Rap Battle

Rap. That strange genre of rhyme without reason, meter without melody, and peculiarly unpoetic poetry. Its supporters consider it the Übermensch of the lyric, and its critics consider it sub-musical. Regardless its musicality, however, it has become one of the most popular genres in the last thirty years, reaching a pedestal of profanity far above most other genres. This being the case, we decided to include a rap in We Lost The Musical, for the sake of all you hip-hoppers out there.

But this is no ordinary rap. This is a Rap Battle. Not only that, but the participants are none other than Sawyer, an auto-tuning country singer, and Ben Linus, a bell-bottomed disco star. And neither of them are black.


What.


Of course this seemed like an awesome idea at the time. And of course, now the musical is completely written  -- except for the rap. No surprises there.

This might be the biggest challenge of the whole musical: two extremely indie, somewhat nerdy white boys attempting to write a rap.

Time to get rhyming.

How to Succeed at Callbacks without Making your Dean of Students Angry

In the case that you find yourself with a half-written musical, a bundle of buoyant actors and no parts cast, these simple steps will help you succeed in getting your rowdy band of hooligans cast without angering the supreme dictator of your school!

a) First of all, plan ahead. Go ahead and make an order for the evening, print it out and give it to your cast. It will help you to actually get things done, and give you an imposing sense of authority.

b) Get a really good assistant director. Preferably one who isn't afraid to yell a whole lot, and will make sure you're being realistic in your casting.

c) Find an epic place to hold auditions. The Batcave, Notre Dame, or a friend's house should do.

d) Make sure to stick random people in for random parts. You never know what amazing actors might just pop up. . .

and finally (and most importantly): e) Do NOT go two hours over-schedule, forcing you to bring one of your actors home two hours later to his exhausted dad who happens to also be your school's Dean. This is vital to the life of your play. Absolutely vital.

The First Meeting. . .

As the director of this amazing musical, I wanted to show everyone how on-top of, in-tune with, and legit I was. So naturally, the best way to do that is to schedule a meeting at a coffee shop in the sketchiest part of KC on the day that everyone has rehearsals.

Needless to say, it started out as a good plan. I started by creating one of those hateful Facebook chain messages to get everyone's opinion on a date. Within minutes, I had an explosion of opinions, suggestions, and people with clogged up inboxes. I, being the dauntless (and brainless) man I am, dove headfirst into the virtual fray, corralled the basic information, and had a date and time scheduled within the hour. The last thing to worry about was the location. Finally, our actor for Charlie suggested we use his family coffee shop, to which I agreed-who doesn't like a cool coffee shop? So, I grabbed the address, sent it to my buddies, and prepared for the meeting by making a waiver, informational sheet, and a basic synopsis.

As those fateful two weeks passed by, an unusual thing happened; about a fourth of my cast suddenly was unable to be in the show (due to vacations, college visits, and crunchy hips). This, of course did not phase me, for I had a battalion of eager actors who also wanted parts! However, that battalion apparently all had a practice scheduled for the exact time we had our meeting. Perfect.

I was saddened by this, but it did not halt me. I had scheduled the meeting, and there was no stopping it now. And so, on that fateful day, I gathered my Lawrence crew together, and headed out for our destination. As we approached though, a strange thing began to happen; more and more bars were found in windows, more and more homeless people were seen walking around, and more and more 25 cent laundry mats appeared. Soon, I realized that I was carrying a load full of suburban-raised, private schooled teenagers through the heart of Kansas City. Nerve wracking doesn't even begin to describe how I felt!

Well, we arrived at the coffee shop, which turned out to actually be a fantastic place to hold a meeting. Unfortunately, our numbers were not quite up to the cuff, due to our shift in actors and unforeseen complications. The actor for Charlie was there, along with our choreographer, and her friend. Add in my four Lawrence lads, and vuwalla! The first cast meeting of seven people was on!

In the end, it turned out ok-I had found a great actor for LaPedis (our choreographer's friend), and had got the seven of us pumped for this epic stage production. Of course, I had no clue how amazingly the rest of the cast would react during auditions, but still it was a fun meeting. And, Charlie made a pretty mean coffee drink, so I was happy!

The Beginning. . .

Once upon a time, there were two guys who lived in Kansas, and they were bored. So they decided that the best way to cure the boredom was to write a musical. Naturally.

Mind you these to guys had the combined musical theater knowledge of a hippo. Perhaps a particularly well cultured hippo, but a hippo none the less. Between them, they had been in a grand total of three musicals, and had seen a grand total of about six (not including Disney movies).

When embarking upon a project one is unfamiliar with, it is best to start out small. So logically, they chose the most horrendously convoluted plot line containing the most possible characters by deciding to base our show off of the popular FOX tv show LOST. Undeterred by lack of knowledge or smoke monsters, we set out writing the script in October/November of 2011. Sometimes slowly, sometimes at breakneck speeds, the idea formulated itself into an actual script, full of catchy lyrics, goofy characters, and lots of beluga whales. By January of 2012, we had the first act done. So I called up all my acting friends I had compiled over the course of my two years in show biz to see if they were interested. They all took the bait, and by late January, we had an award-winning team of directors, an amazing cast, and half a script. And so we embarked upon this crazy journey, not knowing how the heck anything was going to turn out, where we were going to preform, or when the music or even Act II would be out.

And we knew it was going to be totally awesome.