How Stories 1.0 Was Created

Stories 1.0 is a continuing, evolving experiment, the primary current composition of which is twelve complete short musicals, written and composed by a surprisingly eclectic collection of talents from American and Canadian music and theater. With inventive transitions, diversions, and a bracketing device and over-arching through-line which tie the show together into a single cohesive and compelling evening—Stories 1.0 is a musical and dramatic roller-coaster. And it’s also, incidentally, surely one of the most dramaturgically challenging stage musicals ever created.

The development process is arduous. From analyses of workshops held in San Francisco, New York City, Nashville, and Miami, the first full-length incarnation of Stories 1.0 slowly evolved. And while there are clear antecedents and influences, Stories 1.0 remains rather unique in theater history. Not a revue, not a ‘sampler’ or evening of one-acts—it pioneers a revolutionary new path on the stage, albeit one firmly rooted in the earliest foundations of theatrical presentation.

The amount of work required to make each segment work, both intrinsically and within context, is noteworthy. Only one segment in the current composition hasn’t been extensively revised since first being selected by The Ten-Minute Musicals Project. In all, nine new songs have been composed. An entire book was created for one segment which existed previously only as unconnected songs. Two of the segments went through four complete top-to-bottom revisions. Seven others were set aside entirely after workshopping showed immutable internal problems that deleteriously affected the overall structure of Stories 1.0. Cutting six minutes from a two-hour show is a major trim, yes; but excising that much from an eighteen-minute work, as was done in two cases, is a complete disembowlment—a full third of the show has been lost. Similarly, very carefully adding five minutes to a nine-minute piece, as was done in another case, created a much grander and expansive experience. The larger frame of Stories 1.0 is an unusual variation of the otherwise tried-and-true ‘play within a play’ format, and is carefully fitted to keep audiences alert and musically engaged throughout. The primary consideration, always, was the effect any revision, re-alignment, or substitution might have on the tensile strength of the whole—the obvious goal being unified, cohesive elegance.