, and we only have a few photos together. She shared a google drive link with me earlier today and I was so excited I literally jumped for joy. She said she knew I would appreciate it and that I’m one of two people she shared it with. I felt so loved and seen in that moment because I don’t think I’ve ever really shared one special thing with someone, not in this way. And I wanted to hug her and tell her I love her but she’s going to be four states away by tomorrow. She graduates in an hour and I can’t even go to see her one last time, and I think my heart is breaking in some way because she was one of my closest friends all year and now I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. I love all of my friends but the connection I have with her has literally changed my life and I can’t remember how I was ever NOT friends with her. I remember thinking she was scary back in September and now I’m sitting on my bedroom floor sobbing because she’s leaving. But her goodbye to me had such a different feeling than her goodbye to my other friend. She told me to please never lose touch or stop sending her tiktoks or voice messages screaming Sunset Boulevard. I don’t think I’ve ever missed someone in the way that I miss her and she hasn’t even left yet.

[suddenly-likes-musicals]

Ohohohoho, we love this part! He's having a complete mental breakdown! ((OOC: musical reference! couldn't resist quoting a line from The Drowsy Chaperone)) You've got quite the talent, Andy! Paul can be a stubborn one, but we haven't seen him crumble this dramatically since the Apotheosis! Watching him squirm truly is his greatest appeal as a character - besides his impeccable leading man qualities, of course. Perhaps this will be the day our star-in-the-making finally snaps, hm?

Stop stop stop, please! Just stop, everyone stop talking. It's so loud EVERYTHING IS TOO FUCKING LOUD!!

[depressedquetzal]

I need suggestions!!!

Lately I’ve been doing a thing where every single musical I become obsessed with, I’ll decide to turn a random character into a humanoid cat like the ones in Cats the musical, having it be a completely normal thing in their universe, and just have fun imagining all the random shit it would add to the character

the problem is that I have no idea what musicals to do next so I’ve decided to make a list of all the ones I’ve done so far and let others tell me which musicals to do next. I could also do headcanons for the characters I choose ig or if anyone wants to ask for headcanons for certain characters as a Neko, which is what I’ve decided to refer to them for now until I have a better name

Ik this is a very niche thing and no one will probably care but I’m greatly enjoying myself with this

List of the characters from musicals I think would be fun as Nekos so far:

Harold Bride/Wallace Hartley- Titanic (they were played by the same person in the show I saw and it just fit)

Orin Scrivello- Little Shop of Horrors

Gangsters and Doloris’ backup dancers- Sister Act

Lumiere- Beauty and the Beast

Janet- The Drowsy Chaperone

Someone from Newsies (don’t actually know the characters yet since I only just got into it but I keep giving lines to this OC I created pretty much)

[ang-artblog]

(Characters in order: Robert Martin and Aldolpho, Kitty Feldzeig, Janet Van DeGraff, Robert Martin, Ace Paige)

There is a group that Ive referred to but never explained exactly who they are, so let’s meet Feldzeig’s Follies!!

imma be real with you, some of these characters come straight out of a musical 😔. Kitty, Alsolpho, Janet Van DeGraff, Robert Martin, and Victor Feldzeig all come from “The Drowsy Chaperone”. A while back, me and some of the cast of ANG were cast in The Drowsy Chaperone. We all really missed the show and, like any hyperfixation does, i subconsciously made a story for Kitty (the character that I played in Drowsy chaperone) that was really good that I just couldn’t not add it in. The other cast members chipped in with their characters story and here they are. Of course, there are slight changes to relationships and how things played out in the musical to make it a bit more believable, but for the most part I stuck true to how they act in the musical (except Adolpho he needed to CALM DOWN).

Feldzeig’s Follies is a traveling act that takes you back to that old jazzy showbiz era, when that burlesque dancer probably shot someone backstage but you’d never know that over the music and hollers from the crowd. Big band, swing, tap dance, the whole shabang and more! Is it a cabaret? Is it just one big musical with no consistent plot? No one knows but it sure is entertaining!

