And In That Universe, You'd Be Everything: An Interview with Heidi Heilig and Mike Pettry

Heidi Heilig and Mike Pettry's full-length musical, The Time Travelers Convention, debuted as a podcast about a month ago, bringing the story of three friends looking for answers through time travel straight to your living room via Youtube and iTunes. With a wonderful cast starring Nick Blaemire, Lorinda Lisitza, Jeff Essex, Stephanie Spano, Phoebe Strole, and even Mike Pettry himself, this radio play way of experiencing a new show boasts a lot of talent and fun presentation. Luckily for us, Heidi and Mike offered to answer a few questions about the process of recording a podcast, fusing nerd and musical theatre culture, and everything in between:

(First part of Youtube podcast of The Time Traveler's Convention)

Me: The big party in The Time Travelers Convention is based on a real event organized by MIT students. How did you decide to turn the idea into a musical?

Heidi: In the summer of 2005, Mike and I were looking for an idea for our thesis musical for the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU, and my mother, who is a musical theatre writer herself, sent me an article she’d seen in the New York Times about these wacky young science nerds at MIT and the party they were holding to try to attract visitors from the future. She sent it in an email with just the heading “Time traveler convention – GREAT IDEA FOR A MUSICAL.” I’m not joking, that’s how I decided – an all caps email heading from my mother.

Although I don’t do everything she suggests to me in all caps. (If I did I may have tried for a more lucrative career than ‘bookwriter/lyricist.’) And I had to convince Mike, too, but that wasn’t too hard because the idea really grabbed me and I can be really pushy when an idea takes hold.

Mike: It didn’t take much to convince me – I was excited by the idea of writing music from the perspective of nerdy high-schoolers. Before, I had been writing more cerebral art-song stuff, and was getting very tired of that. The Time Travelers Convention was a great opportunity to dive into more pop-rock styles, although the score ultimately found a balance between both worlds (like if Stephen Sondheim were to start an Arcade Fire cover band).

My favorite part of our first meeting about the show was that Heidi had pitched it to another collaborator first, who wasn’t that excited about it. He was like, “Time travel? Enh,” but I was like “BEST IDEA FOR A MUSICAL EVER.”

Heidi: What really sung to me about the whole story was that Amal Dorai (the organizer) and others were asking for things from the potential time traveler – cold fusion reactors, cures for AIDS, solutions to mathematical mysteries – and I thought, well, what would I ask for, if a time traveler showed up?

And the answer that came back in my head was “I’d want the time machine.”

I think a lot of people feel that they have turning points in their lives that they look back on and say “If only I’d—" or “I wish I could have–" or “I never should have–" and they end that sentence with “because then everything would be okay.” I know I have. (And I would sing about it, too.) And for me, characters are formed quite easily out of a mixture of dreams and regrets.

Trouble was that I forgot that love can make you sad...

Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Davenport Theatrical's developmental reading of new musical Date of a Lifetime, with lyrics and book by Carl Kissin and music by Rob Baumgartner. The musical, which follows a couple on speed date as they imagine their lives together, was a fun ride that seems to have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. I'm excited to see where it goes and really enjoyed hearing people discuss their thoughts as the creative team continues to work on the show.

One of the things that struck me about the show was how beautiful the music was. I really loved the way it was constantly in conversation with the lyrics, punctuating jokes and building on itself with energy and wonder. Rob Baumgartner has collaborated with Heidi Helig on projects The Hole and Under Construction, the latter which features the following gorgeous song "The Man Who Isn't There" sung by Rob Baumgartner himself:

He also worked with Dante Russo on the family show Radiant Ruby, but the songs I've been playing most throughout this past week have been the beautiful songs of Rob's Adam Lives, which tells the story of a composer who leaves his home and wife to write a new single for pop star Jude Kane in New York. Watch the following songs from the show:

"Trouble Is" sung by Cait Doyle:

And "Pictures of the Border Signs" sung by Lindsay Mendez:

There's something really exhilarating about the way these songs explore romance and love -- examining both the thrilling and flawed moments of loving someone. The music isn't afraid to be quiet, to breathe, to contemplate, and most of all to feel the absence of someone or something who should be there. I love the way thoughts are broken down and deconstructed and pushed out into the world in moments that seem to take flight, and I highly recommend checking out all the music available at Rob's website.

Time Travel

With the launch of the new Facebook features today, it's becoming all the more apparent that the digital world is quickly expanding, and social networking in respect to musical theatre is no exception. In fact, I've seen grassroots campaigns flourishing over the past few years through the help of social media -- Kerrigan and Lowdermilk's very successful album Kickstarter campaign, the viral videos of University of Michigan MT students, and newmusicaltheatre.com, to name just a few -- and I've always been curious to see what the next big thing is going to be.

On January 11th, Mike Pettry and Heidi Heilig's musical The Time Travelers Convention is about to launch in a big way. Through Youtube, the musical will be performed as a kind of musical radio broadcast, and shortly following the launch, audio will be available to download both as a podcast and cast album.

The Time Travelers Convention was inspired by a convention held by MIT students in 2005. The musical tells the story of 3 nerdy high schoolers who, hoping to find a way to go back in time to change their pasts, begin planting invitations to a convention in library books in hopes that someone with access to a time machine in the future would see the note and attend. When a stranger actually shows up at the party, the 3 teens must then deal with the idea of the past and learn how to live in the present.

Besides having an innovative plot, the music is fun and you can listen to much of it here. Mike Pettry, in addition to being a great musician, also has a great selection of songs both from The Time Travelers Convention and his other projects available on his website.

I'm very curious to see what this January 11th premiere has in store. It's an interesting concept -- one that is especially intriguing given the time travel themes of the piece. After all, even though this is a digital launch, the idea of a radio play is quite traditional in many respects. Also, the resonant themes give the idea a great through line, and I am most curious to see if people are going to be inspired enough by the material in the digital ether to materialize the show in their theaters.

Who knows what the future holds.