Murney, Arroyo, Pearce and Melendez star in reading of TOMORROW, THE ISLAND DIES, plus complete album released

October 27, 2024

New York, NY (November 5, 2024) – On November 7, 2024, Ryan Scott Oliver’s new musical folk horror, Tomorrow, the Island Dies will be presented in a reading presentation for an invited audience.

Drama Desk-nominee Zi Alikhan directs a cast featuring Alisa Melendez as Widow Clack, Philippe Arroyo as Benji, Liam Pearce as Jacob, Julia Murney as Ms. Kelly, Kim Onah as Nadine, Ethan Carlson as Ephraim, and Caitlin Doak as Kathryn, with Ryan Bronston, Bryanna Cuthill, Nicole DeLuca, Miranda Luze, Jackon Mizell, Jordan A. White rounding out the cast. Joshua Zecher-Ross music directs a five-piece band.

The musical tells the story of “Widow Clack, 18 and pregnant, who lives an exiled life running a lighthouse with her brother on a storm-crushed island set to be uninhabited in two days. When a young man is found dead on the beach, the remaining collection of young adults (left to make final preparations for the abandonment) combust into dangerous accusations leading to devastating division and ultimately, death. When a final, unexpected storm impacts the island, can Widow save the villagers from themselves?”

This follows RSO releasing the complete studio cast album on October 22 on all streaming services.

The track list is as follows:

  1. HAVERNESS ANTHEM
  2. GIRL OF LEGEND — Jisel Soleil Ayon and cast
  3. PREPARATIONS FOR THE ABANDONMENT — cast
  4. THE STORM TO COME — Mason Olshavsky
  5. THE GOOD ONES — Caitlin Doak
  6. BACHELOR’S SHANTY — Tristan Caldwell and cast
  7. ASYLUM — Jason Gotay
  8. MEDITATIONS — Kim Onah, Nicole DeLuca, Grace Ellis Solomon
  9. ON THIS ROCK! — Shelby Acosta, Miranda Luze, Nathan David Smith, Tristan Caldwell, Caitlin Doak, Kim Onah and cast
  10. MS. KELLY’S TAPES — Victoria Huston-Elem
  11. ONLY HUMAN — Jisel Soleil Ayon
  12. I KNOW YOU — Jack B. Murphy, Caitlin Doak and cast
  13. THE BEGINNING OF THE END — Tristan Caldwell, Shelby Acosta, Miranda Luze and cast
  14. THE PRICE OF LIVING — Charlie Fusari
  15. BENEATH THE WATER — Ethan Carlson
  16. THE TIDE — Kim Onah, Jack B. Murphy and cast
  17. ALONE, THE LIGHTHOUSE — Emma Carlile and Ethan Carlson

The reading is produced by American Music Theatre Project (Alexander Gemignani, artistic director), Very Intense Productions, and AT New Works, and is a commission from Samford University. Recently it won the SDSU New Musical Theatre Initiative two-year residency and is an official selection of the American Music Theatre Project’s 2024-2025.

Double “Dies”: TOMORROW, THE ISLAND DIES selected for SDSU and Northwestern AMTP residencies

July 15, 2024

RSO’s latest musical Tomorrow, the Island Dies has been named the winner for two theatre development residencies.

At San Diego State University, Tomorrow will receive a reading early this fall, followed by a workshop in spring 2025, and will culminate in a fully-realized production on the Mainstage in spring 2026. Read more about SDSU’s program here.

Northwestern’s American Musical Theatre Project (AMTP) will also develop Tomorrow this spring with a full NYC creative team. Check out AMTP’s program here as well as its previous productions.

An original concept recording is available on Spotify, Apple Music and wherever you stream music. A second recording completing the score will be available later this year.

TOMORROW, THE ISLAND DIES Concept Album out

November 19, 2023

On October 6, a concept album of RSO’s new musical Tomorrow, the Island Dies streams everywhere you listen to music.