Their latest trip is to Gotham City. Star guest Robert Martin sings carols with the reoccurring sister act Murderers of Mingdol County’s Death Row; Kitty Feldzeig and Ace Paige. In honor of the death of Alice Paige 2 years ago, Ace Paige announces the first ever performance of his new single act; Alice in Wonderland. And on December 26th, the follies proudly presents their partnership with “Cloud-9 Studios” by bringing back former showgirl and now world-famous performer Janet Van DeGraff.

There are a lot of original character inserts with their own subplots that still connect to the main plot. I think it’s good to keep in mind the fact that this storyline purely is for our own entertainment and my influence on how the DC characters act mostly are from the DC media I consume (yummy yummy codotverse mm munch crunch Batman audio adventures tasty tasty mm mm MMM).

[theonlycampix]

Is that... a Drowsy Chaperone reference??

Backup dancers!? Holy cats!

The wedding is on!The wedding is off!For the love of God, why!?Robert kissed a French girl!She looked just like you!Chop the nuts, pound the dough, bake it up, nice and slow...I’m not sure what you were referring to when you asked the question, but THESE are most definitely Drowsy Chaperone references. My brother and I were the “pastry chefs” threatening to murder Feldzieg!

[lesbiansagainsttheatre]

me when my cats record keeps repeating the same 3 seconds in the jellical ball:

haha nice drowsy chaperone reference

[frogssincorner]

In the pocket of my dress, I've got a copper key

🍒 ↷ hi!! i'm frogpot, or just frog for short :]

heres a few quick things about me ↴

i use nameself pronouns

im genderqueer

im lesbian, asexual, and on the aromantic spectrum

i love writing, reading and drawing

i do musical theatre and looooove musicals

🍎 ↷ i'm just here having a good time, reading fics, talking to people, and having fun, however i also write fanfics at @imkitty-justkitty feel free to check my stuff out <3 ! :D 🌹

🍒 ↷ always happy to talk in asks, however i'm not comfortable with people dm'ing me out of the blue :) 🌹

🍎 ↷ below the cut is a list of the tags i use to help out with navigation , the @'s for my sideblogs , and explanations for the musical references across my blog for anyone interested <3 🌹

🍒 ↷ I try to tag everything i reblog/post, for the sake of easy navigation and not losing things in the crowd of my blog !

🍎 ↷ Tags for basic things ↴

refrogs ⇨ reblogging

🗯️ ribbit ! ⇨ talking to people

🕺 frog says hello !! ⇨ intro post(s)

🍒 ↷ Tags for fandoms ↴

i use the term fandom loosely- what i mean by this is just 'tags for media i enjoy and reblog/post abt'

♡ ↷ grease 🐞

♡ ↷ tangle tower 🌿

♡ ↷ marauders 🦁

♡ ↷ golden trio era 🪄

♡ ↷ west side story 🎯

♡ ↷ lamb to the slaughter 🐑

♡ ↷ spider-man 🕷️

♡ ↷ marvel 👽

♡ ↷ anthpo 🐟

♡ ↷ caroline konstnar 🦑

♡ ↷ dear evan hansen 👕

♡ ↷ 35mm 📮

♡ ↷ 25th annual putnam county spelling bee 🐝 

♡ ↷ the drowsy chaperone 🧣

🍎 ↷ Fic tags ↴

i reblog fanfiction with the tag 'lily pond ↷ 🌺🐸'

i also tag my fanfic reblogs with tags of the names of the characters the fic centers around (and the fandom theyre from ((fandoms listed above ))) ↷

↷ lily evans 💌

↷ ginny weasley 💌

↷ sirius black 💌

↷ james potter 💌

↷ remus lupin 💌

↷ poly!marauders 💌

↷ regulus black 💌

↷ peter pettigrew 💌

↷ riff 💌

↷ matt murdock 💌

↷ bucky barnes 💌

My Sideblogs ;

🍒 i use different names on different blogs/accounts/profiles/etc as a comfort thing, in the way i experience names gender and pronouns, it feels right to have different names :) 🍒

