A Sneak Peek Inside a Fringe Adventure

The FringeNYC has produced Broadway hits like Urinetown, and quite a bit of off-Broadway as well.  We asked Daya Curley, one of the creative forces behind the Fringe’s Becoming Britney, the Britney Spears musical that has captured the attention and imagination of Fringe audiences and critics to jot down a few impressions of her journey to the New York Fringe. Congratulations to them on the all their success, and best for the future too. Here is Daya’s quick look at a long journey for Becoming Britney:

It was 10:32pm on May 3rd. Molly Bell (my collaborator on Becoming Britney) answered
on the fourth ring. “Hi…what’s up?” Between my melodramatic teary gasps I blurted,
“We got accepted to Fringe!!” Her surprise was expected “Oh…my…God! Are you for
real right now?” What they hell were we going to do? We weren’t even finished with the
show yet. We had had only one workshop reading. Could we really do this? Could we
NOT? We had to say yes and give it a shot, right? (Deep breath.) Right!! What
followed was three very short months of laughs and pride…casting and fundraising…and
contracts…and reservations…and about six gazillion other things we never expected.
Suddenly we were writers…and producers…and directors…and a whole roster of other
titles that we spoke about, but never expected so soon. We hadn’t even used our glue
sticks and put an intention up on our Secret boards! Oprah would be proud, girl. We
started this process about 16 months ago. Molly and I had done many professional
workshop readings together…and we sat in the room and observed as amazingly
talented people worked. We got to the point where we started asking, “Could we do
this?” We hoped our collaboration would be fruitful…but we just didn’t know. One
afternoon Molly called me and said, “You know that Britney sketch we started? I think I
know how to expand that into a full show.” What? Really? Britney Spears? But I trust
her…so we started in. It seems crazy that a simple conversation lit the fuse that led us
here…but here we are. The experience of FringeNYC is all gravy for us…all frosting.
We have taken our show to the next level, with many new elements in place. We get to
observe the reactions of New York audiences and press…and we return to California
with an improved show and enlightened minds. FringeNYC…as insane as we’ve
needed to be to make it work…has been a gift. We’ve found a community here that is
genuinely supportive. Has it been stressful, frustrating, confusing and exhausting? You
bet. But it’s also been validating, illuminating, powerful and ego boosting. Mostly, I’m
just exhausted. When I go home I think I’ll sleep for a month.

Sleep well, Daya and Molly. You’ve earned it! Performances of Becoming Britney are on Tuesday (8/19) at 5:15 and Saturday (8/23) at 2:30 at 45 Bleeker Street. Visit www.becomingbritney.com for additional information.

Tags: Becoming Britney, Britney Spears, Daya Curley, FringeNYC, Urinetown

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Broadway Blog, Broadway Information, Broadway Interviews, Broadway Magazine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.