#happy birthday joe im trying to get more people to talk about ur show

[neverheardnothing]

Love In Hate Nation - a new musical by Joe Iconis

Intro

Hey, y’all, wonder what our favorite Tony nominated composer is up to these days? Well, a lot. He has 3 upcoming musicals, but we’re gonna talk about one in particular, his next one. It’s called Love In Hate Nation, for which he is writing the music, lyrics, and book.

Here’s the description from Joe’s website:

A turbulent rock romance set in a 1960s Juvie Hall, Love in Hate Nation uses classic “bad girl” movies as the inspiration for the story of young people caught between eras of a changing America. Sixteen-year old Susannah Son is carted off to the National Reformatory for Girls to get her head put on straight. There she meets the aggressively incorrigible Sheila Nail, and a relationship forms which leads to an all-out “revolution in the institution” as they attempt to break out of the boxes society has created around them. Girl Group Wall of Sound harmonies are filtered through a punk rock spirit in this rebellious and romantic new musical.

The show will make its world premiere at Two River Theater in New Jersey (the place where BMC started!) and will run from November 9th to December 1st 2019. 

TICKETS ARE CURRENTLY ON SALE! CHECK OUT THE LINK ABOVE!

Cast/Creatives

The cast will feature Sydney Farley (Gloria “Ya Ya” Meeks), Amina Faye (Susannah Son), Jasmine Forsberg (Brenda “Rat” Ratowski), Lauren Marcus (Miss Asp), Kelly McIntyre (Sheila Nail), Lena Skeele (Dorothy Donaldson), Emerson Smith (Kitty Minx), Ryan Vona (The Guy), and Tatiana Wechsler (Judith Ramone).

The rest of the creative/design team includes: scenic designer Meredith Reis, costume designer Karen Perry, lighting designer Jen Schriever, and sound designer Palmer Hefferan. Orchestrations and music supervision are by Charlie Rosen, with music direction by Geraldine Anello, and choreography by Mayte Natalio.

Although this is its world premiere, there actually was a previous production of this show in 2018 by Penn State’s musical theater program (where John Simpkins works), who originally commissioned Joe to write the show. The cast included Amina Faye, Katie Griffith, Talia Suskauer (a swing in BMC!), Lena Skeele, Jasmine Forsberg (cast member of Broadway Bounty Hunter), Morgan Hecker, MiKayla McKasey, Caleb Smith, and Kevin Dort. Amina, Lena, and Jasmine will be reprising their roles. 

Press/Reviews

Jennifer Ashley Tepper wrote a review of the 2018 production on her Facebook, which has some information about the characters.

Review from The Theater Times

Review from Sun Gazette

Review from PSU Underground

About the initial development of LIHN

Songs

If you want to hear what we currently have from the shows, I’ve made a YouTube playlist of all the videos I’ve found. It contains some songs, scenes, and interviews.

Since there’s a lot of duplicates, I’ve linked my favorite of each version here:

I Hope

Three Failed Escape Attempts of Sheila Nail

Revolution Song

I Was A Teenage Delinquent (this song was actually written way before the show was commissioned!)

Susannah’s Song

Generally Rebellious

Lovelier

Revolution Song (which is my favorite). Featuring Rachel Lee, Alexandra Ferrara, and Danielle Gimbal at an Iconis and Family concert.

But if you only listen to one of these, listen to Three Failed Escape Attempts of Sheila Nail. It’s an incredible song and an incredible performance which speaks for itself. Go, watch it. I beg you.

Three Failed Escape Attempts of Sheila Nail sung by Talia Suskauer at the Be More Swing show.

Pictures

And now here’s some pictures from the 2018 Penn State production below the cut if you want to see what it looked it!

