30 Days of NYMF: Idaho!

“New York By Way of Idaho”

By Buddy Sheffield (Book, Music and Lyrics)

Years ago I was traveling across the country in a U-Haul truck.  The New Orleans World’s Fair had gone bankrupt, stiffing my theatre company in the process, and I was moving to LA to try my hand at writing television.  My U-Haul could only go 55, had no air-conditioning and only an AM radio.  I reached a point about half way across Texas where I couldn’t even pick up the feeble signals from the Mexican stations I had been listening to.  So I started singing to amuse myself, creeping along through the desert, windows open and inhibitions cast to the Texas wind.  Maybe the locale was the inspiration, but without my even realizing it, I had begun writing a musical called Idaho. By the time I made the California border I had a verse and chorus each of about half a dozen songs. 
 
Then Idaho was put aside for years, as I became successful writing television.  Sometimes I would spontaneously perform the songs at parties, at the request of friends who became real fans of my bawdy made-up musical.  Then along came my amazing wife who said, “You have to write the rest of this.”  So, I did.  To my amazement, Idaho took on a life of its own.  The characters began to demand new songs, storylines and relationships.  Soon, this musical, born out of boredom and first performed to the cacti and the geckos, had become a true life’s work.  I got with my friend and certified musical genius, Keith Thompson, and the show really began to perk.   
 
There were readings in Las Vegas and New York.  The laughs that I had hoped for were there, along with foot stomping and hooting out loud.  I felt good about that, and about the way actors took to the show.  Here were professionals with years of Broadway experience who seemed to absolutely love my show.  They were having the time of their lives performing it and that was infecting to the audience. 
 
To this day, I look at Idaho in rehearsal and ask myself, “Did I write this, or did it write itself?” Yet, there it is; a complex and twisted story of a mail-order bride who comes to Idaho to marry the wrong man, meets the right one, and sets in motion a whirlwind of events that end in four couples either discovering or re-discovering the loves of their lives.  Then I realized it was the love of my life -- the live theatre -- that would not be denied.  Television had only been a job … this was passion!   
 
I think my love of theatre, especially the musicals of the “Golden Age,” is what really shines through in Idaho.  Sure, I make a lot of jokes at the theatre’s expense, but at the root of it, Idaho is a love letter to the great musicals, the great composers and anyone else who ever did a hitch kick, belted a high C, painted a flat, manned a dimmer board, sewed a bustle or anything else that helped to bring a big, lusty, story-driven musical to the stage.  NYMF may have given Idaho a temporary home on the stage.  But in the process it has showed me the way back to where I belong.  It feels great to be home.