@dannys-stimboards ; where i make and post my own stimboards !! :D

@eurydi-sees-stims ; i reblog stimboards i like

@sliipperyywhenwet ; starkid focussed

Musical References On My Blog ! ;

Blog Header ; in reference to the musical : Alice By Heart

Profile Picture ; a photo of Amber Gray as Persephone in the musical : Hadestown

Blog Title ; a lyrics in the song 'independence' from the musical : Trail to Oregon

Bio ; lyrics in the song 'fancy dress' from the musical : The Drowsy Chaperone

Lyrics at the top of this post ( In the pocket of my dress, I've got a copper key ) ; lyrics in the song 'crazy town' from the musical : 35MM

[bastardtetsu]

haikyuu + musical theatre boys

hq characters & what they’d be like as musical theatre boys - what they’re good at, what kind of shows they book, how they are to work with, roles they’d play, etc. | starring: sugawara, oikawa, bokuto, kuroo, tendou (+ tsukishima, kenma, akaashi)

for weeks my head has been full of hq!MT boys, inspired by over a decade of being a theatre kid, and @karasimpno has only enabled my debauchery. these are just a few of my faves, but i have more theatre boys where this came from so if this doesn’t flop maybe i will post more hehe

PART 2 

tw swearing, musical theatre references, oikawa slander

SUGAWARA [tenor] this bitch is SO talented it should be illegal and he books like crazy. nothing like a pretty soft boi with the voice of an angel in musical theatre <3 not really a dancer but moves very well, also can act the house down like you think he’s this basic MT boy but then it turns out this mf has range and is not afraid to use it. will go from playing the sweetest, most charming leading man to a complex, terrifying villain, and the whiplash will make you fall in love with him. a dream to work with, obviously. very strong with classical text as well. his ability is frankly terrifying and far too powerful. the type of boy you cold read with once at a callback and never see again, but playing opposite him for those 2 minutes is enough to make you think about him for the rest of your life

lucas in the addams family, anthony in sweeney todd, the princeton/rod or nicky/trekkie/bad idea bear track in avenue Q, the emcee in cabaret PLS

OIKAWA [tenor] let’s be real oikawa already has an MT personality and it’s the worst kind. he thinks he’s rachel berry but really he’s kurt. he still books though bc he’s pretty and sings like an angel~ he can move really well and his jazz/MT style dancing is very strong, can also tap a little but it’s like barely enough to get by. his acting is kinda mediocre but his stage presence is out of this world and he’s hot so it doesn’t rlly matter, he stays booking leading men & disney princes left and right. truly is very talented at what he does, he’s just so annoying about it and constantly fronting all these skills he does not have, like he keeps trying to put leading lady songs in his book in their original key which is just.... not what those pipes are built for girl. bringing a whole new meaning to the nickname “flattykawa”

fiyero in wicked, pippin in pippin, conrad in bye bye birdie, aaron samuels in mean girls, joseph in joseph & the amazing technicolor dreamcoat, just all the basic mt boy shit

BOKUTO [baritone, tenor, everything in between, HIS RANGE] an absolute star. all-around amazing dancer (those muscles aren’t just for show babyyy) but especially tap and partnering (imagine him just lifting u.. god) powerhouse vocals across the board, his diaphragm is insane. he’s the type of MT who is always yelling even when they aren’t on stage, not even aware of it he’s just loud asf. always spitting everywhere too. no one is safe. acting is probably his weakest point just bc he doesn’t have a lot of versatility style-wise, but in no way is he bad at it i meannnnn have u seen how expressive and energetic that man is?? he does literally any golden age musical comedy leading man soooo well and is a blast to work with, such posi vibes & the character choices his himbo brain comes up with are so silly they’re genius

don lockwood in singin in the rain, gabey in on the town, bobby in crazy for you, jimmy in nice work if you can get it, robert in drowsy chaperone, will in oklahoma!

