I’m currently on tour as Bandleader, Keyboards and Accordion with the Cirque du Soleil ice skating show “Crystal”. Thrilled to be back to performing and touring after the Covid shut down. The Crystal touring schedule link is posted below if you happen to be in any of the cities that we are performing in.

Cirque du Soleil “CRYSTAL” Touring Schedule:
https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/crystal

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Words and Music by Conrad Askland (ASCAP). “The Star Will Shine Again” © 1997 Conrad Askland.

To date, this is the shortest song that I’ve ever written. It’s actually Part Three of four songs that go together as “The Star”. I wrote this in the 90’s to create a Christmas album for a youth theater group that they could use as a fundraiser.

As simple as this song is, it’s one of my favorites. The simplicity of the lyrics and the innocence of the child’s voice give me hope and optimism for our collective future.

“For I know as sure as anything: The Star will shine again.”

Merry Christmas!

LYRICS

If I could see a thousand miles
And live as many years
It would never be too long of a wait
Until the Star appears

True, I may be hard to see
Small from the skies
So I send to you a shining light
A beacon from my eyes

I wait now in the bitter cold
Staring out to heaven
For I know as sure as anything
The Star will shine again

“Love Never Fails (Reprise)” from the musical Pray the Gay Away®. Music by Conrad Askland (ASCAP).

In the 2019 performance run, “Love Never Fails (Reprise)” was the closing song in my musical Pray the Gay Away®. The story is a very heart-felt project aimed at bringing an understanding of the painful world of gay conversion therapy to mainstream audience. The PTGA team and myself worked in partnership with PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) to bring support and awareness to our local audiences. We also provided a lot of information about The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ Youth Suicide Prevention) to our audiences with information in the programs and materials that The Trevor Project supplied to us.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of concern locally when we announced publicly back in 2018 that we were developing a theater musical called Pray the Gay Away®. All of that is too much to address in this blog post, so suffice it to say that the show did everything it was supposed to do in healing hearts and bringing an understanding to divide and experiences between the conservative “confessional” church stance on homosexuality and the resulting painful experiences suffered as a result of that by the LGBTQ+ community. Surprisingly even to me, the show had record audiences of its venue; more than any musical theater show (or ANY show for that matter) in the last twenty years.

For those that want to more about Pray the Gay Away® the musical, please visit the PTGA website at: https://ptgashow.com/

During the writing process of Pray the Gay Away®, it was usually easy to find ways where the opposing groups were different from each other. The delicate part, the part I spent so many hours researching and thinking through, were the place where the groups were similar with each other.

I worked with many workshop groups while developing PTGA and one of the most common remarks I would hear from theater-goers is: “I want to learn about the (conservative, “confessional”) church’s stance on the bible in regards to homosexuality, but not so much that it gets boring.” So with that feedback, I knew I had to be very selective in how much scripture I could include in the show. After all, PTGA is not a documentary or a bible study, it is still a theater work.

One of the main scriptures that stayed in the script was the famous “Love Is Patient” lines of: 1 Corinthians 13. I used verse 4-7 and the beginning of verse seven. Here is New International Versions translation:

1 Corinthians 13
4
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8
Love never fails.

The video in this post is of the “Reprise” of Love Never Fails. The fuller text was sung earlier in the show, and this Reprise is slightly shorter with redacted lyrics. The lyrics of the Love Never Fails (Reprise) is:

LYRICS – LOVE NEVER FAILS (REPRISE)

Love is patient
Love is kind
It does envy
It does not boast
Love rejoices with the truth
It always protects and trusts
Always hopes
Always perseveres
Love Never Fails

In putting the lyrics together for the full version of the song, it was important to me not to omit any words once the scripture text had begun. But for the flow of singing, I did allow myself to combine different translations in order to use the translations that flowed the best musically to my ear. (Again, the “Reprise” lyrics above are the shorter, redacted version of the original song which appears earlier in the show).

This is one of the most “straight-ahead” songs musically in PTGA. To me, Love Never Fails sounds like a piece that could be sung by a church or high school choir. That was very purposeful. After all the characters and audience had experienced in Pray the Gay Away® the musical, it was important to have a sense of normalcy and closure. I see it even as a sense of “decompression” or “release” that was necessary at this point in the show.

