London Is...

Two weeks ago today, I returned from my trip to London and, in one way or another, I've been thinking about it every day since then.  The concert itself - my London debut at the Hippodrome - was wonderful and I can't say enough good things about Simon Greiff and SimG Productions who put together the entire evening.  Not to mention the five fantastic West End actors who performed with such talent, grace, emotion and humor - or, rather, humour.  I looking forward to working with every one of them again as soon as possible!  Here's to Kelly-Anne Gower, Stuart Matthew Price, Lauren Samuels, Caroline Sheen and Simon Thomas - if you ever have the chance to see any of them perform in anything, do it!  Here's a quick sample - Stuart and Simon singing Different Kind of Man:

The reception for the show - featuring my songs as well as songs written by Georgia Stitt and Scott Evan Davis - was better than I could have hoped for.  After all, despite being performed all over the world, Altar Boyz has never played anywhere in the UK - I'm working on it, I swear! And while Out of Context is sold via Amazon, iTunes and is available from Dress Circle's web site, there is no reason the Brits would know me or any of my music.  And yet, they were nothing but welcoming, interested and supportive of what we were doing - it was a really wonderful feeling and experience!  To paraphrase something Simon Greiff is fond of saying, if the theatre community doesn't support new writing, then we're basically done - and yet, that's too often what happens.  More on that in a minute but, first, the amazing Kelly-Anne Gower who opened the show with All About Me:

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that my brief and first trip to London puts me solidly in the honeymoon phase - I'm sure there are non-supportive people there too!  But it was nice to experience a theatre community that is so much like New York, but also quite different.  And before anybody thinks I'm bashing New York or the New York theatre scene, far from it - there are some of the most supportive, creative, wonderful people here and I count myself lucky to know a whole bunch of them!  So, maybe what I've taken away from my trip is that, if I could combine the best parts of New York and London into one city, I would truly be in theatre geek heaven!  

I'm gonna get to work on that - I'll let you know how it goes!  

Next Time: Some exciting news about sheet music sales and what's going on this fall!