KUROO [baritenor] one of those fuckers who started doing theatre by accident, and immediately started booking out the wazoo with no training because he’s naturally talented and hot. i hate him so much. has that “idgaf i don’t have to try” aura about him, but his work ethic is actually?? really good??? once he starts learning more he really does put the work in. has that feeling of ease in his stage presence & good instincts that make up for his lack of training, plus his vocals have no right sounding that good on their own wtf. fucker thinks he’s frank sinatra, and honestly, it’s criminal how good he is at golden age material when most of what he books is contemporary bc of his dumb hair he’s not exactly a dancer but like…. bitch can move. plus he’s got body so that helps him a lot. mostly books leads anyway because that’s just how it goes when ur a hotboy with charm and talent. also he can fieRCE classical text??!?? (hint: it’s bc he’s a nerd) just stop being talented already jesus

melchior in spring awakening, sky masterson in guys & dolls, demetrius in midsummer, BENEDICK IN MUCH ADO PLS I NEED IT FOR MY HEALTH

TENDOU [countertenor] kicks ass at everything like he’s so talented and so versatile. vocals are insane, he has mad range and can do any number of character voices/impressions/dialects/what have you. his falsetto is unmatched (nice try flattykawa). we been knew his instincts are killer - character acting, comedy, improv, clown, mime, devised/alt theatre, contemporary MT, golden age MT, classical text you name it he can slay it all. his resume is so chaotic. he can body a super intense scene too, i feel like he trained in meisner & got traumatized from it and for a while he had an issue with getting too into character & doing crazy shit bc it was “method,” but eventually learned better<3 excellent mover, used to be a trina ballerina so his technique always shocks people even though he’s been out of practice for a long time (the dance world can be toxic and he was over it, so he yeeted all the way out of there a while ago). all around a wild human being with the ability to transform into numerous other wild human beings, creatures, abstract concepts, etc.

beetlejuice in beetlejuice, almost any track in cats but especially mungojerrie, mary sunshine in chicago, the porter in macbeth, CALIBAN IN THE TEMPEST PLEASEPLEASRPKEASE

----------------------

+BONUS: NOT MTs

characters who have zero MT energy but still fit elsewhere in the theatre world:

TSUKKI is a sound tech who is mean to performers esp during sound check, has a particular vitriol against MTs (except yamaguchi)

KENMA is an ASM who rarely gives a fuck, also does lighting & projection design. doesn’t hate MTs like tsukki, but their energy is usually a lot for him so he tends to avoid

AKAASHI is a playwright & dramaturg, but he used to act and can recite shakespeare on a dime, sonnets, soliloquys, whatever ur heart desires <3 may also play an instrument and sometimes writes lil songs but he doesn’t flex them bc he’s shy bby

[fuckyeahbrownuniversity]

what is the musical theatre scene like? are there extracurricular musicals?

My golly, you are in for a treat. The musical theatre scene is huge. 

There’s four main groups I’m aware of: Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan (BUGS), Musical Forum, Production Workshop (PW), and Shakespeare on the Green. Here’s a couple things my friend (who’s very involved in the theatre scene) has to say.

BUGS - “BUGS only does one show a semester, but they’re always really big comedy shows like with a big ensemble and stuff (they used to do only Gilbert and Sullivan shows, but recently they expanded to do shows that are written in a similar spirit to Gilbert and Sullivan ie comedies with big ensembles). This year, they did Drowsy Chaperone and Into the Woods.” (I was personally involved with the pit orchestra for Into the Woods - a fantastic production.)

Musical Forum - “Musical Forum does a show plus a mini musical festival for student written, 45 minute long shows. This year, they did Merrily We Roll Along and The Wiz.”

PW - “PW is (I think) the oldest of the three, they have their own building and they actually do many different shows throughout the semester - I think they have four slots throughout the semester for various things. They don’t just do musicals, they also do a lot of plays, dance shows, and student written productions. In terms of musicals, though, they did Spring Awakening and a student written production called Firefly in the Light this year.”

Shakespeare on the Green - “They do Shakespeare plays and shows about Shakespeare or shows that  reference Shakespeare.”