If any parts of this post seem vague, it might be because I don’t want to give away any spoilers about PTGA. And I do hope that when COVID is over and theaters open again that you will have the opportunity to see Pray the Gay Away® the musical live on stage. Many, many people have told me it is my best work and I will not argue with them on that.

“Agnus Dei” music by Conrad Askland. Originally released by Road Records on the CD “New Faces Vol. 4”. Vocalists Carlotta Diggs (alto) and Karen Etheridge (soprano). Agnus Dei © 2001 Conrad Askland (ASCAP).

Some of my favorite Agnus Dei music is by Samuel Barber, Mozart and Schubert. As a child boy soprano I sang many masses by the great composers and always loved the sound of original Latin music texts. The Agnus Dei is traditionally one of the movements from the Catholic mass.

My version of the Agnus Dei was always intended as more of a character piece for film. I wrote it in 3/4 time with traditional orchestral snare rolls and cymbal crashes that I think gives it a slightly Viennese and aristocratic feel. Because of the aristocratic feel, I always pictured this song playing as an underscore to a screen element that is both dark and carefree. For example, a scene where The Joker is unleashing his mayhem with glee, when Hannibal Lecter is enjoying his glass of Chianti while his plans are unfolding, or yes, an underscore to Trump taking his mask off on the White House steps pretending he is Superman.

Those kinds of subtexts are beyond my skillsets or budget to represent in a video. For this video I went with straight-ahead Gothic architecture and moments of expected reverence. This video still gives “a little” taste of the original subtext I envisioned when writing this piece.

A couple mistakes I caught when listening to this piece; mistakes that I’m very surprised I did not catch or fix even back then. The word “miserere” is mispronounced by one of the vocalists with an extra “re” which becomes “misererere”. A second mistake is that the lyrics of the Agnus Dei usually repeat several times ending with “miserere nobis” (have mercy on us), but the final refrain is traditionally ended with “dona nobis pacem” (grant us peace). I did include the “dona nobis pacem” in the middle section but I ended the piece with “miserere nobis” (have mercy on us). A small detail unless you are very familiar with the Latin Mass structure and then this oversight is jarring. It was to me anyway.

I have never written a full Latin Mass but I haven’t, at various times, written different pieces from the Mass. This Agnus Dei was written around 2001. In 2007 I wrote a “Christmas Gloria” that was performed at the Christmas Eve service for Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church with full chorus and chamber ensemble.

The gargoyle from the Notre Dame cathedral was a fun addition to the video. When I was a young boy soprano I had the honor of singing acapella early music inside Notre Dame Cathedral.

Here’s a little info about the Notre Dame gargoyles and chimeras:

The gargoyles’ main purpose is very practical. As rain water runs down the roofs of Notre-Dame de Paris, it needs to drain off without dripping down the walls and potentially damaging them. By evacuating rain water, the gargoyles protect the cathedral and protect the stone from damage caused by excessive runoff. That is in fact the main difference between gargoyles and chimeras. The former serve to drain rainwater, the latter are purely decorative.

My favorite music is the Baroque music of J.S. Bach and also early music like Palestrina and Orlando de Lassus. When I write neo-classical church music or music in Latin I always think back to my young days as a boy soprano singing in cathedrals in Seattle and Europe.

LYRICS
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,

miserere nobis.
have mercy on us.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,

dona nobis pacem.
grant us peace.

Words and Music by Conrad Askland (ASCAP). “I Like Chocolate” © 2007 Conrad Askland.

I ascribe by the motto of “What was funny in third grade will always be funny.” This is MAYBE the silliest song I’ve ever written, and I’ve written a LOT of very silly songs.

I almost never write a song “just to write a song.” There’s always a reason for a song when I write it. I’m very utilitarian, or practical, in that way. “I Like Chocolate” was written for a very specific reason: to make third-graders laugh. And here’s the story all about that…

Back in 2007, a youth theater group had licensed the play version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” but they really wanted to do the musical. So they asked me to write music to turn the straight play into a musical. I did that and almost fully scored the entire show by writing music to the words of Roald Dahl’s original text and also adding underscore music for all the different rooms in the Chocolate Factory. I was a little naive at the time and didn’t realize that all of this is technically illegal. So unfortunately I have all these wonderful songs that I wrote and recorded to Roald Dahl’s text, but I can’t release any of it. (I’m very sad about that because I think the music themes I wrote for each of those wretched characters in the story is really fun and entertaining).

