Artist description Malita Patel - Born - 1/9/49, Died - 10/14/78, Resurrected - 3/21/79. The modern Lazarus In the early spring of 1979 a verifiable miracle takes place in a tiny cemetery located in Salisbury, Maryland. Malita Patel, a once normal American woman, then six months dead, rises from her grave. Why? No one knows. Least of all the corpse herself. Life's Dance is the compelling tale of the next seven days in Malita's "life." She encounters the press, her family and odd sycophants. This corpse's 15 minutes of fame may be the death of her. The inciting incident is drawn form the Euripides' Alcestis, the Christian Lazarus and Jairus's Daughteer stories. The plot is closer to Eugene O'Neil's Lazarus Laughed, Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead, and the German play Miracle in Vurdun

Music Style Eclectic Arty Pop-Rock

Artist History This ain't no freakin' Broadway Musical. Life's Dance is a new Rock Opera - a play with music - a concept album with delusions of grandeur. The American stage has never been very kind to Rock & Roll music. The problem is: Whether it's a parade of conservatory-trained vocalists attempting to fill in for Ian Gillan's growling vocal performance as the lead in "Jesus Christ Superstar," or replacing Keith Moon's original incessant, driving, tom-tom fills from The Who's "Tommy" with a new rhythm track that would induce ennui in a drum machine, when Broadway wants to do Rock, the production become less Rock and Roll and more Broadway. Life's Dance is different. Life's Dance is constructed out of 23 Rock tunes. (Rock - that was born in the blues, learned to move in Rock-a-billy, became an exchange student to England, returned psychedelic, went through art, glam, punk, new wave, and grunge phases and is still going strong.) Each tune is a complete well-made rock song -- But, adding them to all together makes one well-made play.

Group Members The playwright/composer team of Bryan Zeigler and lance skapura knows both Rock & Roll and theatre. Their pedigrees are all about rock theatre. A New York rocker, Zeigler has been fronting bands and writing tunes for the last 15 years. His most recent project, Electric Sheepdog, the rock band that thinks it's a comedy troupe, is constantly gigging throughout the Eastern US. Since its inception, skapura has been the Artistic Director of Thoreau, NM - A Production Company (TNM). A small-by-choice theatre company located in Pittsburgh, PA. TNM has produced over 30 stage shows in the last decade. Recently, TNM has branched out into a new division, mimeradio.org which presents audio plays over the Internet.

Instruments Computer, Guitars, Voices...?

Location New York, NY - USA

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