I believe that all of these groups are entirely or almost entirely run by students.

“The Theatre Arts & Performance Studies (TAPS) department also puts on shows - and you don’t have to be in the TAPS department to do them. they also do both plays and musicals. This year they did Next to Normal and several plays.” (This is not student-run.)

[magicalgirlmascot]

Okay like it’s been the better part of a year and I’m still not over the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat we went to see for my dad’s birthday last year. I’ve loved this musical since I was a kid and we grew up listening to the CD where Donny Osmond played Joseph and like. It’s a good musical and I enjoy it a lot. It’s the only musical I know that can pull off having an old west cowboy type song and also an overdramatic starving Frenchman song sung by the same group of characters in a fucking Bible story and make it work. But this particular production was just so fucking perfect? You know how sometimes you see a production of a show and you can never watch another production’s version of it without comparing it to the other production because it was that good? That’s how this production of Joseph was for me. (I have similar feelings about my local community theatre’s production of the Drowsy Chaperone but that’s another post.)

I mean...first of all, the framing device they used was similar but different from how it usually goes. The general framing device used for Joseph is that the story is being told to...someone. Sometimes it’s the audience, sometimes it’s a group of schoolchildren, what have you. In this case it’s being told to one particular child who is mocked at the start of the show for not fitting in (more later). Said child is a fairly major part of the show, and this could have been extremely obnoxious, but it worked really well. (Also the Child was deliberately made to be androgynous and was referred to with they/them pronouns in the program which is cool.)

The show opened with children selecting robes from a box which matched robes being worn by couples (exclusively m/f couples, we’ll get to that), which dictated what family they were going to become a part of. It was all nice and whatnot until our main Child pulled a brightly coloured fanciful robe out, and not only did they not match anyone else but they were soundly laughed at and abandoned for not fitting in. This is when the play started for reals and the Narrator sang her opening song about dreamers and stuff.

Then the rest of the show happened. (More on this later because the show itself was excellent.)

At the end Joseph and the Narrator start the ending song and the Child goes and gets their robe from the chest again, and is welcomed into the arms of Joseph and the Narrator. The families from the beginning are all back again to join in the ending, but instead of all of them being mother/father/child, now we have two dads and a child, a mother and father and multiple children, a daughter/mother/grandmother family, just all kinds of families with all kinds of dynamics, and it honestly made me sob I was so happy.

Then also the production value was fantastic? The costumes! The set! There were two choruses, a child chorus and an adult chorus. They were kind of off to each side where they weren’t obtrusive on the main stage space (more on that later too) and occasionally during songs where they were singing but not present onstage they’d grab extra costume pieces and props and jam out. Like when they did Benjamin Calypso they all put on Hawaiian shirts and it was RAD. Everyone was clearly living their best life.

Also the guy playing Joseph had a fucking voice holy shit. That man could sing.

And like the last big thing wasn’t necessarily to do with the show itself but the venue it was in was super cool because it was in an old barn that was turned into a theatre. If you live in Ontario and have a chance to go to Westben Theatre you totally should just for the experience.

Just thinking about that show makes me so happy and I’m more than a little sad I’ll never be able to see that specific production again ahhhhh I love theatre

[musicalrecs]

So, the script is available for The Drowsy Chaperone Jr and they replaced the belaboured monkey motif with... bunny references???

Jr editions are so weird.

Did you know that you can look up shows available for licensing? I didn't until recently, and for some reason it feels like ~forbidden knowledge~, but anyway, check it out:

I find it particularly interesting to read how they describe the casts ("Cosette is Fantine’s strong-willed, loving daughter. She is an intelligent, inquiring, personable girl; she is not in any sense a sappy, romantic heroine" - whatever you say, MTI) and am amazed by what there are school/junior versions for. (Guys and Dolls, really?)

Pertinent to this blog, there's also a handy search function with categories you can filter by.

You know, if you want to see if anyone has made a country/bluegrass fantasy musical yet (not yet, according to the search, though I did just learn there's a show called Snow White Goes West).

