Welcome Note!

Hey, everyone! Welcome to the Follow The Light blog, keeping you up to speed with developments and updates on my Christmas musical titled... um... Follow The Light. It shall subsequently be known as FTL, as much as I realise that FTL is also an acronym for a scientific term related to the space-time continuum (fans of Stargate Universe shall understand!), as well as a rather crude declaration of disgruntlement, in addition to various other urban definitions. However, we're accustomed to calling it as such, so FTL it shall remain!

This blog is an offshoot of my personal journal Madcap Memoirs of a Maniacal Musicmaker (warning: contains stories, jokes, gripes and moans relevant and irrelevant with FTL), but I just thought it would be cool to create a separate blog for the show.

Just a bit of background: FTL (the musical) is written by yours truly, Nick Choo, and was first presented as a university-level production at Nexus Theatre in Perth, Western Australia, in late November 2005. It's a contemporary, modernized version of the Christmas story (Mary, Joe, Angel Gabe, Wise Men, Shepherds, baby in the manger, the whole motley crew!), told through 20-something songs that range from pop and rock to jazz and emotive Broadway ballad. The show is almost 100% sung through, and therefore it's quite a vocally demanding piece, requiring performers of high calibre.

Having staged it in Australia, I returned to Malaysia in 2006 and approached Colin Kirton to see if he would be interested in directing and producing it. He was, and we've been working since then to update, tighten and improve the songs and script. We felt that we were ready to stage the show in 2009, but due to some constraints, decided to postpone it to this year instead. And now it's September 2010, and we've finally, FINALLY finalised our casting after a protracted period of uncertainty, and we're pretty much ready to do this, all systems go!!

You can read more on my thoughts on the journey it has taken to reach this stage by checking out this blog post on Maniacal Musicmaker. Please note that all opinions are strictly my own and were written in context of the developments and related emotions I was feeling at the time (nice disclaimer there, eh? Arf!). There are also various other FTL-related posts on that blog, including many related to the 2005 production, which Colin strictly denies any affiliation with (and rightly so: that, really, was a workshop production done with practically zero budget, the limited vision of budding theatre directors learning the ropes, and novice-level performers); the show in its current incarnation is a totally different animal altogether.

But I hope, all in all, that this blog, coupled with Maniacal Musicmaker, will create a fascinating record of the journey of this zany Christmas production... if for no other reason than for memory's sake. We'll try to keep this blog as positive as possible so that it also serves as a publicity tool of sorts, but I'd rather be open and transparent, as much as possible, on how things are going. After all, staging a production is always a bumpy ride filled with mountainous ups and valley-like downs, and I don't think enough has been recorded of these highs and lows to inform the non-theatre practitioner on the challenges of mounting a full-fledged stage production. So hopefully this blog will do some service in that department also. We'll see.

Okay, guys and girls, I'll be back soon with more updates and will release information on an as-and-when basis. Till then.... bookmark this blog and check back in soon!! Cheers!!