“Only Human,” a musical which was workshopped at OCU, recently closed Off-Broadway.
The final workshop of the musical performed at OCU in October of last year. It was scheduled to run Off-Broadway from this October until January of 2020, starring Gary Busey playing “God.”
“It was definitely a really awesome experience,” said Cheyanne Marie Osoria, music theater graduate. “In the beginning, we didn’t really know what to expect. The callbacks were so odd. We didn’t realize how intense it was.”
Osoria said the callbacks had somewhere from 30 to 40 performers, and only six were cast. Adam LaPorte, music theater/music composition senior, said they were taught music there, then their callbacks were recorded, since the creative team could not attend.
“It’s essentially a retelling of the creation story,” LaPorte said.
Laporte played “Lou” (Lucifer), and Osoria played “Maggie” (Mary Magdalene). Osoria said the story takes place in Heaven portrayed as an office space.
“The beautiful part they told us was when we workshopped it, we basically helped finalize their decisions,” Osoria said. “They really loved Adam. Adam got to use some of his skills with composition, and I got to use some of my music directing skills. I got to make it my own. They took a lot of our ideas and took it to the final product, which was really cool for us.”
LaPorte said the production was a stripped down showing, with a set consisting of blocks, rolling chairs and a band. He also said potential donors attended the performance.
“They flew out a lot of the interested investors or people who had some sort of stake in the show to see it,” LaPorte said. “They did some previous workshops in New York over the last eight years or so, and this was the culminating final workshop, so a lot of people who had been following the project for a while came here to see how it had evolved.”
LaPorte said the same creative team which worked on the workshop at OCU worked on the Off-Broadway production. He also said the composer of the show plays Lou in the Off-Broadway cast. LaPorte said he wants OCU to continue to do collaborations like this in the future.
“It was a really invaluable experience to watch people in the midst of the creative process who are doing this on a professional scale,” LaPorte said. “It is ultimately really grounding to realize that the people who are doing the thing that you want to be doing are also just human beings who talk to and interact with you, and not these far off entities who are untouchable.”
The production closed Oct. 28 after eight performances.
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