Sheik: Here’s the thing: With a piece of musical theater, obviously
there’s the text and the songs themselves and the lyrics. There’s the
visual aspect and the directorial aspect of what's going on. We have
ideas about this and Keith has strong ideas about how he wants to
direct the piece. But it’s never been staged before, so until you put
it up on its feet and see it in that way, with more of an eye to what
the design is going to be, and what the tone and what the mood is
going to be, these are all like just huge question marks and they’re
big questions we haven't answered yet. And haven't had the
opportunity to. So that’s why this is a really good opportunity.
Chronogram: But you were you able to work out some of the structural
issues of "Whisper House" by recording the songs on a CD? Do you feel
there will still be some evolution of the score?
Sheik: I think so. Keith and I had a conversation a couple of weeks
ago. There are two songs on the record currently where we both kind
of felt like, Well, they might work in the show but they may well not
work in the show. In a certain sense, we didn't really realize they
were integral to the storytelling or in some way if they perhaps
stop the narrative flow more than the piece wanted. So there may be
songs that aren't in the show. There may be other music that is
written. Probably what’s going to happen – or what I’m hoping will
happen – is that some of the songs will be deconstructed in some way
in other parts of the show and used as underscore. This piece is a
very different animal with respect to other pieces of musical theater
because there’s only ten songs and you have very long stretches of
scene and text in between songs. So it’s really more like a play that
has songs interspersed within it. I think we need to figure out how
to make that work for an audience.
Chronogram: I have fallen in love with Klaus Lyngeled’s illustrations
for the CD booklet and the video for Earthbound Starlight. Will these
be incorporated into the stage production?
Sheik: I really hope so. Right off the bat, one of the very simple
things we talked about is using the video for Earthbound Starlight –
which is really kind of like --
[Cellphone call drops. Interviewer redials.]
Sheik: This just might be the nature of the beast on international
calls.
Chronogram: That’s okay. You were talking about Klaus’s work and how
it might be incorporated into the stage production.
Sheik: We had this idea of using the video from Earthbound Starlight
as the prologue of the play itself – which is really what it is. I
think, ultimately, with regards to Klaus and his animation, what I
hope to do, at the end of the day, is to create an animated feature
film that will be in the style of his animation. But these are things
that would go hand in hand with the stage production and the record
itself. Maybe even an illustrated book – the "Whisper House" book. I
kind of look at these things like: here's this story, here are these
pieces of music, and you’ve got various media that you can tell the
story in. And why not try all of them and see what works the best?
And hopefully, a few of them are effective.
Chronogram: Will there be a multimedia approach to the stage
production? Has Keith incorporated --
