The Long Process
wix websites are best
viewed at 100 % zoom
Development of a Musical
The most recent events/activities are now on the 2nd page of this website: "The Professional Workshop/CCA Grant".
This development page shows some of the dev't from 2018 to 2021, scrolling from 2021 down... Just below that are some bios. and credentials
of some of the people involved. Below THAT are the journalings and photos of the initial year of its 'life'.
For more photos and journalings of the development process, please see the blog at : https://rnmusical.wordpress.com/
Amazing things are happening in 2022 !
Congratulations! Rough Notes has been accepted into the 365 Women A Year Playwrighting
Project due to the historical significance of the following: Lady Tweedsmuir, Genevieve Lipsett, Tilly Winslow (through daughter Margaret) and Gookum Perley Bear. Avail. to public Jan 2022.
mid-2020 to mid 2021, virtual meetings/discussions clockwise from above left, with dramaturg Adam Brazier, with Sankoff and Hein, the creative team behind Come From Away (discussing historical musical theatre-writing while ancestors of characters are still alive), below Cameron Slipp arranging and sending finalized versions to J. Ivanel for practice and far left, discussions with various administrative support at the Playwrights Guild of Canada.
SINCE COVID hit in March 2020, arranger Cameron Slipp has been hard at work on preparing the Piano Book and some harmonies, whilst professionals and script advisors mayor/choral director Marianne Bell, actor/tenor
Curtis R. Sullivan, actor/playwright Ryan Griffith, dramaturg (Charlottetown Festival)Adam Brazier, music teacher Joy Cehovin and actor/Artistic Director Marshall Button have assisted through a 5th and 6th draft. Maliseet Sensitivity Editor Norma Jean Saulis has kept her eye on revisions as well and biographers Ursula Buchan and Bill Galbraith and Ottawa Little Theatre archivists Jane Morris and Bob Hicks have assisted with historical points. A great thanks to all the above, and the many backers who contributed through Kickstarter in February-March's campaign as well!
3RD Table-Read , at "Cold-Reads" at the Tipsy Muse Cafe in Fredericton, NB, Feb. 18, 2020, organized by Rebel Femme Productions with various members of the Fredericton Theatre Community, most reading on electronic devices to 'save the trees, as J.B. and Grey Owl and Bear would have advised! (click on any photo to enlarge) Only Act ii, Sc. 4-9 were read that evening (Rideau Hall scenes)
Excerpts may be heard/seen on this 4 min. video as well:
2nd table-read and MIni-workshop with 3 songs, Sept. 19, 2019 with participating members of Mckencroft productions listed below
McKencroft Production members participating in 2nd table-read/workshop: Sandi Tattersall, Richard Reich, April James, Bob Curran, Marianne Bell, Sonja Petersen, Joel Howe, Melinda Kavanaugh, Norman Smith, Clark Wilson, Dean Butterfield and with special thanks to Joy Cehovin, Sheila Cummings and Norma Jean Saulis for script/grant assistance. VERY special gratitude to professional consultant, actor/baritone Curtis Sullivan. ( Playwright/composer J. Ivanel Johnson on keyboard.)
