megan l. sperger

Over spring break in March 2018, while I was supposed to be writing the final song for my independent study Keep On Dreaming, I had a wild idea.  While at work, all of a sudden a song popped into my head--sung in my classmate and friend Juna's voice.  Then I heard another song that my friend Jackie was wailing away on, and then another song in Jeffrey's voice...and the pattern continued from there.  I was at work all day and then up until 2 AM every night, trying to put the music to the page as fast as it was pouring out of my head.  I knew it was a crazy idea, to try to put on this workshop within a matter of weeks when we were all about to graduate and had so much going on--but it was like the universe was forcing me to! I have never had so much music come to me totally unasked for, and very quickly and to my surprise, a theme emerged--about the sea.  (For the longest time, Scott Susong [who I asked/enlisted to help direct and stage] thought that the references to boats and the sea were a metaphor.  It took until the first read through for him to loudly exclaim "Oh! It's not a metaphor, they're actually on a boat!") 

​

As it evolved, though the original idea was a song cycle, it became clear that I was developing a baby musical--which leaves me with so many plot threads and characters to explore! And having heard my friend's voices grow and evolve for four years, it was an incredible privilege to get to write specifically for their style and sound.  I was so excited they were all willing to collaborate, and for how little time we had to put everything together, I couldn't be more proud of the final product.  I can't wait to keep working on the show--in the weeks since we've done it, I've already had new ideas and music that I've been developing--and hopefully, many of my friends can join me for that continual process! Who knows, maybe one day we'll even get a fancy shiny recording of it.  A girl can dream!