Tag Archives: Justin Paul

Broadway Boys Are Back In Town

Posted on February 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

For Broadway music, you can go to Broadway.

Or Broadway can come to you.

This Sunday (February 12, 4 p.m., Staples High School), the Broadway Boys — “the hottest male voices currently working on the New York stage” — return to Westport.

And by “return,” I mean that literally.

Musical director and keyboardist Justin Paul, bassist Dan Asher and drummer Drew McKeon are Staples grads. Guitarist Jeremy Goldsmith grew up in Weston.

The quartet drives the Boys’ show, combining scintillating harmonies with pop, funk, gospel, jazz, folk, pop R&B, Latin — and of course show tunes.

An added attraction: over a dozen Staples Players — some of them destined for Broadway themselves — will join the Broadway Boys onstage for a pop/gospel song written by Justin Paul and his musical partner, Benj Pasek.

It’s a fitting combination. Justin is a former Staples Player, while Dan and Drew played in the pit for many productions.

The group’s goal is to spread “wonderful music from the Broadway repertoire — both classic and contemporary — across the country,” Justin says.

They also hope to get younger generations excited about Broadway. The show is a fundraiser for Staples Players and the Northeast Childrens Theatre Company, a new non-profit founded by Justin’s brother Tyler Paul. Both organizations are filled with youngsters who love Broadway, and its music.

“We love reaching young people,” Justin says. “That’s why it’s so exciting to come back to Staples. It’s even more exciting to actually perform with these amazing, dynamic and talented high school performers.”

Justin Paul

The Broadway Boys perform all over the country. But, Justin says — without too much bias — “I truly believe Staples is a unique place. The tradition of producing wonderfully trained, absurdly talented and highly skilled musical theater performers is incredible.

“I always feel rejuvenated when I work with high school students. I get a new love and respect for this art form from them. They’re not jaded, bitter or ‘over it.’ Their excitement and wonder about the theater is contagious.

“Getting up on stage — my old stage — with them and making music together is what collaboration, joy and theater is all about.”

The Broadway Boys earn raves wherever they perform. On Sunday, the performance is right here in our — and their — backyard.

(Click here for ticket information. Among the Staples Players scheduled to appear: Gregg Bonti, Allie Daut, Charlie Greenwald, Danielle Honigstein, Tyler Jent, August Laska, Grace McDonald-Seidner, Liam Orly, Alexandra Rappaport, Sami Schwaeber, Ryan Shea, Clay Singer, Michael Sixsmith and Jamie Yarmoff.)

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Justin Paul, Peter Duchan — And Joe Mantello

Posted on January 31, 2012 | 2 Comments

Joe Mantello is a huge name on Broadway. Justin Paul and Peter Duchan soon will be.

Mantello — a very hot director, with 2 Tony Awards among his many credits — has just been announced as director of the world premiere of “Dogfight.” The musical is set for Second Stage Theatre in June.

Justin Paul

“Dogfight”‘s book is by Peter Duchan. The music and lyrics are by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.  Peter and Justin are Staples grads; Benj is very familiar locally, as a longtime collaborator with Justin.

Set in 1960s San Francisco, “Dogfight” follows Eddie Birdlace, a Marine about to ship out to Vietnam.  He and his friends hold a cruel competition — a “dogfight” – during which each man brings the ugliest date he can find to a party.

According to Playbill.com, “Eddie finds Rose, a diner waitress whose idealism and compassion challenge him on his last evening before he ships out. When he returns, a broken man, to a changed America, he may finally be ready for the redemptive kindness Rose offers.”

“Dogfight” won the 2011 Richards Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre.

Benj and Justin’s current projects include “A Christmas Story” (national tour 2011) and “James and the Giant Peach” (Goodspeed 2010).

Peter Duchan

Peter co-wrote the screenplay for “Breaking Upwards,” released by IFC Films last year. He also co-wrote a short, “Unlocked,” an Official Selection of the Tribeca Film Festival, among others.

As for Joe — the only person with non-Westport connections in this story — he is currently represented on Broadway by “Wicked” and “Other Desert Cities.” He has also directed “Pal Joey,” “9 to 5 the Musical,” “The Odd Couple,” “Glengarry Ross, “Take Me Out, “The Vagina Monologues,” “Love! Valour! Compassion” and “The Santaland Diaries” — among many others.

Now he’s got one more accomplishment: Working with Justin Paul and Peter Duchan.

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Justin Paul’s “Christmas Story”

Posted on December 6, 2011 | 4 Comments

“A Christmas Story” — the tale of a Depression-era Christmas, and a boy yearning for a BB gun — is a pop culture classic.

It’s on TV every year. There are “Christmas Story” ties and underwear.

Now it’s on a 5-city tour. The ultimate goal: Broadway.

Director John Rando (“Urinetown”) and choreographer Warren Carlyle (“Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway”) are behind the show.

