New Play Workshop Video: YOU BUG ME!

By Artistic Director Jeff Frank

I was at a theater conference two years ago, and one evening I went to a playwright’s slam – an opportunity for playwrights to read short samples of their work. The entire evening was a great deal of fun, but what stuck with me most was the work of a young playwright named Jeremiah Neal. We got to talking about a piece that he had been working on for a while, and he picked up his guitar and proceeded to share some of the songs from his play – YOU BUG ME!

The music was incredible. I was quite impressed, and so was Jeff Church, artistic director at the Coterie Theatre in Kansas City. Since that time we’ve been working with Jeremiah on the script with hopes of producing it sometime soon. The time is here.

We are currently in rehearsal to present a reading/sing of the play at 7pm this Saturday, October 25 in the Youth Arts Hall at Milwaukee Youth Arts Center. The Coterie is set to produce the play in the summer of 2009, and their director, Ernie Nolan, will be attending the workshop to get a feel for the changes that we have made in the script.

At its core, the musical is about friendship and the joys and challenges that are a part of being someone’s friend. Estevan the earwig and Pico the fly are best friends, but when the two decide to enter the super soil contest together the competition threatens to tear them apart. It is a delightful piece appropriate for ages 6 and up with music that will be enjoyed by all. The teens working on the piece love it! I’ve attached a bit of footage from rehearsal, so enjoy this sneak peek behind the scenes of YOU BUG ME! by Jeremiah Neal.