Nine Burning-ish Questions About "36 Questions"
Nine Burning-ish Questions About "36 Questions"
36 Questions is one of those classic "mystery romance musicals." I thought it might be fun to answer the most frequent questions about the story and the making of the show we get...
Do Judith and Jase end up together?
I honestly don’t know. I leave that up to Judith and Jase. I took my hands off their lives when the story ends.
Who wrote the music?
Such a good question. Chris and I both wrote the music - although I would say that usually our process is that, with some scene work and lots and lots and lots of character work already figured out, and a lengthy discussion about what the song needs to do, I will throw out some chords and some dummy lyrics, hand it off to Chris, who will then hand it back to me with all sorts of changes, and I will begin to arrange it. So I “take point” on music. But it’s very much a mutual collaboration.
Are you more of a Judith or a Jase?
I’m definitely more of a Jase. But I definitely have some Judith-isms. (I feel like I make jokes when I’m sad.)
What happens to Henry the Duck at the end of the show?
He is still with Jase. He is his pet duck. He and Cooper are best friends.
What happened to Camille? What happened in Sedona?
Pass. 😉
Where did you come up with the idea for 36 Questions?
Skip and Zack at Two Up Productions gave us this long line: "a couple on the brink of divorce who use the 36 Questions to get back together."
From there we spun out a million different possibilities of characters and stories where the questions would be crucial to the characters arcs. Ultimately it had to be something that we really identified with.
We kept coming back to the idea of “Do you ever really know someone? And if you know them completely, can you still love them?”
What comes first - the story or the music?
They both do. I do feel like I have to make sense of the story to understand what music will help us understand the story. We generate a lot of music not knowing exactly where it’s going to go, so that when we arrive at a song, we have some songs available to us to play around with. But for anyone writing a musical at this moment - I see you - I’ll say that you should write whatever is giving you life in any given day, and assume that everyone you create will find its way into your piece. (Or into another one!)
What was the rehearsal process like?
It was wild. And quick! Once the team was in place, we had one workshop reading in April ‘17 of Acts 1 and 2. (If you know the world of musicals, one reading before showtime is absolutely absurd.) Between that reading - which went really well, thank goodness - and when we started recording in May, we finished a draft of Act 3. Then we had three full days of rehearsals where we actually finished Act 3. We then spent ten days in the studio recording scenes, vocals, and instruments. So we very much were writing and recording at the same time. We were even editing the script in post-production. Post-production was about four months long, with us working on the third act while the first act was being released. So... everything all at once!
Is this the show where For The Record comes from?
U bet ur booty it is