Justin Paul

So is co-composer Justin Paul, the 2003 Staples graduate still revered for his theatrical and musical accomplishments there.

Justin worked on “A Christmas Story” with his longtime creative partner Benj Pasek (they met as freshmen at the University of Michigan).

The score, according to today’s New York Times, is “1940s but through the lens of Benj and Justin 2011.”

The Times story added:

Several songs interpret famous scenes from the film, including “A Major Award,” which features a leg-lamp kick line, and “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out,” which sets the movie’s most famous warning to music. As with any adaptation, the creators faced the problem of how to stay loyal to the film without regurgitating it.

The piece concludes:

While Mr. Pasek and Mr. Paul expressed enthusiasm about the possibility of the show’s being their Broadway debut, they are busy with other projects, including musical adaptations of Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach” and the 1991 indie film “Dogfight,” which is having a reading in New York next week.

“Thankfully, the decision is not in the hands of two neurotic 26-year-olds,” Mr. Paul said. “It’s up to people with a lot more power and money than we have.”

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Ages And Stages

Posted on May 22, 2011 | 2 Comments

In a modern version of “let’s put on a show!” Staples Players’ final production of 2011 is an original revue.

How else did fit dozens of talented performers — including many graduating seniors — onto the stage?

“Ages and Stages” — created by directors David Roth and Kerry Long, and Players alum Justin Paul — incorporates scenes and songs from over 2 dozen plays.

Part of the very talented "Ages and Stages" cast. (Photo/Kerry Long)

There are big dance numbers, comedy sketches, barbershop quartets — just about any kind of performance you can imagine.  Most are funny — very funny.

“The overarching theme is the ‘stages of life,’” Roth says.  “From birth and early childhood through adolescence to young adult dating and marriage to having babies — that’s the generational cycle that we’ll show.”

Included are songs by Paul (Staples 2003) and his writing partner Benj Pasek.  Bradley Jones (Staples 1975) — a dancer in the original “A Chorus Line” for many years — is staging a terrific dance number for Players.

(For a sneak preview of barbershop quartet members August Laska, Max Samuels, Clay Singer and Tyler Jent singing “Hello, Mary Lou,” click below.)

“Ages and Stages” will be produced in Staples’ Black Box Theater.

“It’s a very intimate space,” Roth notes.  “We’ve never done a large musical production there.  It’s a great space — but seats are limited.”

(Tickets for this weekend’s performances (Thursday, May 26, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, May 27, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 28, 4 and 8 p.m.) are available at StaplesPlayers.com.  Prices are $15 adults, $10 students, except for the final performance — a benefit for Save the Children‘s tornado relief effort — which is $25 adults, $15 students. 

In the words of performer Charlotte Weber, “This shows is about the normal cycle of life.  What people in the South are experiencing is definitely not normal.  We’re glad we can help provide a little relief to help other children experience the same joys and triumphs.

NOTE:  This show is rated “PG,” for some adult language.)

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Richard Rodgers Honors Peter Duchan And Justin Paul

Posted on February 15, 2011 | 2 Comments

While Americans were going ga-ga over a woman in an egg, the theater world shined a spotlight on a pair of Westporters.

Justin Paul

Last weekend “Dogfight” received a Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater.  The studio production’s book is by Peter Duchan (book).  Music and lyrics are by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.  Peter and Justin are Staples grads; Benj is very familiar locally, as a longtime collaborator with Justin. 

Rodgers Awards nurture talented composers and playwrights by subsidizing productions of their musicals in New York.  This year’s jury was chaired by Stephen Sondheim.

Set in 1960s San Francisco, “Dogfight” follows Eddie Birdlace, a Marine about to ship out to Vietnam.  He and his friends hold a cruel competition — a “dogfight” – during which each man brings the ugliest date he can find to a party.

Peter Duchan

According to Playbill.com, “Eddie finds Rose, a diner waitress whose idealism and compassion challenge him on his last evening before he ships out. When he returns, a broken man, to a changed America, he may finally be ready for the redemptive kindness Rose offers.”

Peter and Justin’s latest award is of interest to Westporters for another reason, beyond their hometown roots:   Richard Rodgers lived for many years on Hulls Highway, just over the Fairfield line.

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Justin Paul’s “Christmas Story”

Posted on December 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

There are many Christmas stories.

But there is only one “A Christmas Story:  The Musical!”

And — when it opens officially this Thursday (Dec. 9) at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre — the adaptation of the 1983 film about a young boy and his dream present (an air rifle) will boast the best gift around:  an original score by Broadway’s “hottest young composer/lyricist team,” Pasek and Paul.

As in Westport’s own Justin Paul.

Justin Paul

The musical had a successful run last year at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre.  But the Seattle producers wanted a new score.  Justin and Benj submitted a couple of songs on spec, and earlier this year signed a deal.