Anyway, I just think it's neat.

[phanfeed-ao3]

An Accident Waiting to Happen

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2OiLd1O

by ltuhura

When Dan joined technical crew for the school’s production of The Drowsy Chaperone it was mostly because PJ was the head of design. He was planning on stealing free cookies and avoiding lifting heavy set pieces, not having some random emo kid steal his heart and then avoid him.

Words: 903, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: PJ Liguori, Louise Pentland, Cat Valdes, Chris Kendall, Tyler Oakley

Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Dan Howell & Phil Lester

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - High School, Musical References, drowsy chaperone

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2OiLd1O

[backtonormalthings]

Drowsy Chaperone and Coffee, sprace thingy

Hey guys, this is my first fanfic that I’ve written (thanks to @noeysoulgem for the inspiration and actually replying). So yeah, please don’t give me a lot of shit for this one.

-Spot was just sitting there. Headphones in. Eyes closed. His coffee was steaming on the table in front of him.

-He had been listening to The Drowsy Chaperone (more specifically Cold Feets) and was quietly relishing in the tap number that accompanied the singing Bridegroom and his Best Man.

-Spot frequently drowned himself in music, musicals more specifically and this was one of those instances.

-Race walked into the homey café, greeted the barista that usually served him.

-He paid for his drink and his usual muffin (race loves muffins doesn’t matter what kind fight me on this) and went for his normal table.

-As he walked over there, he heard some quiet humming along with the backtrack of a jazzy tune he wasn’t familiar with.

-He saw Spot sitting across from where he would sit and just kinda looked around confused.

(the whole should I say something? I just kinda want to eat my muffin but like- how do I handle this-ehhhhhhhhhhh. Basically Race is a anxious boy who needs a reliable schedule wait this isn’t about me).

-He eventually just sat down across from Spot and quietly ate his muffin and sipped his coffee.

-Race had started scrolling through his phone when Spot opened his eyes to see a freckle covered boy nibbling on a muffin and immediately stopped humming.

-Spot thought he looked cute sitting there, but didn’t want to disturb him from what he was doing.

-Too late.

-Race also looked up when he noticed the music stop.

-He took in Spot’s appearance for the first time and immediately looked right back down to his phone.

-Spot packed up his stuff and walked out of the café.

-Race let out a huge breath and looked where Spot had sat and noticed  a napkin in front of him.

-I’m glad you stumbled along. Don’t get cold feets and call me xxx-xxx-xxxx.

-Race typed the number into his phone and sent Spot a quick text,

-I saw you left your number, what a toledo surprise.

-They spent the rest of the night flirting through musical references

[mtsheetmusic]

Your spreadsheet has “no race specified” for Trix from The Drowsy Chaperone but just letting you know the script explicitly refers to her as African American

Oh wow thank you!!! I get a lot of this info like race and age range from casting calls from theatres which are never very reliable especially in the race department. I just realized I didn’t label any of the characters in South Pacific with a race even though all the characters have a very strict racial requirement. 

I use the term black for “African American” and I can go into that preference later if you want, but if she is African (like from Africa) let me know and I’ll switch that! for some reason I’ve been making a distinction between the two haha. 

Thanks! I JUST posted it but I’m gonna say it again in case anyone missed it

for those are yall who don’t know, I have spreadsheets that outline all the information I can qualify about roles of musical theatre separated by gender. The one for women’s roles is A LOT more detailed, accurate, and extensive than the one for men.

It’s super helpful to have, so check those out! I’m always trying to update and make it more accurate. Let me know if I have any mistakes on there

[anaccidentwaitingtohappen]

Oh my gosh, is your username a reference to the Drowsy Chaperone???

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen it. On what I googled, it seems interesting!

It is, however, a reference to my tendency of inevitably causing accidents wherever I go. It’s very annoying, and I’ve been called “an accident waiting to happen” more times than I can count. It’s annoying, but if you can make someone’s insults of you your brand, I’ve found you can’t find it in you to be as annoyed as before. 