BUT, I also wrote a pre-show song for that performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and that song is, you guessed it, “I Love Chocolate”. There were school shows with primarily grade school children (grades 3-5 in the United States). This song was meant to get the kids settled into the theater before the show and give them a good giggle together before the show began.

To my absolute delight, by the time the second verse came in, all the kids were singing along and then yelled the obvious missing rhyme of “underwear” and the theater house broke out into an uproar of laughter. That was a great memory for me and one of the reasons I actually love this song so much. Yes, it’s silly. But I will never forget the beauty of hearing 400 school children all laughing together in the theater.

They say that the human voice is the most beautiful sound of all. The sound of children laughing may be the most beautiful and uplifting of all…

LYRICS

I like chocolate
Yes I do
Even though it kind of
Looks like poo
I like chocolate
everywhere
But I do not like it in my
Ooh-whee-ee-hee
hoo-hoo-hoo
Ooh-whee-ee-hee
hoo-hoo-hoo

“What’s This Life” © 1997 Conrad Askland and Melanie Ficenc.

This song was released around 1997 on the Road Records “New Faces Volume Two” CD. Uptempo bluegrass song with drums doing a train shuffle beat on brushes.

LYRICS

There’s a time
When your soul wakes up
And looks to a single truth
It’s not God or love
Or any other word
It’s beyond words but clear as day

There are some
That stop listening to their hearts
The message comes too late
And still others
Watch the clock tick by
And blame their lives on fate

But I’ll be damned
If I’m gonna sit around
And give it up without a fight

What is missing from this life I’m living in?
I’ve followed a path
Where my heart has never been
What happened to my dreams?
I’d like to see them again
What’s this life I’m living in?

As I drift
To a dreamless sleep
I hear the voice within
It cries “Wake up”
“Take that leap of faith”
“…and dare to dream again”

But I’ll be damned
If I’m gonna sit around
And give my dreams without a fight

What is missing from this live I’m living in?
I’ve followed a path where my heart has never been
What happened to my dreams
I’d like to see them again
What’s this life I’m living in?

I’m excited to announce that my musical “Romeo and Juliet” is now available to watch on YouTube (Full Show – English)

I composed the music for this stage production entirely to the original text of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. The RJ musical premiered on stage January-February 2015 at the Historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA. This video is from the live stage performance on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2015.

This event is also a fundraiser for the Historic Lincoln Theatre which has been severely affected by the COVID shutdown. The Romeo Juliet premiere is a free public event, but donations are encouraged and 100% of all donations will benefit the Historic Lincoln Theatre. Donation link will be in the video description before and during the premiere.

At the time of the production, and I believe it is still true today, there has never been a successful musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that is set to his original English text. In fact, during rehearsals I even had a standing prize of $100 for anyone who could find a previous successful production. That prize was increased to $300. Several cast members challenged “I’ll find it for $300”, but no one did. Now, there have been many people who have set the Bard’s original script to music, but none successful. When I say “successful”, my metric is a show that had extended runs, to a public paying audience that made a profit and received positive critical reviews. There are many college professors who have composed classical renditions of the text and even 12-tone compositional approaches. But honestly I don’t know of many, or any, outside of academia that want to experience that kind of production.

So, if no production has successfully set music to Shakespeare’s original text, the big question is: Is this Romeo and Juliet musical the first to successfully incorporate Shakespeare’s English text? That’s up for audiences to decide. If the answer is no, then I stand in a long line of composers who have tried and failed. If the answer is yes, then this is the first musical theater production in history to do so.

The Historic Lincoln Theatre, where the RJ musical first hit the stage, is in a little farming town near the Canadian border in Mount Vernon, WA. I love this part of the RJ story as well. A little agricultural community with a big heart had the courage and audacity to join me in such an audacious effort as taking on The Bard.

The production was produced by a local youth community theater group who worked very hard to bring this Romeo and Juliet musical to the stage. Because the music had to serve Shakespeare’s lyrics, words and script text – the music is not easy to perform. The melodies often shift on a dime – all in the service of Shakespeare’s text.

My personal rules for creating the musical was:

1. Only use William Shakespeare’s original text
2. Original text can be redacted (cut) – but not added
3. Sentences cannot be edited to change meaning, in other words, lines cannot be so heavily edited that they create entirely new sentences that were not written by Shakespeare
4. A word or phrase can be repeated, but only after it has already appeared in Shakespeare’s original order.
5. Words and sentences must appear in the original order that Shakespeare wrote them.

