Hell, The Musical
In the year 2000, I had a crazy idea of adapting Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit" into a film script and making an ultra low budget movie, called "Hell, the Movie". I'd never made a movie, but ... I did it, with the help of some very giving and crazy friends. It was never going to win any awards, but it did teach me a lot about producing and directing projects. Years later I realized "Hell" should have been a musical comedy. So I wrote some music and adapted the script.
It won Best of San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2009.
'No Exit'
San Francisco Style
A haughty British valet escorts three disparate souls to a small room in Hell. Then the fun begins.
In this version, the setting is very San Francisco. Joseph isn't a pacifist, but a coward, and he comes from Los Angeles, which in this context is worse. Ynez is now Ilene, and is a cruel San Francisco Lesbian; Estelle is now Yvonne, a vapid party girl from San Francisco's Marina District. The Valet is still intolerably smarmy. They room remains horribly decorated, but now '70s fashion, and the three are stuck their with each other for eternity.
Development
So I had this script, and I had some cool songs. Lord knows I could recruit badass musicians. But I really pulled from a top shelf of performers: Peter Sroka (Joseph), Danielle Thys (Ilene), and Jenny Rand (Yvonne). All Bay Area Theater A-Listers.
My musical theater house band, Crooked Family, continued with Mark Ungar on guitar and James Flynn on drums, but added Tom Beyer (New Morty Show/Acme Swing Co.) on bass, and Peter Feltman on keys.
I played I minor role as the smarmy valet.