Amina Faye as Susannah Son

Amina Faye as Susannah Son and Talia Suskauer as Miss Asp

Katie Griffith as Sheila Nail and Amina Faye as Susannah Son

Talia Suskauer as Miss Asp and Lena Skeele as Dorothy

Morgan Hecker, Caleb Smith, Jasmine, Mikayla McKasy, Lena Skeele, and Katie Griffith

[notebookmusical]

i am honestly still reeling from the whirlwind that was the last 36 hours. it feels like a dream, and i don’t think that’s completely because i am so incredibly sleep deprived and exhausted - and so i apologize if this is full of incoherent rambling because really, all my thoughts about roman holiday is just !!!!! 

this is mostly for myself, but i know other people have asked me about my thoughts and i’m too lazy to repeat myself 80 times SO -- 

thoughts under the cut ! 

this was my second time seeing a show in san francisco, but my first time at the golden gate theatre & my first time going to a city to specifically see a show - so that was interesting. i will say that the theatre, as beautiful as it was, felt a little too large ( and i was sitting in the orchestra for such an ... intimate show - which has also been discussed on the broadwayworld boards ) . 

it wasn’t as full as i had expected it to be? i ended up moving seats twice; once just two seats over so i was in the aisle seat since i was initially sitting pretty off to the right, and then after intermission a few rows up and center. 

the initial set was pretty. it wasn’t EXTRAVAGANT or MINDBLOWING but it was pretty. it almost reminded me of the halls of arendelle castle. i really liked how they had ann on a staircase, and then had her recite her speech, with projections of different cities on the wall. what was a little lackluster in set was definitely made up through projections throughout the show. and i did like the set; i have nothing against it, it just didn’t blow me away.

“and ... here ... celebrating the final stop of my inaugural tour at my nation’s embassy in your magnificent country in its unforgettable capital, totally unforgettable capital...” “rome” “... ROME !” was just so so so funny - not to mention, stephanie’s accent has definitely improved since preview audio ! she has a very Audrey voice and both mom & i gave her ALL THE PROPS for that. honestly i can’t see anyone, aside from Audrey & stephanie playing the role of ann.

i think they need a bigger orchestra. the orchestrations were lovely; i just wish they had a bigger orchestra and i hope they do go to broadway & get that because i can’t even begin to imagine how wonderful it’d sound then.

instead of the Iconic scene with Princess Ann taking one of her shoes off, they skip that and go straight to her dancing/socializing and that’s totally fine. i did miss that scene, because it was one of my favourites but wasn’t too upset in the end. to be honest, i think showing ann running around, trying to talk to everyone and dance was more effective of the strain/stress/toll that this tour had on the young princess than having her take her shoes off. so i do get it. when ann goes into her room, and she gets into her robe & starts talking about how bored she was & how painful her feet were, it was believable because of the above scene; i don’t think that having that iconic scene would’ve emphasized the boredom. stephanie’s faces are absolutely wonderful in this scene too. 

when georgia engel came out, there was SO MUCH APPLAUSE !!! it made me super happy. she totally killed all her lines and that was definitely needed comic relief. i’m also really glad they had her play ann’s aunt/the countess, because ann definitely read as really isolated in the movie; with no family mentioned and such. 

when gretchen starts discussing the schedule, stephanie’s thank you/no thank you voice literally sounded the same as Audrey’s. honestly impeccable. there’s a line about how ann will visit the orphans and ann is just like “where i will be presented with an or....phan....” and it’s honestly super funny

they definitely emphasize the boring thing, especially since ann has this line about how “i give the same speech every day it’s so boring I’M SO BORING LOOK AT THE PEOPLE OUT THERE DANCING IN THE CAFE”, etc. and it gives ann this depth that we didn’t really see before? like it was hinted at in the movie but now it’s explicit and this is what’s really driving her; not just the desire to go see the world and do something that isn’t on the schedule FOR ONCE but also because she’s so terribly afraid of being BORING.

there’s a line that her aunt says about how they’re royalty & “the rules are different for you and me” which is a subtle reminder !! but also real sad because they end up repeating this line later and it makes my heart hurt.