Adhering to these rules, I was able to do so much with changing sub-text of dialogue delivery by using opposing emotional feelings from the underscore music.

I did use the Narrator in a way where he is part of conjuring the events of the story. The Narrator begins the world and ends the world of the story. His actions are stage actions often without dialogue, so this is one way I added a new layer to the Romeo Juliet story without making dialogue changes.

Adhering to Shakespeare’s original chronology and text, I did take advantage of my rule that I could repeat text after it had appeared in Shakespeare’s original order. I do this in Act Two as a flashback scene that, to me, makes one of Juliet’s crucial plot decisions more clear to the audience. The Flashback allows us to see the debate that is happening in her mind before she decides to part ways with the Nurse character.

So, no more spoilers. If you happen upon this post after April 17, 2021 and the video does not appear above – that’s probably a good thing because it might mean that a larger production is in the works and upcoming new performances.

Thank you so much to META Performing Arts, the Historic Lincoln Theatre and the wonderful people of Mount Vernon, WA for supporting this bold production!

ROMEO JULIET 2015 PRODUCTION TEAM
Presented by META Performing Arts
Director: Joe Bowen
Music, Book and Orchestrations by Conrad Askland
Lyrics and Text by William Shakespeare
Assistant Directors: Tammy Lanphere Oommen and Seth Fine
Choreographer: Glynna Goff
Stage Manager: Brooke Hofstetter
Romoe Juliet Music Director: Conrad Askland
Dramaturg: Carl Turner
Marketing: Sara Fisher
Program Design: Barbara Fuller
Photographer: Lindsey Bowen
Costume Designer: Y’hon Frakes
Costume Assistants: Jeffrey Le Fleur and Tarryn Morrison
Hair: Lisa Lane
Live Sound Design: Kyle Blevins
Live Sound Mixing: Milton Grambo
Lighting Design and Operation: Don Willcuts
Technical Crew: Vianey Banuelos, Anika Pugmire, Divine Banks, Hunter Listiak and Nathan Esskew
Custom Metal Work and Swords: Peter Whited
School Show Coordinator: Tania Kahlor
Props Mistress: Sandra Deasy
Set Design: Bruce Weech
Set Construction: Aviathar Pemberton

CAST of Romeo and Juliet Characters

PRINCIPALS
Juliet – Katherine Fisher
Romeo – Dylan Kane
Friar Laurence – Joe Johnson
Nurse – Lindsey Bowen
Lord Capulet – Peter Whited
Lady Capulet – Karen Pollack
Benvolio – Alex Hollingsworth
Paris – Waylon Johnson
Tybalt – Nate Wheeler
Mercutio – Mike M. Marlin Jr.
Prince Escalus – Bruce Weech

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Lord Montague – Brandon Taitano
Lady Montague – Tammy Lanphere
Sampson/Chief Watchman – Mark Cronin
Peter – Megan Harris
Balthasar – Alexa Lane
Apothecary – Mark Sampson
Page to Paris – Moses Marlin
Rosaline and Juliet understudy – Adia Bowen
Abram – Derek Laird
Gregory – Megan Harris

Fighters – Ladies in Waiting – Montague Youth
Rachel Kirkpatrick
Claire Andrews
Lacy Craig
Grace Mitchell
Emma Gates
Claire Forsberg
Emma Berliner

MUSICIANS
Conductor/Keyboard 1 – Conrad Askland
Keyboard 2 – Lauren Lippens
Flute – Drew Shipman
Oboe – Rebecca Wright
Clarinet – Barry Ulman
French Horn – Jim Gaudette
Trombone – Rob Queisser
Guitar – Jeff Bradley
Bass – Peter Bridgman
Drums – C.J. Tveit

Romeo and Juliet the musical © 2015 Conrad Askland

“Quench the Fire” (Masquerade Dance #2) from Romeo and Juliet the musical. Book and Music by Conrad Askland. Lyrics by William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet the musical © 2015 Conrad Askland.

I’ve just released additional video clips from my 2015 production of “Romeo and Juliet the musical”. The show opened January 30, 2015 at the Historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA.

MORE VIDEO CLIPS – SCROLL DOWN!