LISTEN TO THE ALBUM ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC

The track list is as follows:

  1. PRELUDE
  2. GIRL OF LEGEND — Jisel Soleil Ayon and cast
  3. ASYLUM — Jason Gotay
  4. ON THIS ROCK — Shelby Acosta, Miranda Luze, Nathan David Smith, Tristan Caldwell, Caitlin Doak, Kimberly Onah and cast
  5. MS. KELLY’S TAPES — Victoria Huston-Elem
  6. ONLY HUMAN — Jisel Soleil Ayon
  7. I KNOW YOU — Jack B. Murphy, Caitlin Doak and cast
  8. THE BEGINNING OF THE END — Tristan Caldwell, Shelby Acosta, Miranda Luze and cast
  9. THE PRICE OF LIVING — Charlie Fusari

The concept album is produced by RSO, Joshua Zecher-Ross, Very Intense Productions, and AT New Works, and is a commission from Samford University.

The musical tells the story of “Widow Clack, 18 and pregnant, who lives an exiled life running a lighthouse with her brother on a storm-crushed island set to be uninhabited in two days. When a young man is found dead on the beach, the remaining collection of young adults (left to make final preparations for the abandonment) combust into dangerous accusations leading to devastating division and ultimately, death. When a final, unexpected storm impacts the island, can Widow save the villagers from themselves?”

Joshua Zecher-Ross music directs a cast featuring Jason Gotay, Victoria Huston-Elem (The Addams Family), Jisel Soleil Ayon (Waitress, Hamilton), Shelby Acosta (1776), Kim Onah (& Juliet), Charlie Fusari (Pretty Woman), Miranda Luze (Come from Away), Ethan Carlson (Waitress), Nathan David Smith (Come from Away), Tristan Caldwell, Caitlin Doak, Nicole Deluca, Jack Murphy, and Grace Ellis Solomon.

’35MM: IN FOCUS’ NOW STREAMING

March 18, 2021

John Johnson and Very Intensive Productions are pleased to announce the release of 35MM: A Musical Exhibition in Focus, an album of commentary, original cast interviews, and track-by-track song breakdowns. The album is available now (March 9) via Spotify, Apple Music, and all streaming platforms.

  • Did you know that the song “Crazytown” is structured around the 20 most common nightmares of college students?
  • Or that “The Ballad of Sara Berry” was written in 2 days before its world premiere?
  • Hear how the guitar riff of “Good Lady” was pulled straight out of “Giants in the Sky,”
  • The first line of “Party Goes with You” was recorded with the wrong lyric … and no one caught it,
  • And learn the tragically true story that inspired “Cut You a Piece.”
  • Plus so much more.

35MM: A Musical Exhibition is a cult-hit musical written by Ryan Scott Oliver that has been performed hundreds of times all over the world, including Japan, Australia, Scotland, England, Canada and across the US. With a cast recording (by Ghostlight Records) that has been experienced more than 20 million times, the show is song cycle based on photographs by world-renowned Broadway photographer Matthew Murphy (Murphymade.com).

The podcast-style album is narrated by Ryan Scott Oliver and features interviews with original cast members Alex Brightman, Ben Crawford, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Lindsay Mendez and Betsy Wolfe, with additional commentary by Murphy. Every song (including transitions) receives a track-by-track breakdown, analyzing music and lyrics and digging deep into their origins and inspirations.

A comprehensive deep dive perfect for actors, directors, writers, and creatives of any kind, 35MM: A Musical Exhibition in Focus also includes Oliver and Murphy reflecting on the decade-old songs and photographs respectively (“Matt and Ryan Grade 35MM”), a discussion with the original cast about the show’s legacy (“Parting Shots”), and a TedTalk-style tutorial guiding young creatives on how to develop and produce their own work by the writer himself (“RSO’s Thoughts on Making Stuff Happen”).

SHIRLEY JACKSON + RSO COLLAB, ‘FUTURE DEMONS,’ now streaming

October 8, 2020

RSO and Very Intensive Productions are pleased to announce the release of Future Demons, an album of songs based on tales by acclaimed 1950s psychological horror author Shirley Jackson, composed by Ryan Scott Oliver with words by Jackson and Oliver. The new recording is available now (October 9) via Spotify, Apple Music, and all streaming platforms.

