Of course we here at Two River have been thrilled by the recent resurgence in #bemorechillmusical mania, and the gigantic international fandom of "chillpills" that have popped up in every corner of the globe (literally) thanks to the cast album, YouTube, and all forms of social media.
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| The company of BE MORE CHILL. Photo by T. Charles Erickson. |
Our marketing department's multimedia manager, Alycia Yerves (a BMC nerd all the way), runs all of our social media accounts and has been tracking this phenomenon over the last few months online. We get DM's and comments every day with so many requests, most of them begging us to bring the show back and we want to let you know that it's just not as simple as that.
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| The company of BE MORE CHILL. Photo by T. Charles Erickson. |
We thought you might be interested in learning more about what goes into the process at a professional regional theater. Hopefully it clarifies some things. Below is a guest post from our Literary Manager, Anika Chapin, who is ALSO a huge #bemorechill nerd and works in our Artistic Department. We think she explains it best. Read below, and THANK YOU for loving our show!!!
"We’ve been hearing a lot that people would love to have the show come back, and we love hearing that – we are so proud of BE MORE CHILL, and we’re thrilled that you all are discovering it and loving as much as we do. And we wish you could all have seen the truly magical production that premiered here in 2015, but alas it’s a little more complicated than us simply bringing that production back here.
We’re a regional theater, which means that we plan a year of productions, with short runs, in advance – unlike Broadway, where a successful show can run forever and ever (looking at you, PHANTOM), our shows can only complete the runs they have planned, with perhaps a week’s extension if they’re very popular (which BE MORE CHILL had). Then we need to get the next play or musical up and running, in order to give our audience a variety of different theater experiences.
I’m the Literary Manager here, which means part of my job is helping to choose the plays and musicals for the theater’s season, along with our Artistic Director John Dias and Associate Artistic Director Stephanie Coen. We program both plays and musicals, and both classics and new work, which means we have a lot of options for the six slots we have in a season. The season selection process begins at least a year in advance, which means that the shows on our stage in June 2017 were chosen in February of 2016. Our 2017/2018 season is already selected, which means that any show we would like to add to our lineup won’t be seen by audiences until the fall of 2018 at the very earliest.
Not to mention that as much as we adore BE MORE CHILL and want it to be done everywhere (and believe me when I say that – I’m writing this sitting under a signed poster of the show and a lobby display board asking the audience who their SQUIP would be. I LOVE that show.) we are committed to giving new shows and new productions a chance to be seen on our stage. Also, it was via our commissioning program that Joe Tracz and Joe Iconis wrote BE MORE CHILL, and there are quite a few other projects we have cooking in that program that need their chance to shine. One of those projects just happens to be another musical by Joe Tracz and Joe Iconis, so keep an eye on our theater, and in the next few years you might be able to be the first in the audience for the next BE MORE CHILL!
I don't want to break any hearts - we want to see a million productions of BE MORE CHILL happen around the world, but another production probably won't happen at Two River Theater. Much as we love it, and we really do, we're committed to bringing new pieces and productions into the world instead of bringing back one's we've already premiered. But we will do everything in our power to spread the love, and help the writers create more shows for us to obsess over!"
--Anika Chapin, Two River Theater's Literary Manager
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