In this 12-minute musical re-telling of Jack & Jill, two young women climb a tall sand dune to save their desert town from a terrible drought. Legend has spoken of a magical well whose waters will grant any wish, guarded by a sphinx who will only grant selfless requests. But when Jack & Jill reach the top of the dune, the statue of the sphinx is missing its head, and something is amiss...
Book & Lyrics by Jamie Maletz
Music by Sean Pallatroni
PRODUCTIONS/RECOGNITION:
Performance at Feinstein's/54 Below in August 2018
Cast/Set Requirements and Production Details
Dry Spell is a twelve-minute musical with no intermission.
CAST SIZE: 5
CHARACTERS:
JACK: Clever, ambitious, and stubborn. A leader. She is determined to be the hero who saves her town.
JILL: Sweet, devoted, a bit of a follower, and not the sharpest tool in the shed. But she would do anything for the people she cares about.
THE NARRATOR: Sassy, impatient, makes her own observations and makes her own rules.
USHABTIS: Eerie human funerary figurines. They provide physical (and vocal) support to the sphinx.
SETTING: A sand dune in a parched and arid desert. At the top of the dune, a large wishing well with a broken statue of a sphinx.
The Perusal Packet is free, and it contains a full synopsis, script excerpt and sheet music excerpt. Email jamie.maletz@gmail.com to request one.
Jamie Elizabeth Maletz is a composer/lyricist, bookwriter and producer. In New York, her works have been featured at Feinstein's/54 Below, NYU, Dixon Place, Under St Marks Theater, and Broadway Night at Prohibition. She recently received her MFA from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch. Maletz has written 12 full-length original musicals, and she runs a choir for new works of musical theater with writing partner Eric Fegan (New Work City). She is a member of ASCAP, Maestra, The Dramatists Guild of America, and Fractured Atlas.
Maletz received her BA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2011, where she designed her own major: Creative Writing and Composition for the Performing Arts. She spent her high school years at Boston Arts Academy, a performing arts high school from which she graduated as Valedictorian.
She is a monster enthusiast & mythology nerd, she loves board games, and she is an amateur photographer/videographer whose favorite models are her two cats, Artemis and Batman.
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