As I said before, I got the inspiration for the basic “Grail” story after watching the PBS series on Joseph Campbell called “The Power Of The Myth”.  In it, he talks about “the hero with 1000 faces”.  He is the same hero who shows up in most of the cultures of the world, and has done so since the beginning of human story telling. He is Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars”, he is David Shepherd in the NBC drama “Kings”, he is even Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”.  In “Grail”, the character of Lance is our “hero with 1000 faces”.  It is he who must travel “the journey” that all heroes must go on, either to find themselves, save their ruler, or save their country.

The character of Lance is a man who lost his father when he was a young boy. He grew up to be a very cynical man, believing in nothing, caring for no one.  He is very much the modern “anti-hero” hero.  His life doesn’t really begin until the end of act one, when he decides to leave the comfort of Cityworld, and follow Justine into the Outerworld to find his father, and himself.

With the story of “Grail”, Cappy and I borrowed liberally from many different stories and myths, but we took the story “arcs” mostly from the “Fisher King” and “Parsifal” legends.  Google either one of those names, and see how many hits you get!

Some of the names, we took from Wagners opera “Parsifal”. (I’m not sure which myth he based his story on).  Klingsor and Kundree (spelled “Kundry” in Wagner’s version) are two of the names we borrowed from Wagner.  The others - Lance, Richard and Maya Castleman, Justine, and Dr.A we made up.  The “Red Knight” we took from the “Fisher King” legend, and he is one of my favorite characters.  He represents the “young male energy” that boys must learn to control and channel in order to become men. The Native American culture has always been really good about this, with their rituals and “sweat lodges”.  But the American culture in general has not (for quite a while at least) been good about finding a way to teach this to boys.  We sort of let boys find their own way, and when their hormones start raging in their teens, we mostly leave it up to them to deal with it. (I know this from first hand experience…my father never helped me “channel” my “Red Knight energy”).

In our story, the “bad guy” is  Senator Peter Klingsor. His is an amalgam of every politician in this country who has sold out to corporate interests.  He is the politician who is only in it for the money and power (a few recent examples come to mind…..) and could care less about the well being of the “little people” in the country.  Klingsor is a hypochondriac, and is morbidly afraid of death.  He will sacrifice anything, or anyone to fulfill his dream of living forever on the world wide web.  He is a metaphor for everything that has gone wrong in this country (and I’m not referring to that sad, overused phrase “family values”).  This has NOTHING to do with religion. Our story also has nothing to do with the Holy Grail of legend, or of King Arthur and the Round Table (although THAT myth has it’s beginnings rooted in the “Parsifal” myth).

Richard Castleman, Lances father, is the leader of the Resistance Forces against Klingsor and Cityworld.  He also happens to be Klingsor’s brother-in-law, which doesn’t make his life any easier.  His character plays the part of the “King” in the “Fisher King” legend.  He is wounded and locked in the castle until Lance takes his journey and learns compassion….learns, in the original story, how to “ask the right question”.

Maya Castleman is Lance’s mother, who is Klingsor’s sister, and she chooses safety for her self and her son Lance by going  back to the “safety” of Cityworld.  This is one decision that the American people seem to be making a lot lately…trading safety for freedom.  (I told you that this musical was very political!)

Kundree is our master “Spin Doctor”.  She is Lance’s fiancée, and she is also  Klingsor’s  secret lover.  As she says in the song, “Power Is All”.  But even “bad girls” get a chance at redemption, and Kundree takes it.

Justine is a made-up character who has noting to do with either myth (as far as I know).  She acts as Lance’s conscience, and is part of the Resistance Movement against the tyranny of Klinsor’s rule.  She is also the person who convinces Lance to finally get off his butt and take the journey he has been putting off his whole life.  If you were a “Battlestar Galactica” fan, think “Starbuck” (although we wrote “Grail” long before the current “Battlestar” was on the air.)

And finally there is the character of Dr. A.  He is also a totally made up character….a street person who seems to know a lot more answers than Lance does.  He is also our “comic relief”, and a person who happens to be in the right place at the right time to save Lance from certain death.

In closing this blog entry, I will urge you to download the podcasts.  In them you will hear parts of the songs, and have Dr. A explain a lot of the story and the world of “Grail”.

In the next blog entry, I’ll talk about recording the show, and how we did it “backwards”.

Well, my “original” idea was to retell the Fisher King/Parsival legend in the future, and make it a science fiction action adventure story…..and also make it a Rock Musical. The Rock Musical, although not loved by the broadway community, is my favorite musical form to write in. I wrote my first rock musical when I was in college called “Cycles” (along with co-writers Gary Burke & Fred Serfis) and I became hooked for life. It was the combination of hearing a smokin’ rock band, full orchestra, chorus and rock singers that always got my juices flowing. It was the best of both worlds to me…the classical and the modern, and I always felt that my musical “voice” belonged there.

When I first started looking for a lyricist/bookwriter for “Grail”, I asked my friend Lynn Ahrens who she would recommend, and she suggested the writer Cappy Capossela.

When I approached Cappy about the idea for the show, her first response was “I don’t know anything about science fiction!”. Luckily, I was able to convince her that the musical was not about science fiction, it was about PEOPLE. Sci-fi was just the “world” I decided to put the people in. To me, all good sci-fi is about the people, and their stories. It’s one of the reasons I loved the new “Battlestar Galactica” series so much. It was the people and their stories that got me and millions like me “hooked on the series”. It was one of the best written shows on television EVER, because you CARED about the people.

