Guest AUTHOR POST: Mitchell Maxwell

   There is is an old adage in show business "There are no new stories just different ways of telling the old ones." It sounds rather bleak as if the artists that create what we watch and read and listen to can't come up with something original. Yet it is true. We have remakes and sequels and revivals and "covers" on old music standards. But it is not all bad. I mean when you come to think of it WEST SIDE STORY was really a redo of an old chestnut written by a guy named Shakespeare.

And so why this thought for the week? I am in rehearsal for my new musical which has an original score, an original story and a fresh as paint design. And yet it works (or I hope it does) because it speaks to today. It has resonance for today's world and should and I will do everything I am able to have it speak to today's audience so they take it home with them and can't shake it.

Thematically it is about good versus evil and although there have been tales of the same subject before it all goes back to how its told and we intend to tell it with elan, suspense, passion, wit, surprise and a score that will have you singing into tomorrow, next week and beyond.

I worked with Jerry Lewis and he could read the phone book and make it funny. The material matters but so does the performance.

I was watching an old movie with my daughter this weekend:

He says: "I have loved you my whole life"

She says: "You met me two days ago"

He says "That's when my life began"

Wow!

I'll keep writing and producing and hitting the ball out of the park but I doubt I'll ever beat that one.

For more information about Mitchell Maxwell and his book Little Did I Know, please check out his website http://www.mitchellmaxwell.com/Biography