30 Days of NYMF: Bedbugs!!

By Fred Sauter (Book and Lyrics) 

“I just had brunch with five people who had bedbugs and they are so #*!%ing excited to see your show!” wrote a friend of mine on Facebook.  Just another example of the hundreds of people that Paul Leschen (my collaborator) and I have met who have had (or know someone who has had) bedbugs. 

From Upper East Side high-rises to Union Square subway benches, from a woman found dead in her infested Queens apartment to the famous Fox 5 newsroom incident, bedbugs have been getting around.  The current problem has spawned new extermination businesses, bedbug specialists and websites where fellow sufferers congregate to share horror stories and resources.  

Isn’t it strange that after a five-decade long absence these pests should suddenly return to torture us?  Could it mean something?  And so Paul and I got to thinking...

Now what were to happen if someone took all of this hoopla to a level of outrageous, sexy, ‘80’s inspired, rock ‘n’ roll, camp science fiction?  Well, friends, that is in fact what we have done.  

Bedbugs!!! follows Carly (played by the superhuman Celina Carvajal), a hell-bent exterminator who accidentally mutates NYC’s bedbugs into power-hungry, human-size rock gods and becomes romantically entwined with Cimex (the unearthly Chris Hall), their leader.  The plot weaves in the life of Carly’s childhood idol, Canadian pop singer Dionne Salon, (played by the brilliant Brian Charles Rooney) and culminates in Dionne’s big Madison Square Garden comeback engagement.  

When Paul and I began writing this show in March 2007, we could never have foreseen that the actual Celine Dion would be playing MSG on the night before our show’s opening at NYMF.  Coincidence?  Perhaps.  And is it also a coincidence that our director’s last name happens to start with bug?... (the genius Samuel Buggeln) or that every time we have a meeting, a bug shows up:  ants on the counter, a fly in the coffee, a cockroach on the wall, perhaps.   Or could there be larger forces at work?!!!

Yesterday I got chills when I heard Celina sing Carly’s ballad “Silent Spring.”  (And this was just the music rehearsal; wait until the costumes and the boy backup dancers come in!).  Paul and I are so thrilled to have such a talented cast and crew working so hard to present the world premiere in September, 2008!