ann says “maybe they should change the rules, maybe i will change the rules” and honestly even though i know this movie and i know what will happen i’m already rooting for them again and you can tell that ann wants to do something DIFFERENT for her country already :”)

there’s a part about ann wanting a romance like she sees in those screen romances and she holds up a magazine and her aunt is just like settle down and tells the gretchen to cancel her subscriptions ACTUALLY JUST CHANGE THEM TO MY NAME honestly the aunt was so funny im still dying about it

stephanie singing why shouldn’t i is so lovely ( actually steph singing all the songs was just lovely ) 

okay this is taking way too long and i’m getting lazy so this will be shorter points from now on

i liked the experiment ballet but also was kinda confused by it ?? 

i appreciated the irving/francesca sideplot; it was a nice contrast/foil, but it needs to be developed a bit more imo? 

i didn’t get the point in having francesca know ann’s secret, especially since it isn’t revisited later. 

i appreciate that they gave joe/irving more of a backstory (esp. with how they met) but miss a lot of their fun banter. 

they add a lot more touchy/feely stuff for ann/joe and it was super cute to watch the build up ; like joe actually picks ann up in the park, he tries to move her onto his couch etc. it’s super cute. 

i really liked how experiment was staged; it reminded me of belle from batb

there's a line where ann asks joe what he does and he's like I DO SALES and she's like would i buy something from you and he's like yeah i sell pens and pencils which makes the school excuse so much more funnier tbh

the mouth of truth scene was super cute too :”) i’m so glad they kept that in the show

the vespa scene is STUNNING and so are the projections literally STILL DYING

literally deceased over the fountain where wishes come true part and i just !!  that staging. the acting. joe’s voice gets SO SOFT around her it’s just :”) so much

i love let’s step out but it felt weird for ... a princess ... to sing ... ??? but stephanie does a great job w/ the comedy of it all

jarrod spector did a wonderful job of night and day and it was just SO CUTE 

ridin’ high was such a cute song. the one thing i’ll say is that i wish there was a cute duet between joe and ann; or like an easy to love reprise even. that’d be nice. i guess use your imagination was the cute duet but ?? i would’ve liked something more. 

the broken vespa part + the argument made me laugh a lot.

also got real stressed when joe almost got found out :/ 

it really hurt my heart to kNOW WHAT HAPPENS/JOE’S INTENSIONS AND HERE ANN BE LIKE UR THE MOST UNSELFISH PERSON I’VE EVER MET 

drew does such a wonderful job of singing easy to love honestly i need a cast recording RIGHT NOW

they hold hands for the FIRST TIME when he walks her to the gate and then they FINALLY KISS AND THEN SHE KISSES HIM AGAIN AND THEN SHE RUNS OFF AND MY HEART HURT

ok i need to stop typing bc im real tired and emotional and i may cry again ok 

stagedoor thoughts

i  pretty much left after steph came out because i was SO exhausted from traveling but oh my goodness meeting her was so lovely like. she saw me and was all OH MY GOD COSSETTE HI and then hugged me a few times and said something about how she can’t stop hugging me and then she thanked me for being one of the first, and she remembered sitting in schnectady on her birthday and getting my present and then she was talking about how grateful she was and how good it is to finally meet me and then she hugged me a bit more, said my outfit was audrey chic, asked if that was my mom and how my mom liked the show, asked how /i/ was and i was like “i’m exhausted i flew in earlier” and she was like "you’re the person who told me that it’s cole porter’s BIRTHDAY today i saw it on instagram” and how she had no idea and started running around the theatre screaming that it’s cole porter’s birthday after and then said how nice it was to meet me again and then asked if she could please sign my playbill and thanked me for coming, said how glad she was that we finally met, and then said she hopes to be in seattle soon either doing a show or visiting since her goddaughter lives there and then asked if we could get photos so !! 

x mom got part of the interaction 

i AM FINE I AM NOT CRYING OK