Leaving Eden

I knew I had fallen in love with Laurelyn Dossett's music the first time I listened to the recording of Beautiful Star. The music was rousing, intricate, and Laurelyn's voice itself created a hauntingly beautiful aura around it. When she offered to answer some questions for the blog, I was full of nerdy theatre excitement for many reasons. Besides being a fan, I also recalled a question a reader raised in a comment on one of my prior blog posts, asking what kind of up-and-coming musical theatre artists and projects are occurring outside of New York City. While the comment was geared towards the British theatre scene, it was a question that really stuck with me since then, and one of the things I find most exciting about Laurelyn's work is that it continually calls into question what is considered "musical theatre music," not to mention that it finds a solid audience in the South. Through collaborations with artistic director/playwright Preston Lane, she has created several musicals for Triad Stage in North Carolina, including Brother Wolf, a folk interpretation of Beowulf, as well as musicals Providence Gap and Bloody Blackbeard. So, without further ado, here is my Q&A with Laurelyn:

Laurelyn Dossett: Anna Lee from Matt Williams on Vimeo.

Me: Your music combines hymns with folklore, gospel, Appalachian music, and many other genres. How would you best describe your sound?

Laurelyn Dossett: Well that is the million dollar question....these days it would be called Americana or roots music, but there was a time when it was just called "folk." When I am writing songs for plays, I am trying to evoke place, time, and mood, as well as advance the story in some way. Since three of the four plays I have done with Preston have been based in the Piedmont or Appalachian region of North Carolina, I try to write each song in a style that might have been typical for the region and the time, with typical instrumentation. I can't tell you how happy Preston was the day a clawhammer banjo player showed up in his rehearsal hall! Our first show, Brother Wolf, was set in Appalachia in the 1800's, so there was a very definite style for that. Beautiful Star is set in current time but has a rural NC setting that allowed a wider range of styles, but still bluegrassy, country, old-timey. Bloody Blackbeard was a big departure musically -- still ballad-based writing, but it was hard to get the mountains out of the melodies. The most recent show, Providence Gap, got us back to Appalachia; in that one I got to use the music to tell the story of how mountain music got to border radio and made the transition from being an intimate folk music form to commercial country radio, that was a fun challenge.

Me: Not necessarily having a typical musical theatre style, how did you get into writing music for the theatre?

Laurelyn: I am fortunate to live in a city with an excellent Equity theater, Triad Stage. The Artistic Director, Preston Lane, had a vision for creating theatre for and of the region, respectful of the south and Appalachia in particular. Not interested in Hee Haw or Deliverance, if you know what I mean. Apparently he had entertained the idea of collaborating with a regional songwriter for some time. I have a song called "Leaving Eden;" it is contemporary ballad about the closing of the textile mills in nearby Eden, NC. The song ended up on a BBC news report about the end of Chinese textile trade quotas, and voila! Preston and I live one mile apart, but met through BBC radio. He heard the song and thought I might have a similar storytelling sensibility. And thought I might just be fool enough to get into theater!

Laurelyn Dossett: Leaving Eden from Matt Williams on Vimeo.