Tune in Time came and went, and Jimmy won!
The Full rundown
It’s SHOWTIME!
The format of the show teams up 3 composers with 3 lyricists and nobody knows who’s on what team until being introduced onto the stage. Jimmy was matched with Derek P. Hassler on Team C. Throughout the show, each participant gets to showcase a number from a project they are working on… 1) for the exposure and 2) to make sure that if whatever they write in 20 minutes is awful, they can at least prove they’re not terrible in real life! Guest celebrity judges (this show featured Lee Wilkof, Darryl Winslow and Leah Hocking) rated against the following criteria:
- Did the song make sense with the selected words? (more on this later)
- Was the song in the right genre based on what the team landed on? (more on this later, too)
- Was it ‘a thing‘? You know…like…was it a thing?
I Want to chef
Jimmy performed a number from Lasagna Mañana called ‘I Want To Chef’. The hostess of the restaurant, Lauren Michigan, sings this song. Lauren was raised in a family of high-profile lawyers who put her in beauty pageants as a child…the Miss Michigan pageant, if you’d believe it. She’s always aspired to ‘chef’, but it’s been something she’s had to keep a secret. Lauren is asked by Mr. Leave, one of Steve Miller’s personas, what her dreams are and she begins:
Performed by Charity Farrell (who has also been helping us out with her phenomenal vocals for Lauren’s parts on the demo recording of the show)
The moment of truth
Each team drew 2 slips of paper from a basket. One had a noun on it, the other a verb. These were all suggestions from the audience when they entered and none of the teams had seen them until that moment. Team C’s words?
TORTOISE SPROUT
Then, each team got to spin the infamous Jean Valjean-re Wheel. This Wheel of Fortune-esque wheel has a plethora of genres on it…everything from ‘Rock Opera’ to ‘Jazz’ to ‘Horror Musical’. Jimmy and Derek got
children’s musical
And off they went! 20 minute time limit from the moment they went backstage until they had to come out perform their new, children’s musical number from the fake-musical, The Sprouting Tortoise.
inside the writers’ room
With no time to lose, Jimmy and Derek frantically came up with a story (which Derek describes in the below video) and some form of tune. Lyrics were thrown together and melodies were created.
the performance
20 minutes went faster than you can imagine, and Jimmy and Derek were called back on stage. Remember… 20 minutes with a person you’ve just met with a new, fake musical in a genre you just found out. Enjoy:
THE Moment of truth: Part 2
The judges scores were set and true, and Team C was announced as the winner! Of 2 $10 Duane Reade gift cards, no less!
A fantastic evening with new friends, family, and more laughs than a person could ask for. Thanks to the York Theatre for hosting and the Tune in Time production team for putting on an awesome Halloween event!
Stay tuned for more updates regarding the demo that we’ve been recording as well as some more behind-the-scenes videos!
J & H
