What would happen if the Aesop fable "The Fox and the Monkey" had a make-over. How about "The Jungle Book" meets "The Pirates of Penzance?"
The more that I've written of my new show "No Time for Monkey Business" the more it has morphed into a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta with little dips into the world of Disney's "The Jungle Book." I guess it is because of the influences of the British author Rudyard Kipling and the British jungle adventurers such as David Livingstone.
As I was creating characters for my show, I couldn't get this famous line out of my head. "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" (That is a famous greeting spoken by journalist Henry Stanley when he found the explorer David Livingstone in Africa in 1871.) That conjured up visions of the 1870's jungle explorers ... and so it goes on from there...
In other words, I now have three jungle explorers who sing a song as they go off hunting for exotic and entertaining animals to trap and take back to the London Zoo. Their song is definitely Gilbert and Sullivan-esque: "A Trio of Tricky Trappers."
Also, in sticking to the operetta model, I knew needed a patter song with lots of words sung very fast. But knowing it needed to be simplified because it might be sung by a nine-year-old, I kept it child-appropriate. The character of a Zebra gets to sing, "The Moment's Here" as he or she tries to convince the other animals that he/she should be the next King/Queen.
But the big song for the Monkey I decided had to be flashy and quite jazzy. The Monkey also wants to be King/Queen. He or she sings "Monkey See, Monkey Do."
The other songs are in various contrasting styles such as British Music Hall, a balletic waltz, and an island calypso. It has been fun to imagine the types of songs that would best fit the characters such as a Rhino, a Fancy Bird and a laughing Hyena.
Just wish I had the budget to create imaginative costumes for the characters!
The more that I've written of my new show "No Time for Monkey Business" the more it has morphed into a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta with little dips into the world of Disney's "The Jungle Book." I guess it is because of the influences of the British author Rudyard Kipling and the British jungle adventurers such as David Livingstone.
As I was creating characters for my show, I couldn't get this famous line out of my head. "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" (That is a famous greeting spoken by journalist Henry Stanley when he found the explorer David Livingstone in Africa in 1871.) That conjured up visions of the 1870's jungle explorers ... and so it goes on from there...
In other words, I now have three jungle explorers who sing a song as they go off hunting for exotic and entertaining animals to trap and take back to the London Zoo. Their song is definitely Gilbert and Sullivan-esque: "A Trio of Tricky Trappers."
Also, in sticking to the operetta model, I knew needed a patter song with lots of words sung very fast. But knowing it needed to be simplified because it might be sung by a nine-year-old, I kept it child-appropriate. The character of a Zebra gets to sing, "The Moment's Here" as he or she tries to convince the other animals that he/she should be the next King/Queen.
But the big song for the Monkey I decided had to be flashy and quite jazzy. The Monkey also wants to be King/Queen. He or she sings "Monkey See, Monkey Do."
The other songs are in various contrasting styles such as British Music Hall, a balletic waltz, and an island calypso. It has been fun to imagine the types of songs that would best fit the characters such as a Rhino, a Fancy Bird and a laughing Hyena.
Just wish I had the budget to create imaginative costumes for the characters!
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