“We’re strangely drawn to stories of boys on a mission,” says Justin — a 2003 Staples graduate who, with his songwriting partner, are on a mission themselves to scale musical theater’s highest peaks.

Rehearsals began last month.  The 5th Avenue Theatre is a major launching pad for Broadway runs and national tours.

Pasek and Paul are no strangers to top-notch musical theater.  The duo’s 1st show, “Edges,” has been produced internationally.  Their commissions include “Dogfight” (Lincoln Center Theater) and Broadway’s upcoming “White Noise.”

They are the youngest winners of the Jonathan Larson Award, and were listed as part of the “50 to Watch” up-and-coming writers by The Dramatist Magazine. They were interviewed on National Public Radio, and their music has been broadcast on Sirius XM’s On Broadway Channel.

The duo has played sold-out concerts across America at venues including The Kennedy Center in Washington, Joe’s Pub in New York, the Falcon Theater in Los Angeles, and Australia’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

But you don’t have to go Down Under — or even cross-country — to enjoy Justin Paul’s many talents.

On Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 18 and 19, the Broadway Boys comes to the Westport Country Playhouse.  Justin’s the musical director and keyboardist for this great pop-funk-gospel-jazz-folk-show tunes-classic pop-and-holiday songs extravaganza.

(Click here for a YouTube interview with Pasek and Paul about “A Christmas Story.)

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Drew McKeon Can Go For That

Posted on July 14, 2010 | 2 Comments

Hall & Oates have a long history with Westport.

In 1985 they played the most-famous non-concert ever “held” here.  For the town’s 150th birthday celebration, an Inn at Longshore employee “arranged” for the pop stars to perform.  Nearly 5,000 people paid $20 a ticket — but the whole thing was a scam.  The duo never appeared, the employee vanished — fortunately, most Westporters were in a forgiving mood.

Jeff Southworth — now a Westporter, still involved in music — was the lead guitarist on the mega-hit “Kiss on My List.”

Now Drew McKeon — born the same year “Maneater” reached #1 — has joined the band.  He’s replacing their longtime drummer (recovering from sciatica) on upcoming tour and party dates.

Drew McKeon (Photo by Chelsea Dee)

Drew — Staples Class of 2000 — has always been a musician.  After graduating from NYU as a religion and history major (don’t ask), he hooked up with fellow Stapleite Justin Paul on projects like “Broadway Boys” and “Altar Boys.”

He did the Warped Tour in 2005 — playing 50 cities in 60 days, with artists like Billy Idol and Fallout Boy — and in St. Bart’s, Jimmy Buffett sat in with Drew’s band.

Versatile local musician Eliot Lewis – formerly of the Average White Band, now with Hall & Oates — recommended Drew.  He helped open for the duo last year in Trumbull, so when the regular drummer couldn’t make this tour, Drew was a natural.

There’s a free show this Friday in Hamden, then concerts in Chicago and Iowa (plus private parties).

The singers — and their backup band — are all “first-rate musicians,” Drew says.

“Their live versions are much more nuanced than their recordings.  There’s lots of improvisation and extended solos.  I thought I knew the songs” — he’d played them at club gigs and weddings for years — “but I really have to get up to speed.”

Drew cleared his schedule to work on the music.

He also headed to the studio to talk to Daryl Hall, as he recorded his new album.  They talked about mutual influences like Stevie Wonder.

So what’s Drew’s favorite Hall & Oates song?

“I’m liking ‘Say It Isn’t So,’” he says.

In Drew McKeon’s case, touring with 2 pop legends just happens to be so.

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Broadway Boys Are Back In Town

Posted on December 16, 2009 | Leave a comment

The  Westport Country Playhouse continues to strengthen its hometown roots.

In addition to offering an open house, welcoming area young professionals — even sponsoring a blood drive — this Sunday Westport’s artistic crown jewel presents the Broadway Boys, in a concert of Broadway and holiday favorites.

The Broadway Boys are “the hottest male voices currently working on the New York stage.” And 3 of the Broadway Boys — okay, they’re actually in the band — are Westport natives.

Broadway Boys musicians (from left): Dan Asher, Justin Paul, Drew McKeon.

Justin Paul is the musical director and accompanist.  Dan Asher is the bassist.  Drew McKeon plays drums.

All 3 grew up in Westport — and got their musical chops at Staples.

Justin currently serves as musical director/conductor for the off-Broadway hit “Altar Boyz.”  Dan has performed at legendary jazz venues like Birdland and the Blue Note, while Drew tours internationally.

The upcoming concert repertoire includes holiday songs and show tunes.

This is musical entertainment at its best.  You can go to Broadway — or you can stay in town and see Westport’s special Broadway Boys, in Westport’s own special theater.

(Tickets are $35, and can be purchased by calling 203-227-4177; visiting the box office, or clicking here.)

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