I love musicals that move you, that throw a new perspective on life, that have you talking about the characters and the choices made well after the show. I’m often asked, “You write musicals, what are your favorite shows?”  I love Sondheim, specifically Into the Woods and Assassins, Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years and my all-time favorite, Les Miserables. What do they all have in common? They’re pretty much park-and-barks. Meaning, you stand there and spill your guts through a song while very little else is happening. It’s always what moves me the most.

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With my young girls now performing on stages across Arizona, I have taken in a lot of the repertoire that’s available for kids and teen actors in the last few years. It was during a production of, well, I spare the title. But the unnamed show had me thinking “That was cute, but what’s out there for these younger actors to really sink their teeth into? Where is their park-and-bark show? What shows are out there where characters develop, shift and change with a message that can move an audience?” It's when, after six years of not composing, I decided to start writing again.

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I wanted to make sure that the theme was something that really resonated with the young performers, something that felt real and authentic, that didn’t hit the normal high school clichés of so many other teen shows. I had one word I was trying to stay away from; cheesy. I also wanted to make sure that the theme was something that could hit a nerve in the oldest patron in the audience as well, knowing that parents, relatives and grandparents will fill many of the seats at youth theaters. It’s the Pixar model that I so admire. The Incredibles is a movie about midlife crisis, yet it is my 6 year-old daughter’s favorite Pixar film. It still amazes me. They are masters. I digress…

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I was circling the idea of how hard it is for teens to stay who they are already in a time when they are trying to figure out who that even is. So, I decided to explore this theme through a central character who had everything going for her; the perfect daughter, the perfect friend, the perfect student. The catch was, she had already figured out who she was, knew it and lived it. But what happens when someone even as put together as this gets knocked off their own path? And what are the consequences of not staying true to yourself?

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That's how Decided was born. 

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Now, I have to back up for a second.

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I started writing music in 5th grade and was working professionally as a composer before I had graduated high school. By the end of college, I had done music for TV, radio, short films, pitched an animated musical to Disney and it was all leading to a move to NY to pursue jingle writing and scoring (which my young wife and I did do until we had front row seats to 9/11. Another story for another day). But suddenly, here I was today, a not so young guy who started a marketing career 16 years ago that was always supposed to be the day job to my composing. But over the last six years, what I had been building a career towards since I was 18, composing, was gone, replaced with the demand of a successful marketing career. At my now "middle-age-iness," it was easy to say it was over, take the paycheck and call it a day. But I couldn't. Because that wasn't me. Something was leading me back, telling me to get back to me.

 

See where this is going?

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That's when I realized the show’s theme was far more universal.  I realized the idea of 'staying you' just doesn’t end. It’s a constant push and pull for all of us. During this moment of revelation, I was helping to lead the Phoenix office of a national marketing agency as their Group Account Director. I had the best team, the best boss, the best office, a great paycheck and a beer cart that stopped by my desk almost daily. But it consumed my life. I had time for it and a little sprinkle left for my kids and wife on the weekends and zero time for composing. Knowing this show could not happen if I stayed, I did something sane people just don’t do. I quit the greatest job I had ever had. In June 2017, my wife and I jumped off a cliff, together, back towards a path I had always been on with nothing more than a hope, an idea and a show’s title, Decided. 

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And that’s when I entered the creative fight of my life.

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Not because of the content. I have written and tackled much harder projects than this in my career. I once wrote a two act Native American, Cirque du Soleil type production called Tribe in just three days that opened at Celebrity Theatre in Arizona the week after I was hired to replace a composer (I was only 23 so I didn’t know any better). I also once had to compose a short film score in 24 hours. Now THOSE were hard. But this project… man, this one was unprecedented due to all of what life threw at me and my family from the moment I dove off that cliff to the very weekend that we opened. Terminal illness, my dad’s progression of dementia, broken cars, injuries, losses in our family, surgeries, work travel, parenting insanity, a studio that was so outdated it wouldn’t turn on, jury duty the week of opening… all of what life could throw, it threw. I probably need to write a book about it someday because I still don’t believe half of it but it happened and I have the higher hairline to prove it.

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I'm happy to say that in the end, the universe did not win and we opened the show on March 1, 2018 at Musical Theatre of Anthem in Anthem, Arizona. I have since been making tweaks and adding songs. The final version of the show will be available in May 2019 for theater's 2019/2020 season and I couldn't be more thrilled with how this show turned out and the audience reactions. 

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Recently, someone said, “We can’t wait to see this on Broadway!” While that was a sweet thought, I never set out to write Hamilton 2: And More Peggy with this project.  The marketer and business side of me saw an opportunity to fill a void in repertoire for youth and community theaters across the nation. To write a show that youth could truly call their own that adults wanted to see because they knew they would have a moving time with art. 

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Ultimately, the success of this show and all future performances is simple.  I want the audience, leaving the theater with two thoughts. 1) “That was good.” You don’t have to say great. Just good. And 2) “That moved me.” If you come out saying it was cute, I failed.

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I'll end with this.

 

My favorite story during the premiere run of the show was from our 40-something cousin. After he watched it for the first time, he came up to me afterwards and his eyes were red and full of tears and he just hugged me and said he couldn't talk right now. This is a guy who doesn't always wear emotions on his sleeve. He told me days later that he was talking to his boss and was trying to tell him about the show. He said he got so emotional again that he had to stop the conversation and excuse himself. He said to me it was because what happens to the lead character of Deja and that it is exactly what his daughter, who was performing on stage as Whatever Deja, was going through in real life.

 

In the end, he related heavily to the message of the show, and the cast's ability to deliver the message hard and with heart was there. In that moment, I knew I had achieved what I had set out to do and I had a show with legs that would see more stages in the future. 

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I’m excited and honored to share this work with all of you. And I would love to help you make Decided part of your next season. 

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-Brian M. Kunnari-