I have been a sci-fi fan forever, and I’ve always felt that the one demographic that Broadway ignored when it came to musicals was the sci-fi demographic…which is HUGE! If we could find a producer with enough guts and vision to realize that “if he built it, they would come” (to quote a famous movie), we would have a huge hit that would run for years. Of the top ten movies of all time, a majority are either sci-fi or fantasy. Most of the top films last year were either sci-fi or fantasy, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone on Broadway noticing (with the exception of the producers of “Wicked”, which just passed the 1 billion dollar mark…..)

When we were writing “Grail”, Cappy and I decided to do things backwards. We decided to record the songs “full up” while we were writing, which is totally different from how a normal musical is done. With musicals, the smart idea is to work on the show until you can’t get it any better (or run out of time….whichever comes first) and after the show opens, THEN you record the show. We also made the decision that we would put the whole book to music, and have the actors tell the listener things we would never say once the show was mounted. Rule #1 of musical theater is “show, don’t tell”, but since our plot was dense, we decided that we had to “tell” our audience more information on the CD than we would if the show was on stage. If we didn’t, our CD audience wouldn’t understand the show. Once our show was on stage, we would get rid of massive amounts of dialogue, and make a stage musical out of it.

In my next blog entry, I’ll tell you about the incredible cast Cappy and I were able to put together to perform “Grail”, and I’ll also tell you how the story got written, and in retrospect, how “ahead of our time” the story turned out to be.

Bob Christianson & Cappy Capossela

Once Cappy and I decided to start recording “Grail”, the first thing we had to do was to find a cast— a cast that had Broadway acting skills AND rock vocal skills. Today, that type of actor is much easier to find than when we started to record the piece.

But we were REALLY lucky. We not only found a great cast, but a cast that would commit to recording the whole show, even though it took almost two years.

Having been a studio arranger, keyboard player and singer for many years, I was fortunate enough to know many talented artists who could get the song “nailed” in one or two takes, as well as keep the through-line of the character happening. We found Sophia Ramos to play Justine; Vaneece Thomas to play Kundree; Bill Nolte to play Senator Peter Klingsor; Florence Warner to play Maya, and Joseph Kolinski to play Richard Castleman. We were also lucky enough to find Russell Velazquez to play the Red Knight and Kurt Yahjian to play the dual role of Jessie and Dr. A. We even found the “young Lance” we were looking for, the talented Christopher Marquett. The only role we hadn’t filled was our hero….Lance.

We kept auditioning a lot of really talented people for the role, but no one seemed to be the “right fit”. Now, originally, Cappy and I had written the adult role of Lance to be in his late 30’s, or early 40’s. Here’s the perfect story to point out how sometimes hearing and seeing a specific actor can change your whole concept of who a character
“should” be.

We were told about this amazing young actor, Jason Paige, and we decided to audition him. The only problem was that he was, in our minds, much too young to play Lance. Then we saw him, and heard him sing, and from that moment we KNEW he was Lance. All we had to do was to re-write the character about 15 years younger. And you know what? It turned out MUCH better that way. Without Jason Paige, this piece would never have happened. (Thank you, Jason!!!!)

And to top it all off, we got the amazing Margaret Dorn to not only arrange the vocals for the show, but to lead the chorus as well. You can say what you want about my music, or Cappy’s book or lyrics, but every single vocal in Grail is sung with skill, passion, and amazing commitment. For that, I am indebted to everyone who sang on “Grail”.

In my next blog entry, I’ll tell you more about the characters, and more about how the show was recorded, but I want to fast forward a bit to thank a few people who are helping spread the “Grail” story now.

“Grail” has always been a bit of a political piece, since part of the story is how the multi-national corporations have taken over America. (In our piece, we even call it “The United Corporations Of America”) So, last year, I decided to take one of the songs in the show called “City Of Light”, and commission an “animated” video for the song, making sure that we tied it in to what was happening politically in the country at the time.

I was lucky enough to find Jeff Clark. His vision of the song is simply awesome.
If you don’t know Jeff, he is the main designer/animator over at the Sci Fi Channel in New York.  He has created many incredible trailers, and promo spots for the Sci Fi Channel such as “Who Wants To Be A Superhero?”, “Splinter”, “Fire & Ice”, “Primeval” and many more. You should check out his website at: www.jcthetruth.com

The other stroke of luck was to find our web designer 2b•2p to totally re-do the “Grail” website. You should also check them out at www.2b2p.com . They totally brought it up to date, and made it easier to find out anything you want to know about the story or the CD. (Thank you!)

In my next blog entry, I’ll tell you how we recorded the songs, and how we put it all together.

Podcast #1 starts on the beach in the Outerworld, where the leader of the resistance forces, Richard Castleman, is arguing with his wife Maya about what is best for their young son Lance…..for the family to stay in the Outerworld and fight Senator Klingsor (Maya’s brother, and the ruthless leader of Cityworld), or to give in and go back to the safety of Cityworld.

There will be a new podcast every week until all eight have been posted.

Come….enter the “realm of the Grail”……..