Broadway Bullet Interview: Time Being, the Musical
By: Michael Gilboe May. 02, 2007
We profile the new musical "Time Being" that is being presented by the Fildwith Ensemble Theatre, and speak with authors and creators Erika Stadtlander and Ion Ionesceu. Plus, actors Catia Ojeda and Marc Ginsburg perform "This is the Deal," and actor Lauren Orlando performs "I Spend My Days." Both songs were performed exclusively for Broadway Bullet in-studio, so be sure to listen!
and to understand the purposeful significance of the human attachments they form there."Time Being" is playing through May 13th. For more info and tickets click here.
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You can listen to this interview and many other great features for free on Broadway Bullet vol. 112. Subscribe for free so you don't miss an episode.
Broadway Bullet Interview: Time Being, the Musical
BROADWAY BULLET: The musical Time Being is being produced by the Fildwith Ensemble Theatre and opens at Theater Three on April 26th. In the studio we have the book writer, story writer, lyricist, musical director, and composer with us. Luckily that only fills up two seats. How are you guys doing?
ALL: Hi, how are you?
BB: Do you want to introduce yourselves quickly?
ERIKA STATLANDER: I am Erika Stadtlander and I wrote the book, the lyrics, and directed.
ION IONESCUE: I am Ion Ionesceu and I am the composer and musical director.
BB: What is Time Being about?
ES: It's a highly unusual concept, I don't know if we've ever seen anything like it. It takes place in a stark, surrealistic environment where eight distinct ethereal individuals – souls – convene at regular intervals, they're not sure why. They come to realize that they are in this place when their physical bodies are sleeping, their minds are dreaming, this is where their souls come to figure it all out.
II: And don't forget about soulettes.
ES: Oh and there are three soulettes, they are sort of a nirvana trio.
II: I think it helps me with the harmonies I mean I think they do a great job.
ES: And they're gorgeous.
II: Of course, of course.
BB: So they serve sort of as a chorus?
ES: Yes, yes. But they have a rather surprising scene at the end, they're not what you expected.
BB: So what, kind of, inspired you to come up with this story?
ES: This started last summer as an acting workshop; it was not a musical, at my summer theater in the Adirondacks. I was working with a group of actors on emotionally based characters – and they had no names at that point – we just started with emotional prep, we were doing a lot of acting exercises and out of these exercises came these ideas for these eight characters. I wasn't sure what kind of a play I was going to put them in, I had some sort of spiritual intervention and came up with this idea of this very unusual environment where these individuals congregated. I guess the rest was inspiration. Ion and I have worked together for three years now on musicals in our theater company. They were musicals that already existed, musicals I wrote. And he had been bugging me for years too.
II: For the past four years
ES: He had been the arranger.
II: Yes I was the arranger. For the past two years I was praying that Erika was going to do something original for me to put her amazing writing into my own composition, I'm kind of stuck right now I don't know the word…
ES: You're brilliance.
II: That's the word, you couldn't have said it better!
ES: He is amazing, he's an amazing composer and we said to each other this is it, we have an idea let's go for it.
II: And we should tell the world that it took us around four to five weeks to write the musical.
ES: We worked round the clock, we didn't sleep, and we worked very seamlessly together, and we have such collaboration together.
II: I remember the days when you were calling me and you said "Ion I have this script idea" I used to jump in the car and come to your house and just stay for hours and hours and come up.
ES: We'd work till four in the morning, smoke lots of cigarettes
II: Yes!
ES: Which I'm sorry to say. And just came up.
II: Yes, cigarettes and coffee, and red bull.
ES: And orangina.
BB: So this musical is due to coffee, red bull, and cigarettes.
ES: And orangina.
II: Yes, orangina.
ES: A little plug for them.
BB: You brought in a couple of the actors to sing songs from the show, and Ion you are going to play for them?
II: Yes, yes. We brought two songs, one of them is going to be "I Pass My Days" it's a romantic and passionate song.
ES: Ballad.
II: Yes, it's a ballad.
BB: Alright, so are we ready to hear that now?
II: Oh sure, sure.
Listen to "I Pass My Days" on Broadway Bullet volume 112
BB: Ion
II: Yes?
BB: I don't quite place the accent, is it South Bronx?
II: I come from Brooklyn, but. No, I'm from Romania, I came to this country when I was fifteen, and I was a classical performer and I kind of choose to do more compositions. And as Erika said before, four years ago – through a mutual friend – we got hooked up and she opened up, kind of like, this Pandora box, you know again with my accent it is very hard to understand, she introduced me to the musical world. And since then, since the past four years, I'm hooked. And we're planning to doing more musicals for next year – we already have something in mind – of course I'm not going to say it yet, but you can expect some other stuff, some other musicals from the Fildwith Company.
ES: If I can say a little bit more about Ion, he is a brilliant concert pianist and composer of new age.
II: Classical new age.
ES: Classical new age. He's played at Carnegie Hall, he's played all over the world. Ii did need an accompanist and an arranger for one of my musicals, our mutual friend Boris hooked us up and Ion did fall in love with musical theater, and he has said to me "It is my life."
II: Now I'm stuck.
ES: He still does his concerts, so please come to those he's brilliant. It's amazing the way he's assimilated all of this and taken it to the moon.
BB: Alright, so we're ready to play another song from the show.
II: Oh sure, sure. We'll do "This is the Deal".
Listen to "This is the Deal" on Broadway Bullet volume 112
BB: Now Erika, doing double duty as director and lyrics/book writer, do you enjoy that process? There are some people that very much like doing both things, and other people that get confused and too caught up in everything to see the porch through the trees so to speak.
ES: I must say that for all of the plays and musicals I've written I haven't directed them I think it's because I'm the artistic director of the theater company I'm there, we have a small budget. In the future I would like to have somebody else direct my piece. But I also have a co director, that's Sean Little Jung, and he sort of brings a different angle to it. We have an amazing choreographer, Jessica Northrop, and we all work as a terrific, collaborative team. It is a little difficult, I think, although I do know what I want. I think what's hard for me is, because we have amazing ensemble actors and they bring a lot to the creative process, they sometimes illuminate my characters in ways I never understood. I would say "oh I didn't realize I wrote that" or "oh I didn't realize that character was like that". And that's very exciting, I always need to learn to let go and say see what another artist can do in this process with what I initially envisioned. I think I have done a pretty good job.
II: You did an amazing job at this.
ES: To have that freedom and the give and take in the rehearsal process. But in the future I would like someone else to direct my musicals. I might be frustrating though, I might be sitting in the back screaming.
II: We need to let it go and see what happens.
ES: I'm doing a lot of rewriting on the spot, so it's helpful to have me there.
BB: When is this all taking place, it opens April 26th as I mentioned. Where, when, what, how can everybody catch the show?
ES: It's April 26th through May 13th, Thursdays through Sundays – Thursday, Friday, Saturday at eight, Sunday is at two – it's at our favorite theater in the world Theater Three which is 311 West 43rd Street. Tickets can be purchased on our website which is www.fildwith.com .
BB: And we have all that information on our website.
ES: Great. Thanks.
BB: Thanks for coming in and best of luck.
ES: Thank you so much!
II: Thank you.
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Time Being Production Photos
by Michaelangelo Robles
You can listen to this interview and many other great features for free on Broadway Bullet vol. 112. Subscribe for free so you don't miss an episode.
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