Review Fix chats with Choices: A Rock Opera author John Krupa, who discusses the production and so much more.
About Choices:
“Choices: A Rock Opera”
Comes to the
Emelin Theater for the Performing Arts, 153 Library Lane, Mamaroneck, NY
November 24 & 25 @ 8:00 p.m. and November 26 @ 2:00 p.m.
TICKETS NOW ON SALE
https://choicesarockopera.com/buy-tickets
“A Westchester Phenomenon ” -Westchester Magazine
Choices: A Rock Opera tells the story of an obsessively driven lead singer from a 1980’s sexy-spandex, big-hair rock band of the 80s whose intense focus achieved a level of fame to the band they didn’t dream of. But it left the singer cocooned and emotionally underdeveloped. This cloistered crooner bereft of any depth beyond the end of his mic, meets an intriguing woman who introduces him to a world beyond what he’s ever known. Suddenly fame has lost its luster and he has “choices” to make.
The rock extravaganza gets Faustian as his bandmates – encouraged by a mysterious “manager” – who professes to be the key-holder to super-stardom – urges the singer to choose the band over happiness of the heart with his new love.
When you bargain with the devil you don’t achieve heaven.
Review Fix: What was your inspiration behind this project?
John Krupa: It’s actually a funny story. I was telling a friend about a time when I was 20 yrs old I went on a college tour playing with Meatloaf and I told him about some of my backstage antics (there were a few girls, I was young, I won’t get into details here…) at the end of this conversation (and recalling many similar conversations like this), he said to me, “you should really write a book about your exploits”. I laughed that off by saying “What do I know about writing books??” Days later, I said to myself, “it’s been a while, but I do know songwriting – maybe it would be fun for me to write about this period of my life in song”. I started writing Choices as an autobiographical reminiscence of my youth, but noticed it was coming out significantly better than I thought. I called a bunch of good industry friends to take a listen and they all said that this was a work that people around the world would love to hear. I’ve since put together a great team to make this the project it’s supposed to be, and the rest is living history. Review Fix: What’s your creative process like? Krupa: Nowadays, I take full advantage of the technology available to me. Not unlike other composers, I hear a complete song in my head, with full orchestration, etc. Nowadays, I just go to my laptop and start layering up instruments and voices to make the song sound the way it’s supposed to. From there, I email a demo to each member of my trusted creative team (Mike Rosenman for Keyboards, Tommy Vinton for drums, and Artie Dillon for guitars) and they add details to my tracks that develop it into a much more refined piece. They send their ideas back to me and I put together a demo that I can then bring the actors in on. After the actors, I bring in my visual team and bring that scene to life on stage. Though the idea might start with me, I couldn’t make Choices a reality without the great involvement from my amazing team. Review Fix: What did you learn/are learning about yourself through this process/production? Krupa: This is an excellent question. I have unexpectedly learned a lot about myself through composing Choices. As a storyline that is somewhat autobiographical (it has been augmented, no doubt), you’d figure that in telling my life story it would just be a simple, superficial recounting of facts. Reminiscing about my past experiences does bring those old stories to life again. I feel like I’m living in that moment again, and that feels awesome. It’s fresh, exciting, invigorating…. More than that, I’m seeing those days from a different perspective now. I’m seeing things deeper now, I’mseeing more than a blue sky or green grass, I’m looking at everything more philosophically, and I have better vision and better clarity than I did back then. Choices is not really the story about the choices we all make everyday. Choices is actually about the consequences and living that follow those decisions. Life is linear whether we want it to be or not. There’s no do overs. So, what if we make a choice that doesn’t work out the way we had hoped or planned? We must accept that the choice we made was the right choice for that moment, and find a way to make that decision work out for us, and MOVE FORWARD. That’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned in this process. Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this for the future? Krupa: The goal is to have more people see this show. We need to put Choices on more stages in more place so that more people can experience this incredible work that so many people have worked so hard to make beautiful. We’re hitting the road and leaving Westchester County next. We have a lot of places to go next, but I am sure the festinate is right here back in New York, but we have a lot of ground to cover before returning home. Review Fix: What’s next? Krupa: Next is to put on 3 amazing shows at the Emelin Theater, that’s what we’re all focused on now. These will be the best possible shows we can do with numerous improvements from the last run. After that, it’ll be more of the same – always striving to put out the best product we can, to touch some lives in whatever way possible. |
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