BRIGHT AND BRAVE A New Musical Comes to Dixon Place

Bright and Brave: A New Musical, opens tonight and runs through Saturday, June 9th at 7pm each night in a workshop production at Dixon Place. A love story set at Eton College, the musical originated, fittingly, amongst a group of Hofstra University undergrads. Jack Saleeby, Peter Charney, Noah Silva, and Natasha Cole, four students finishing up their senior year, were anticipating the daunting reality of post-collegiate life.

"Being young theater professionals, we were often faced with the question: What's your plan for after graduation?" says Saleeby. "The four of us decided that the best way to ensure work for all of us was to create it for ourselves."

So they did. Saleeby uncovered a book, Morris Kaplan's nonfiction narrative collection, Sodom on the Thames, in the Hofstra Library, and was struck by its second chapter, which detailed a forbidden romance between two students at England'sprestigious, all-male Eton College in 1872. The students' relationship, further complicated by the influence of their controversial professor, William Johnson Cory, resonated with Saleeby, and drove him to contact his friends to read Kaplan's work as well. They too were inspired by the book, and ready for the challenge of building a musical around the true story.

They began working, each member of the quartet assuming a role somewhat outside their primary concentrations at school. Saleeby and Cole, both acting students, took on lyrics and dramaturgy respectively, Silva, an Equity stage manager, became playwright, and Charney, a director by trade, went back to his musical roots to compose the show's music. What started as a passion project in November 2015 has since had two public readings. The upcoming workshop at Dixon Place will be Bright and Brave's first fully-staged production.

The heart of the story, for the show's creators, is the experience of falling in love at young age, and the struggle of navigating internal feelings in a world with external boundaries. While Bright and Brave takes place centuries before now, Saleeby feels confident that the narrative is relevant to audiences in the present day. The creative team is hopeful that, with their production at Dixon Place, more and more people will be able to discover this little-known historical love story.

"Dixon Place has become a second home not only to us as creators but also to our show," Saleeby says. "We have felt nothing but an overwhelming amount of support in every aspect of creating and producing."

Bright and Brave opens tonight, Thursday June 7th, and runs tomorrow, Friday June 8th and Saturday June 9th at 7pm every night at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie Street). Tickets are available at the door and online for a reduced fee at dixonplace.org/performances/bright-and-brave.

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