FUTURE DEMONS Cover

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE LINER NOTES AND LYRICS

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC

Among the stories included in the spooky collection:

  • In “My Life with R. H. Macy,” a young woman gets a job working at a dystopian department store where everyone’s called Miss Cooper and sales associates go missing all the time.
  • In “What a Thought,” a man is enjoying an evening at home with his husband, when he gets the thought, “I should kill him.”
  • In “The Story We Used to Tell,” two women become trapped in a photograph and must fight for their lives to escape.

REVIEWS

“An object of enduring fascination, RSO reacts to her world with protean glee, producing a kind of endlessly evolving music that is breathtakingly exciting, making its listeners almost part of the process of its invention.  Yet, though he gallantly preserves much of her texts in each of his masterfully modernised, transformed and crafted lyrics, it all sounds – as ever – like totally him, and no-one else.” — BritishTheatre.com

“‘What a Thought’ by Ryan Scott Oliver and Shirley Jackson plays with the merry murderousness of couples stuck together for way too long during quarantine. The increasingly hilarious daydreams of violent retribution tap right into the increasingly dark humor we’re all using to deal with these days.” — Broadway World Album Review

“Ryan Scott Oliver and Shirley Jackson’s ‘What A Thought,’ performed by Oliver and by Jay Armstrong Johnson, is a riotously funny account of the effects of isolation, when a loving couple are driven to consider murdering each other.” — Reviews Hub

PRESS AND MORE

PLAYBILL: Lindsay Mendez introduces RSO’s write-up of Future Demons

BROADWAY.COM: Check out a sneak peak on Broadway.com!

Jackson’s work was the basis of the hit Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House and the classic Robert Wise-directed film The Haunting. She is also the author of the iconic  short story “The Lottery,”  and was the subject of the recent film Shirley, executive produced by Martin Scorsese and starring Elisabeth Moss.

Future Demons will feature an impressive line-up of theater stars including (in alphabetical order) Kerstin Anderson, Britney Coleman, Jessie Hooker-Bailey, Victoria Huston-Elem, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Gerianne Perez, Catherine Ricafort, and Heathcliff Saunders — with Allie Boyle, Nicole DeLuca, Caitlin Doak, Samantha Ferrara, Alina Fontanilla, Adam Magnacca, Liam Joshua Munn, Kim Onah, Chloe Savit, Andreas Schmidt, Byron Turk, and Nicole Zelka.

The Band features Joshua Zecher-Ross on synths, keyboards and  auxiliary instrruments, Felix Herbst on violins, Allison Seidner and David Tangney on cello, Andrew Zinsmeister on guitars, banjo and mandolin, Joseph Wallace on bass, and Joshua Samuels and Gary Seligson on drums/percussion. The album is produced by Zecher-Ross and Oliver (JZRSO Studios), and orchestrations by RSO.

The track list is as follows:

1: “My Life with R. H. Macy” — Kerstin Anderson and ensemble

2: “James Harris” — Heath Saunders and women

3: “The Story We Used to Telll” — Britney Coleman & Victoria Huston-Elem

4: “What a Thought” — Jay Armstrong Johnson

5: “Family Treasures” — Caitlin Doak, Alina Fontanilla, Jessie Hooker-Bailey, Kim Onah, Gerianne Perez, Catherine Ricafort & Nicole Zelka

Shirley Jackson, the author of “The Road Through the Wall”, is seen in this April 16, 1951 photo. (AP Photo)

SHIRLEY JACKSON was born in 1916 in San Franciscco and later moved to Burlingame. At university in Syracuse, she met her husband, the future literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, with whom she had four children. In 1948 she published her iconic short story “The Lottery” in The New Yorker, sparking furious letters from readers to the magazine. Her novels —— most of which involve elements of horror and the occult —— include The Road Through the Wall, Hangsaman, The Bird’s Nest, The Sundial, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House. Her short story collections include The Lottery and Other Stories, Come Along with Me, Just an Ordinary Day and Let Me Tell You. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep in 1965 at the age of 48.