INTERVIEW: NYMF welcomes new ‘Time Machine’ musical
The beloved H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine continues to enchant readers more than 120 years after its initial publication. The story of a scientist who travels to different periods in time, almost like a captain on the open ocean, has seen many incarnations, including movies and TV shows. The newest adaptation is a musicalized version of the tale, and it’s premiering this week at the New York Musical Festival.
The Time Machine continues performances through Sunday, July 16. The show is the brainchild of David Mauk (book, music, lyrics) and Brenda Mandabach (book), a professional team that works in Las Vegas and has high hopes of gaining regional interest in the show.
“We weren’t really planning on writing a musical,” Mauk said in a recent phone interview. “It was like the idea landed in our lap before we had the skills to do it, so we took about 20-25 years to develop our skills as we wrote the musical, and refined it, and rewrote it like 100 times and to get it to exactly where we want it.”
Mauk was in a rock band when he was younger, and at the time, he received a copy of the London cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera. He listened to the work of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and was thoroughly impressed. “Kind of thought to myself, oh, I could do that, not knowing just how much work it would take to do it,” admitted Mauk, who makes a living playing in a dueling pianos show in Las Vegas. “I’m a big fan of the cliffhangers in musicals, so I happened to be watching the 1960 movie one day. … The protagonist has his time machine stolen. I thought that would make a great ending for a first act in a musical, and then the light bulb went off.”
Although the new show follows the original story, Mauk and Mandabach wanted to make the musical their own. “It is such a universal, such a timeless story, but I think in order to make it so that people today would want to see it, and it’s fresh, and it’s new and we bring a new take to it, we wanted to add new elements to it and really amp up the elements that would be exciting,” said Mandabach, who as a vocalist has appeared with the Cleveland Opera.
In the original book, there’s not much that deviates from the central plot, yet most musicals feature a couple of subplots to hold the audience’s interest. Mauk and Mandabach came up with their own subplot for the show, so one could say this is not merely an act of adaptation. There is true creation and originality behind this Time Machine.
For Mauk’s music, the style of the sound came fairly fast. “I didn’t want to do it in a rock style,” he said. “I wanted to do more of a traditional musical because there were so many different elements … and then the whole undertone of inventions and the different time changes from 1900 to the future. It seemed more like a classical approach was really what the piece called for.”
Mandabach tried to enliven the story with thrilling elements and also focus on the love relationship at the center of the narrative. “It’s funny,” she said. “We were talking about this the other day. It’s kind of like we made a science-fiction love story.”
She added: “When we were writing it in our house by ourselves in our little incubator, we would come up with things, and we’d be like, holy cow, how are we going to pull that off on stage? And then we met with [director] Justin [Baldridge], and he had so many creative ideas and so many things that we had never thought of. He took things that we’re like, well, good luck to the director with that, and he brought them to life. And it’s been an incredible collaboration with the three of us. It really has.”
Both Mauk and Mandabach admitted to being nervous about the New York Musical Festival performances because this will be the first time an audience experiences the piece. They previously staged a reading at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “We got some positive feedback from that,” said Mauk, who composed the music for the National Geographic King Tut, Cleopatra and Real Pirates museum tours. “But there’s some action-type scenes in our show, and it just doesn’t have the same effect when you read it on a page to actually seeing it. We were surprised about how physical the whole musical has ended up being.”
Mandabach added: “Yes, we will be excited, nervous. I lose my words thinking about the emotions that will run through my body when we see it the first time. It’s overwhelming.”
The hope for the writing duo is that producers will see the NYMF shows and be interested in further developing the musical. They are actively looking for professionals to help them bring their vision to life.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Time Machine continues performances through Sunday, July 16 at the New York Musical Festival. Click here for more information and tickets.