Thanks for the ask, anon!

[38-planes]

How the couple behind Come From Away created a Canadian musical hit

The Globe and Mail, 17 February 2017

Come from Away creators David Hein and Irene Sankoff struggled as artists, found each other as life and business partners and became the dynamic duo of the Canadian musical

For Valentine’s Day week, here’s a love story, times two.

It’s about how a Prairie dreamer with a guitar and a Toronto realist who always had a backup plan got together as romantic partners – and then, a decade later, saved their relationship and discovered a unique voice that would take them to Broadway by getting together again, as artistic partners.

Come from Away’s creators David Hein and Irene Sankoff, whose Newfoundland-set hit about the 38 planeloads of people stranded in Gander after 9/11 opens in previews on 45th Street on Saturday, told it one morning before departing for New York, in the living room of the two-storey Toronto home they bought in 2006 with the help of their parents, day jobs and a 35-year mortgage no longer offered by banks.

A decade later, they have a three-year-old named Molly, are working as artists full-time – and, financially, the picture looks a heck of a lot different. Best-case scenario, if Come from Away sells out in Manhattan the way it did in Seattle and Toronto, as sole authors of the work, they could pull in $27,000 (U.S.) a week – more every seven days than the average Canadian author or writer earns in a year.

That’s my estimate based on industry standards – but money is the one topic these two children of divorce who both, at times, lived in humble circumstances with their single mothers are sheepish about. “We grew up without a lot of money, so the whole thing makes me really nervous,” Sankoff says.

Hein further cites the statistic that only one in five shows on Broadway makes a profit. “Literally, we’re the fifth show out of five to go to Broadway from Canada – and one of them [2006’s The Drowsy Chaperone] has already made it!”

Falling in love

Their first love story is beautifully conventional: Hein, born in Regina, and Sankoff, from the Toronto suburb of North York, met on the first day of frosh week at York University in the 1990s. “Irene thinks it was a welcome barbecue; I think it was at a welcome pancake breakcast,” Hein says.

“Because it was outside, right?”

“You can eat pancakes outside.”

The aspiring songwriter and aspiring actress both loved theatre – but, musically, were divided. Hein, as a kid, through visits to the Winnipeg Folk Festival with his mother, had developed a taste for bands such as Blue Rodeo and Great Big Sea (a similar sound pervades Come from Away’s score), while Sankoff was a musical-theatre nut who danced all her life and bonded with her mother over old movie musicals. “My mom would come back after working to 11 or whatever on Christmas Eve and we would start watching Top Hat … or those old Gene Kelly musicals,” she recalls. “I was obsessed.”

But Sankoff was also an academic overachiever feeling pressure from the science-focused side of her family – and, while she acted extracurricularly at York, she graduated with a double major in psychology and creative writing.

The young couple’s first major fight was, as only a young couple’s could be, about whether theatre could change the world. They went at it until the sun came up – the dreamer trying to convince the realist.

Hein didn’t win the argument – but, on the verge of applying to do a master’s in speech and language pathology, Sankoff did decide to at least give acting a try professionally.

New York

So, in 1999, Sankoff and Hein moved to New York. Sankoff began studying at the Actors Studio – as seen on TV – and Hein, who has dual citizenship, began work as “assistant everything” at a music studio where The Muppets recorded, borrowing the equipment to record his own songs at night.

The pair lived in a residence called International House in Upper Manhattan along with grad students from 110 countries – and that’s where they were when, on Sept. 11, 2001, planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. That night, windows shut to keep the smell of smoke out, scared students from around the world gathered around a piano in the residence for an impromptu concert – a moving experience Sankoff and Hein would later draw on for Come from Away.

But 9/11 had a more immediate impact on them. A month later, Hein woke up and said, “Hey, why don’t we get married?” They were already engaged – but on Oct. 12, 2001, they headed down to City Hall and secretly eloped.

Playbills from Hein and Sankoff’s New York years still hang on the kitchen wall of the house they share with their daughter and two cats, one named Elphaba (after the Wicked witch) and the other Gambo (after the Newfoundland town).