(click on any photo to enlarge)
Hear all rough demos. to date here: https://soundcloud.com/user-360865364
OR a special Christmas 2021 release on video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXk0FusiHcg
or the soundcloud excerpt/demo of it ("Such A Time As This") here:
https://soundcloud.com/user-360865364/such-a-time-as-this
or a song sample rehearsed here with Sandi Tattersall, of "Lullaby"
(lyrics may be read under the soundcloud recording)
https://soundcloud.com/user-360865364/roughdemolullabysandi
Hear just the 1st verse, bridge and last verse of "Donnie's Song: Mother May I Quit Piano?" ( in which he requests the Lullaby above - lyrics may be read under the soundcloud recording)
https://soundcloud.com/user-360865364/donnies-song-shortened-rough-demomore-uptempo
See a table-read excerpt here with Melinda Kavanaugh and Joel Howe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXosKtWpznM&list=UUVI-ckF-lJtft66hpqSEtLg&index=5
Here's a New Year's (2020) ballad/love song medley really just for adding to a McKencroft members' online greeting - but a bit of fun and a cool way to hear a number of snippets:
sliding circle photos of summer 2019 work following the first table-read and to prepare for the second
CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE, CLICK ON RIGHT AND LEFT ARROWS FOR MORE
McKencroft Production members seen in above circular photographs: Lucas Comeau, Sandi Tattersall, Richard Reich and J. Ivanel Johnson
Also, in summer 2019: Highland Arts Theatre jury short-listed the script to 'flag' for potential, a meeting with potential arranger/co-composer Cameron Slipp, a meeting with Capitol Theatre Artistic Director Marshall Button, and several positive reviews/news articles
As well as a lot of grant-writing, pitches to producers and looking for sponsors in the latter part of 2019 and early 2020, we have also approached CN Rail to consider one or two Perth-Junction-train-station scenes for the possibility of staging them in Moncton in August 2020 as part of their Centennial Celebrations. (update: Covid-19 of course cancelled the latter) Below is a 30-second video: "Rough Notes on the Rails"
1st table-read of rough notes, june 13, 2019 with participating members of McKencroft Productions listed below
BIO: Librettist, Lyricist and Composer: J.Ivanel Johnson- a former actress/director and Music/Theatre-arts and English teacher in England, Scotland, Stratford,Ontario and across the western USA, Julie has seen two of her original shows produced at the local community level, performed her one-woman show Katherine Ann Fields at the amphitheatre at Murphys Point Provincial Park for two seasons, and in 2016 was honoured to have a choir sing one of her own compositions for the program "150 Voices for 150 Years". As pianist, 'cellist and sometime guitar-strummer, she has accompanied both adult and children's choirs in several countries since the age of 14. Published in Canada and the USA as a poet in the 1970s and 1980s, as a journalist and song-writer in the Ottawa Valley throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and as the commissioned author of How To Teach Drama to Kids in 2013 (hard-cover released Feb. 2020) her most recent published works include a creative memoir short story in Renaissance Press's Aurora Award-nominated Nothing Without Us anthology, and three poems/lyrics in 2020: one, in the best-selling Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse anthology, another in The Daily Drunk journal and the last in THEMA's literary journal. In 2021, two works about marginalized characters (disabled, indigenous, LGBTQ) are coming out in social justice literary journals, Quaranzine and Mollyhouse. In 2018 she also ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for funding one of her film treatments, which she has now passed on to two talented film-makers in the USA. While Julie has lived in many regions of the U.K., and North America, she presently resides near the Scottish settlement of Perth, New Brunswick. more spec. details on this bio., testimonials of professionals with whom she's worked, and more on how libraries and literacy programs are linked to the Rough Notes musical :
https://rnmusical.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/rough-notes-a-new-canadian-musical-by-j-ivanel-johnson-mckencroft-productions/ or on author page: https://mckencroftproducti.wixsite.com/jivanelauthor
Participating members of the McKencroft Production team for the 1st table-read in Perth-Andover, June 2019 were as follows: (starting from left, clockwise in the photo just above this caption) Clark Wilson, Mayor Marianne Bell, April James, Zeb Godbout, Curtis and Sandi Tattersall, Sarah Francouer, Sonja McLaughlin, Dean Butterfield, Bob Curran and Joe McLaughlin
Bio. of Arranger Cameron Slipp,
of Woodstock, NB and Waterloo, ON
(Cameron is artist-in-residence for K/W's Unwrap Theatre - this is a brief bio from their listing, of his most recent projects: )
New !!! The Nova Scotia Choral Festival (NSCF) 4th Young Composer's Competition jury selected Cameron's " Peregrina " to be premiered by the Nova Scotia Youth Choir in 2021, conducted by Christina Murray, as part of the NSYC's 30th Anniversary Celebration. Congratulations, Cameron!
