GLITTER PRINCE
glam rock opera
book/lyrics by Brian Crano, music by Josh Cooke
Glitter Prince has strange origins. I was known to be quite the musical theatre performer at school. I started in musicals when I was eight and had been doing them all my life. Anyway, in college I was fairly arrogant and fairly sure that I had been sort of pre-chosen to be the lead in Company, that year, the school musical. Anyway, actor/director/Pippin, John Rubenstein, was directing Company and didn't like me and didn't cast me, didn't even call me back. So, with pride injured, very publicly, I made a vow to write and produce my own musical that would be better than Company. And as the president says, "Mission Accomplished."
Okay so there I was with a mission, but without a story or anyone to write the music, a skill I just don't have. I knew I wanted to do the world's first Glam-Rock-Opera. At that time, I had also been reading a lot of mythology and decided that the Greek myths of the division of the universe and the rape of Persephone were great fodder for musicalization. Then one day seeing some play at UCLA, I ran into my fellow student Josh Cooke, who has since become a close friend, but at the time scared me shitless, he's very intense. Josh asked me if I was doing anything at this year's Theatrefest. I said I was committed to doing something to top the previous year's Penis Play, and that I knew it would be a glam-rock-opera. He asked me about the music, if I was writing it. I said I would do the lyrics and probably just lay them over other previously written songs. Josh then asked if he could score the show. And I said sure. Josh was very tentative not wanting to tread on my toes, but I think he got screwed in the deal, as I asked him to write 21 pieces of music inside of a month. And he did and the music was beautiful.
So, now I have a composer waiting for lyrics to score, and I have nothing. Then a major blessing happens, it's discovered that I have to have all of my wisdom teeth out. This is the point in my life where I discovered pain pills. Particularly Vicodin. Which, by the way, I don't advocate the use of illicitly...only when prescribed...but when mixed with a glass of red wine, at the time, it made for a very productive writing process. I cranked out the script lyrics and all to Glitter Prince in about three weeks with a re-write. This was still a lark at the time, I didn't consider myself a writer for years after this, anyhow, just trying to illuminate the process.
I then enlisted the aid of my then new best friend, Mathieu Young, who agreed to come on and co-produce the show with me. Along with a full two and a half hour opera, we decided that there would be a visual subtext that would play throughout, so we had to storyboard, shoot and edit a full two and a half hours of video that would underscore the play's action.
There was a big buzz around the show at the department, partly because we had spent so much money on it. A whopping $4,000. Which now sounds like pennies, but my parents graciously put it up. And partly because of the scale of the show. It was a musical with extras. And a full rock band and a huge cast, that rehearsed for 10 weeks. Usually at Theatrefest, a couple of sophomores would throw together a garbage production of Waiting For Lefty with a weeks worth of rehearsal. But we, for whatever deranged reason employed the full stage craft we had been taught, not that the show was without major flaws. But it endeavored so much, and that has always made me proud. I doubt I will ever work so hard on anything again in my life.
UCLA | June 2002
production team
director Brian Crano
produced by Brian Crano | Mathieu Young
visual director Mathieu Young
lighting designer John Bass
production coordinator Russ Ward
cast
Corin Bastian Josh Cooke
Lucias Bastian Mathieu Young
Nomi Bastian Brian Crano
Dorian Bastian Marc Fellner
Celeste Willow Geer-Alsop
Chiron Dwight Armstrong
Regan Rachel Lineberger
Leonard Peaches Kiel Kennedy
Kip Peter Musante
Woman On The Couch Anne Burke
The Roadie Eliot Benjamin
Male Fan Judd Fish
Ezra Bastian Christina Howard
reporters Russ Ward | Brad Golden
band
Josh Cooke - guitar
Russ Ward - guitar
Drew Flaherty - lead guitar
Brad Golden - bass
Devon Cromwell - drums
