The Tenth Floor
Music & Lyrics by J. Sebastian Fabal, Book by Sara Cooper
J. Sebastian Fabal, who mostly goes by Sebastian but who grew up as Joe (a fact that makes it increasingly difficult to trace him on Facebook), is the child of the new American extended family, whose conglomeration of parents and step-parents are social workers, lawyers, and, of course, rock drummers. He is exactly what his environment has made him.
And this is really what our story is about. The Tenth Floor is about a 16-year-old in Miami caught up in a world of crime that he was born into and sees no way out of. Which elements are his fault, and which should he be able to fix? This is a question SebastianJoe and I, Bookwriter Sara, are very interested in exploring.
But, folks, the show is not a downer! For, you see, where Joebal is a product of his upbringing, so, too, am I. And I am a New York Jew with parents in the arts. Sebjoestian has written beautiful, feeling songs with great social implications and heart, and I have brought in dark comedy and ghosts. It's a match made in Grad School.
Really! We wrote the first draft of The Tenth Floor at the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (Tisch NYU) under the mentorship of some really great professors, some of whom were long-time musical theater idols of our very own.
The show went through several versions in a matter of months. Finding the right way to tell this story was tricky. After all, neither Fabastian nor I are 16-year-olds in juvenile hall isolation. Since the spark of the idea was inspired by a true story, we first approached the show as a sort of courtroom drama. We quickly ruled that out. It was around that time that we added in the fantasy elements of the show and changed the backstories of the characters to make them our own. From that point on, the show just flew.
We hope you'll enjoy The Tenth Floor. We've encased some very difficult subject matter in a lovely little shell of candy that melts away during the course of the evening. May it taste deliciously bittersweet.
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