This was an intense and detailed project to infuse music into the original Romeo and Juliet play. I decided early on in development to use the original words from the original William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet theatrical play. This meant that as a composer/lyricist I couldn’t just come up with lyrics to bridge different emotions or to round out rhyming couplets. The challenge was sticking to William Shakespeare’s original text and discovering ways to support or bend the subtext of each situation.

When I started writing the music, many in the production team assumed I was going to do a clever modern day Romeo and Juliet. That didn’t appeal to me, partly because when I began to score the work in late 2013, there was a Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet that had just been pummeled by reviewers for watering down the text, and it’s inherent sophistication of thought, of William Shakespeare’s original text.

I have also personally been extremely underwhelmed by Shakespeare productions that think it is clever, or even interesting, to place Shakespeare’s plays into modern eras. For example, putting Romeo and Juliet into World War II or putting Hamlet into the Civil War. The reason I don’t care for that approach is that inevitably (at least with non-professional productions) the focus becomes about this “new era” instead of the more important elements of the actual text delivery and acting. For me, putting music to Romeo and Juliet is drastic enough and if I’m going to stick with Shakespeare’s original text when it should be put squarely into its original time period (when the Shakespeare Romeo Juliet play first hit the stage): 1492.

So I knew early on that I had two rules to follow:

• The musical would only use Shakespeare’s original text
• The time period for the piece would be the same as when Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet first went on the stage: circa 1492.

Ah, so much to say about this production. But here you go, more video clips from “Conrad Askland’s Romeo and Juliet the musical” to the original words of William Shakespeare:

Video Excerpts from Romeo and Juliet the musical by Conrad Askland

“I Fear Too Early” – Romeo solo song

Juliet’s Death

Paris at the Tomb

Nurse’s Song from Romeo and Juliet the musical

Music Overture to Romeo and Juliet the musical – (Full length version)

“Come Vial” Juliet solo from Romeo and Juliet the musical

“Go Counselor” Juliet solo from Romeo and Juliet the musical

Bedroom Scene video and music from the Romeo Juliet musical

“I Fear Too Early” Romeo solo from Romeo Juliet musical production

“Come Gentle Night” Juliet solo song from the modern Romeo Juliet musical

“Measure of Thy Joy” Romeo solo song and “They Are But Beggars” Juliet solo song

Romeo and Juliet Meet – The famous Masquerade scene from Romeo and Juliet

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This shrine the gentle fine is this
My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss

The Queen Mab speech from Romeo and Juliet

Father I Beseech You – Juliet pleads with her father

“We Are Undone” – Nurse tells Juliet that Romeo has killed Tybalt

I hope these clips reach some educators looking to incorporate Shakespeare with musical theater. I would love to see this production done by a university.

Music and Lyrics by Conrad Askland (ASCAP). “You Don’t Even Know” © 1997 Conrad Askland.

This song was released by Road Records on the CD “New Faces Volume Two”. The goal of this song was to create something that sounded like a retro jazz ballad. I remember this is one of the few recordings where I used an actual upright piano to play the keys parts. Normally I don’t use upright pianos because they’re always a tad out of tune, but that effect worked very well on this song to give it an authentic retro feel.

To my memory, the sax parts are synth saxes with a real saxophone player on top who also plays the sax solo.

There was one lyric that always bothered me but I never knew why. Now, looking back on the lyrics I can see clearly what the issue is. In the bridge I have three lines in a row that rhyme at the end with “day”, “say” and “stay”. There is no punch with the last rhyme because “say” has already closed the rhyme loop. In addition, “say” and “stay” are so close that I think the ear hears them more as the same word rather than an impactful rhyme.

LYRICS

Just tell me
You want me
To stay a couple more hours
And then when that time is through
We’ll take that couple more hours
And turn them into a few

But I will lie here silently
With my secret blues
‘Cuz you don’t even know
That I’m in love with you

I want you to tell me you love me too
But I may never ever see that day
So til I hear what I want you to say
Just tell me you want me to stay

And so I lie here silently
With my secret blues
‘Cuz you don’t even know
That I’m in love with you

(Instrumental Break)

I want you to tell me
You love me too
But I may never ever see that day
So til I hear what I want you to say
Just tell me you want me to stay

And so I lie here silently
With my secret blues
‘Cuz you don’t even know
That I’m in love with you

You don’t even know
That I’m in love with you