30 DAYS OF NYMF: Day 8 Kissless

Day 8 Kissless

Kissless the Musical - Book, Music and lyrics by Chance McClain

I know what you're thinking. Teen musicals suck. They're trite, boring and played out. And too often, you're right. But this show is different. When Kissless fell out of my head I wanted to showcase it in some community theaters, maybe stumble into a school auditorium or two, and go back to my life as program director at a sports radio station in Houston, Texas, the musical theater capital of, well, nowhere. On a whim, and to make myself finish the thing, I submitted to NYMF. And the wait began. To kill time, I started honing the show with real live people, and quickly, Kissless went from words on paper, to life on stage.

Suddenly, silly things like ‘a job' and ‘income' seemed inconsequential. How could I work on Kissless all day if I had to work on work all day? So that whole employment thing...went away. My world of stats and steroids was replaced with...teenagers and tempos. We did a couple staged readings (I had to look it up, swear to Goth) and I'll be damned if people weren't laughing really hard and crying authentic tears of sadness in the audience.
We packed houses for the two readings and got comment cards from about 400 people. It turns out the show was connecting with audiences eight to 80, and not just my biological relatives. Next came:

Ring, ring. "Hello? Yeah, this is Chance. Uhhuh. No? No? Holy crap. Yes, of course we accept. Cool. Talk to ya later."

Hang up.

"Honey? WE ARE GOING TO NEW YORK!"
When Kissless got into NYMF everything changed. I was whisking back and forth to the Big Apple. I got a professional team of folks that knew what they were doing to mount the show properly. I decided to bring my cast from Texas to live in New York for two weeks, and as it turns out, that is expensive so we started raising money. Now, barely a month later, I am sitting here writing this Broadway World article on my iPad with a month to go before we arrive in the real musical theatre capital of the world. I can't stop smiling. My team and I are humbled by this entire experience.

If you are a teen, have ever been a teen, or plan to be a teen, come see this show. There's not too much fluff and not too much gruff. It's a musical comedy but it meets all of Aristotle's criteria for a Greek tragedy...but you leave feeling good. The songs are catchy. The performers are brilliant. If you see one show this year, see Book of Mormon. But if you see two (or you only have $25) come to The Theatre at St. Clement's and get your Kissless on.

Buy your tickets to the Sept. 28 Kissless the Musical world premiere, or any of the other five shows during the festival! To buy tickets go to www.nymf.org/kissless or call 212-352-3101