Starting February 10th, we’ll be presenting the first ever APAC Workshop of a new musical, Matt Schatz’s Love Trapezoid.

Called a “versatile playwright-lyricist-composer” by The New York Times, we caught up with the playwright and songwriter to find out about the role this process will play in the development of his musical.

WE’RE EXCITED TO PRESENT LOVE TRAPEZOID AS THE VERY FIRST APAC WORKSHOP. HOW IMPORTANT IS THE APAC WORKSHOP TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR MUSICAL?

It’s incredibly important. I started writing Love Trapezoid in 2008 and since then it’s had a handful of readings and presentations. It’s been developed by the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Page 73, and a couple of other places. Songs and excerpted scenes have been performed at cabaret shows and concerts, and we even did a 10:00 PM staged reading outside, underneath a tent at the Southampton Writers Conference last summer. Still, the show still has never really “been done.” The word “workshop” is thrown around a lot and it can mean many different things. But in this case, APAC is giving me the opportunity to do Love Trapezoid completely staged with the performers off book, and with a music director and a full band. Set pieces, props and lighting will be minimal, but this will the first chance to see how well the show actually works, and if I’m insane for thinking that I could write a full-length musical all by myself. I’m excited. And terrified.

TELL US ABOUT LOVE TRAPEZOID: HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE PIECE? WHAT WAS IT THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WRITE IT?

Well, I’ve been writing plays and songs for a really long time, but I didn’t really write my first musical until 2007 when I was in Youngblood at EST, and after that, I realized that writing musicals was probably what I was meant to do. I joined the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop and for the first time I started writing lyrics for other composers. Collaborating on musical theater songs is unique, I think, even when compared to composers and lyricists working together in other genres and disciplines. You’re working together to make something so specific and fragile. You’re sharing a voice with someone who doesn’t even really speak the same language as you do. And you also, somehow, have to tell a story. It’s nerve-wracking and embarrassing and horrifying, but the results can be quite wonderful. It’s like a marriage. Or maybe it’s more like being a parent.

At some point, I became fascinated with the idea with what would happen if a lyricist lost her composer collaborator—lost half of her voice. It was around that time I heard a story on the WNYC show Radiolab about a software program that was able to analyze the music of composers and turn out “original” pieces in that composer’s voice.

I got the idea for a modern musical comedy about a lyricist who, after the sudden death of her composer/collaborator uses a similar program to work with her dearly departed partner posthumously. I pitched the idea to the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science and Technology project and they gave me a commission to write it. And then I actually had to write it.

Love Trapezoid is what came out. I think of it as my baby and this workshop is its first day of school.

EVERY PIECE PRESENTS ITS OWN SET OF CHALLENGES, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN THIS PROCESS?

Love Trapezoid may be about collaboration, but I wrote the whole thing (script, music and lyrics) all by myself. It’s going to be a challenge knowing when to wear what hat, or when to take off my hats or let Tom Wojtunik (our director) and/or Eli Zoller (our music director) wear some of the hats. Or maybe we’ll all be wearing hats.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT WORKING WITH APAC?

I love APAC. I’ve now seen three shows and a reading there and I’ve been impressed with each in different ways.

After seeing APAC’s terrific production of Joshua Conkel’s MilkMilkLemonade, I mailed Tom the Love Trapezoid script and demo recordings the old fashioned way. I also included a letter saying something like, “I live in Queens and my musical takes place partly in Queens; this show should be done in Queens.” Tom responded more quickly than any Artistic Director ever has and apologized for taking so long to get back to me. I schlepped all the way from my apartment in Sunnyside to meet Tom in Astoria for a beer. I don’t like beer, but I did like Tom and the rest is history. Or more accurately, the rest is the near future.

WHAT’S UP NEXT FOR YOU? TELL US ABOUT IT.

I have a piece in this year’s Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in the spring called Oh, Gastronomy!, which they commissioned for their amazing member apprentice company and was co-written with the great Carson Kreitzer, Mike Golamco, Steve Moulds and Tanya Saracho; it’s about food and I wrote a lot of fun songs. I have another musical that I’m writing with West Hyler that is scheduled for a workshop this summer at the Great River Shakespeare Festival. I’m also working on a eighties hip-hop basketball musical called Dunkfest ’88, which is taking a long time to write, but I consider it my life’s work.

ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?

I’m really proud of Love Trapezoid and I’m thrilled that APAC is presenting it. I think everyone in New York should come see it. And if it’s not the funniest, most original, most heartbreaking, three-actor, three-chord musical about love and technology ever written, I will eat all of my hats.

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RESERVE YOUR SEATS

Love Trapezoid, a new musical comedy by Matt Schatz – An APAC Workshop
February 10 – 18, Fri-Sat at 8pm, Suggested Donation $10

Email to reserve: [email protected] (please put RSVP Love Trapezoid in the subject line)

Where: Good Shepherd United Methodist Church
30-44 Crescent St (@30th Rd)
Astoria, NY 11102

Directions: Take the N/Q to 30th Avenue. Walk down 30th Ave toward the Trade Fair supermarket, past Mt. Sinai Hospital of Queens. Turn left on Crescent Street, then right on 30th Rd. The entrance is the second set of red doors on your left. Street parking only.