St John & Plahuta Release 'Goodbye' From THE GRIEVING PROJECT Musical

Songwriting and producing team Stewart St John & Michael Plahuta – the duo behind the Tara Tremendous musical developed with Marc Platt Productions -- have dropped “Goodbye”, the first song and music video from their work on The Grieving Project, a proof-of-concept musical from singer/playwright Lisa Sniderman, to be directed by Suzanne Richard for a two-week run at The Voxel in Baltimore, Maryland February 26th – March 11th, 2024. The video, featuring a performance by Josiah Mustaleski and directed by St John, is now live here. 

The Grieving Project, a collaboration between Sniderman and Open Circle Theater in Washington D.C., is a spoken word musical exploring mental health, transformation, identity, grieving and thriving in fourteen stages with a unique concept at its core:  the four lead characters only speak during songs until each finds her/his voice and sings.

St John & Plahuta were approached by Sniderman to work on The Grieving Project in August 2023 as the show's main musical composers where they were tasked with re-writing existing material and composing and producing entirely new songs selected for the “proof of concept” live event.  

“Stewart and I were really taken with Lisa's concept for the musical when she pitched it to us,” said Plahuta. “It's raw, emotional, and real, and we wanted to be part of bringing that message to the audience -- but in a way that offered hope through the music we produced.”

The duo also composed, arranged and produced the final demo tracks, hired and directed singers in recording sessions around the country, and prepared the instrumental tracks to be used in the upcoming live performance. 

The final mastered song demos are also being repurposed as promotional material to get word out about the project.

In the music video, Josiah Mustaleski sings as one of the main characters --  “Brandon” --  a young man trying to cope with the sudden and devastating death of his twin brother.  

“Michael and I knew we wanted Josiah to record the vocals for Goodbye from the minute we finished producing the song,” said St John. “He's an incredibly gifted singer and a joy to work with.”

St John, also a director/filmmaker, captured behind-the-scenes footage of Mustaleski's studio recording and cut together the music video.  

ABOUT ST JOHN & PLAHUTA

Stewart St John and Michael Plahuta are the American/Australian composing and songwriting/producing team “St John & Plahuta”, composers for film, television, video games, musicals and podcasts. Most recently they've composed 14 pop songs for St John's live-action musical feature film in development with Oscar-nominated producer Marc Platt (Wicked, Legally Blonde) and his company Marc Platt Productions. 

They have several original musicals for stage, animation and live-action currently in development. Stewart and Michael are also two of the three co-founders of Wonkybot Entertainment, an award-winning production company and sound house creating original IP for kids and family.