A little over a month ago, I sat in my backyard with a copy of “Aladdin” script (adaptation written by my theatre partner Carol Brammer) with a bit of an ambitious task – I had two days to write six music numbers which would turn the play into a children’s musical for our summer camp. My boys were playing right there, in front of my climbing roses that decided to start opening up that very afternoon. It was perfect. I would ask them to throw me a line about Genie, or Aladdin who is leaving home, and they would say something so simple (as only children do) that I had no trouble finishing all the songs that very afternoon. 
Excited, I showed them the back sides of the pages of the script on which I wrote my lines and sang the choruses to them. They weren’t too impressed. They had experienced their mother being excited about something that was clearly in her head and hard to hear by humans who aren’t mind-readers, many times before.
Next morning, I recorded the songs on my iPhone sitting by my piano (on VoiceMemo app). After a few days, of making minor corrections, I made a bit ‘cleaner’ tracks in GarageBand – which I sent off to Tony Miracle to create demo arrangements. In a week (and at this point I was somewhere on the East Coast touring), he sent me back arranged tracks. I recorded my vocals in GarageBand in my hotel room, using an iPhone head set. Mark Johnson, a great friend, music minister and an amazingly talented transcriber, then generated sheet music for the songs. My local CD pressing company QCA, made copies which were given to the kids who signed up for the camp a week ahead of time. The camp started on Monday. We had five days to put together an hour and fifteen minutes long musical.
Tonight, my boys watched as twenty excited kids sang the very songs they watched me write in our backyard. They watched as the kids danced and had so much fun. They stood up at the end with the rest of the audience to give a standing ovation to the cast who performed an excellent show. And we walked home afterwards humming the songs.
It is just amazing: to be able to create something from a single moment in time – with a bit of imagination, few little boys at play and a rosebush in the background – and turn it into another moment that becomes an inspiration for other people… I feel very, very lucky…
Check out CliftonPerformanceTheatre.com for more information and if you live in Cincinnati, come and hear the music of “Aladdin” (I might have an mp3 soon to share 
And yes, Dante, Evan and Blais will play in one of the upcoming casts.