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This all new, exciting and innovative work represents a collaboration among three Northwest artists who have each attained a national reputation: best-selling humor writer Patrick F. McManus; composer, arranger and musician Olivia Brownlee; and touring professional actor, Tim Behrens.
Its full title is
My Favorite Toy Was Dirt!
An American Story in Concert
It is scored for Seven Musicians Versus One Actor!
The musicians become an integral part of the performance and the humor, as they interrupt, interject, and also interfere with the proceedings. Confused? Think Mark Twain meets Spike Jones! Or a Marx Brothers scored by Aaron Copland. Or Peter and the Wolf on steroids where nobody dies in the end, not even the wolf.
DIRT contains hilarious McManus stories surrounded by original, authentic, and wildly creative music, evoking folk, traditional jazz, Texas swing, American classical (think Copland), cowboy, barn dances, and other popular forms.
The composer is Olivia Brownlee, a talented singer, musician, composer, arranger, and artist. www.oliviabrownlee.com.
The story telling is universal, accessible, G-rated, imaginative, intelligent, and most of all, funny. As one presenter said of the Comedies: “I have never heard such sustained laughter in a theatre.”
After receiving a grant from the Spokane Arts Commission, we conducted a campaign through a Kickstarter page to raise funds to finish the score, hire the musicians and venues, and begin performing.
And we were successful! Yes! [And while we raised the $10,000 to cover base artistic costs and the score, please know that we could still use an underwriter or two for the first performances! Call Tim, at 509-993-7121 if you are interested.]
We will host a preview and other performances of this work starting in February of 2019. (Please note: the original date has been moved forward due to some medical needs in Tim’s family and also because this is becoming a much more complex and richer composition than originally conceived! Tickets will go on sale starting in early January.)
Our goals are simple:
1) We hope to combine and cross-pollinate audiences from the worlds of theater, writing, storytelling, and music.
2) We want you and your family to laugh loud, hard and long!
We will keep you, and our family of Kickstarter donors, up to date on this page and on Tim’s Blog.
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