But it was not always a dream: Savings dwindled, the studio Hein was working at shut down, and Sankoff – who had an agent and was getting gigs – separated a shoulder in a dance class.

Uninsured, she took a trip to Toronto to see a doctor – and it turned into a move back home.

The second love story

Back in Canada, Hein and Sankoff had to build an artistic community from scratch. She landed a role in The Mousetrap; he released an album called North of Nowhere. And so it went for years – pursuing art at night and paying bills through tutoring or graphic design. Soon, they were married homeowners, but they barely got to see each other and grew lonely, especially when Hein was off on tour. Was this living the dream?

And this – in 2009 – is where the second love story begins.

Hein had written a song called My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding – based on his own experience as the son of a woman who came out later in life and remarried – that was popular on tour. More than most of his work, it was influenced by the musical theatre that Sankoff had introduced him to over the course of their relationship. What if, he wondered, they could expand it into an actual musical – and, at the very least, spend some time together?

Marrying their skills, Hein and Sankoff began trying to turn their family’s story into a fictional musical – at first, a conventional “book musical�� where an invisible fourth wall descends in front of the audience and scenes and songs alternate to tell a story.

But an epiphany Sankoff had on Valentine’s Day led the pair to a different writing style – one they later refined with Come from Away.

At the gym that day, Sankoff was talking with an enthusiastic friend about Wiccan Wedding – and heard her say, “The best thing about this is that it’s based on a true story.” A light bulb went on.

“I came home to David and said, ‘We’ve got to throw it out. Let’s tell the real story.’”

The new version the couple started working on during an unorthodox Valentine’s date would eventually feature Hein sitting on a stool in his Glass Tiger shirt, singing songs about his mother’s coming out, how he introduced his two moms to Irene at a Hooters and the history of same-sex marriage in Canada, using a troupe of actors that included his wife to tell the stories.

The sweet and direct show became a hit at the Toronto Fringe Festival that summer, then was picked up by producer David Mirvish to play at the city’s 700-seat Panasonic Theatre he had just purchased – and Sankoff and Hein’s career as commercial musical-theatre creators was launched.

When the idea to write a show about what happened in and around Gander, Nfld., in 2001 was proposed to them shortly thereafter by Michael Rubinoff at Sheridan College, it could not have been a more ideal project for them.

They had seen how strangers from around the world bonded, with music, on Sept. 11, and seen how music played a role in bringing them together – and they had found the right aesthetic for such a story, having learned that a musical could be a true story set in our times, told with plenty of direct address, and that authenticity was as important to winning over an audience as craft in lyrics and lines.

Armed with a $12,000 grant from the Canada Council, they headed to Gander for Sept. 11, 2011, to interview locals and “come from aways” returning to commemorate the 10th anniversary.

Hein and Sankoff’s subsequent five-year journey – buzz-creating workshops on both sides of the border, a bidding war by commercial producers at a showcase in New York, record-breaking runs in San Diego, Seattle, Washington and Toronto – has been told in these pages before.

Now, the last chapter is about to be written as final adjustments are made in a preview period ahead of a March 12 opening.

As the statistics show, Come from Away may not make them rich. Canadians who have had what are referred to as “flops” in the harsh language of Broadway – such as Cliff Jones, whose Rockabye Hamlet closed in a week in 1976; and Neil Bartram and Brian Hill, whose The Story of My Life did the same in 2009 – have advised the couple to just enjoy the ride.

In any case, the two have a bigger goal beyond making money, Hein says, “Especially now, it feels important to talk about welcoming refugees off planes, strangers into our communities.”

Yes – he’s finally won the argument about whether theatre can change the world.

Sankoff came around after meeting senior citizens who changed their minds on same-sex marriage after seeing Wiccan Wedding, and receiving letters from Come from Away audience members about how it’s inspired them to be better people.

“I still have my moments where I’m like, ‘It’s a drop in the bucket,’” Sankoff says. “But at least it’s a drop.”