All Art is Quite Useless, for UPSTART 20 Festival , Waterloo ON. Book by Gaya Bin Noon, Lyrics & Music by Cameron Slipp, Directed by Michael Klein, Musical Direction by Peter De Sousa, Cast seen:Pianist - Peter de Sousa, Cellist - Erin Walker, Dorian Gray - Brooke Reid, Basil - Rachel Vander Doelen, Lord Henry - Kassidy Shaw ** 501, produced through a grant by Waterloo Region Arts Fund 2019, for Playground Festival at the Registry Theatre. Book, Lyrics & Music by Cameron Slipp, Music Director Cameron Slipp, Director, Lauren Kuhl, Stage Manager, Madie Bennet.** FantaSEAS, Produced at Browning, MT 2002, Book and secondary lyrics by J. Ivanel Johnson, Music by R. Hodgson, Directed by Leslie Haggar and Johnson, with pictured Sapphire Diamant-Rink and Spencer Madplume.**Off The Wall, produced for Wortley, at Bradford's Priestley Centre for the Arts, Leeds UK 1997 and 1998. Co-written by Phil Chester and Julie (J. Ivanel) Johnson, Lyrics by J. Ivanel Johnson, Producer: Austin Danks, Directed by Leonora Rustamova and Johnson, with Phil Mellor. **
Research for this musical involved also ordering and reading the two most recent John Buchan biographies (on top of all the many non-fiction and fictional books/resources that exist about and by the clan). Five years ago Dundurn, in Canada, published our J. William Galbraith's fine political study of J.B., and this year J.B. and Susie's own grand-daughter Ursula Buchan has a best-selling biography out. This shows that 80 years after his death, this man who so helped develop all the 'good things' about Canada is still relevant and needs to continue to be celebrated!
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY – THE EARLY PROCESS:
FROM OCTOBER 2018 TO JAN. 2019
more information on the early process can be found at
https://rnmusical.wordpress.com/
from the journals of writer/lyricist/co-composer J.Ivanel Johnson
THE JOURNEY BEGINS IN EARNEST: The first 10 days or so were primarily research, although I did know a lot about the Buchan family already. There were many details to discover, both through library books mailed to me, and online. I have also been in contact with Buchan family members and the museum in the U.K. I also had to research certain details like time period (1939) and other potential characters (some times and characters have of course been amalgamated to fit the constraints of the medium).
The lyrics were written first, with SOME of the Book/Script, scribbled in my soft and well-used leather notebook.
Then, as the main melodies of a verse, chorus or bridge would come to me, I would record me humming it or would play it on my new purpose-purchased (since I couldn’t sit at the piano) melodica:
Next came the actual writing of the whole ‘book’. (from Cast of Characters, to plot-lines and stage directions to end of Act Two) this was 50 pages of text. And then typing out all the lyrics took up 70 pages:
This took about 8 to 10 hours per day to accomplish, 7 days a week, and was finished in the first 3 weeks of November. It was at this point that other members of McKencroft Productions began their development assistance. By the last week of December I had started using the wonderful online software NOTEFLIGHT (free for the first 10 songs, then sponsor Richard Reich paid for the upgrade as there are 21 songs altogether at this point.) Joy Cehovin, (B.Mus.) stepped in to proof-read, change, restructure and help notate. Sandra Tattersall and Anne Schultz were sounding boards. (Sandra is a trained vocalist whose brother and nephew are professional stage actors and singers in Ontario; Anne attends (bi-monthly) productions in Toronto, Hamilton, Drayton, ON.) Although we WILL need an arranger/orchestrator further ‘down the line’, Noteflight and the others’ assistance helped me to not only notate the melody of each piece, but to add harmonies and some main instruments (like drums in the native-based and war-themed songs, a trumpet and trombone in an upbeat 1940s swing dance number, or violin or ‘cello in a love ballad, etc.) :
So, altogether, by the end of December, 2018
from leather journal scribblings, through first set of typed text and lyrics, to first beginnings of music composition on software: Noteflight.
And by mid January, 2019:
Here’s the audio to the entire overture (since this was recorded, it’s been cut back to the standard 4 minutes, as I took out a repeated section that was unnecessary.) This includes a few phrases from 8 of the 20, including the two love songs “Sit With Me Awhile” and “All I’ve Ever Known”, as well as the endearing “Donnie’s Song: Mother May I Quit Piano?”, and the two very up-beat chorus pieces: “Share the Lair”, and “Commonwealth”. Near the end, when a lot of oboe is heard, that is meant to simulate the bagpipes in the Scottish gig that is “Ye’ll No Wan’ Muckle Else”, during the Hogmanay final scene: