The [Kickstarter campaign](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1046922831/yank-original-cast-album) for the Yank! cast album, which I [blogged about](http://johnaugust.com/2013/the-yank-cast-album-or-lets-do-this-for-craig) earlier this week, cleared its $35,000 target this morning. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
I promised that if Yank! made it, I’d sing a song from the show at Scriptnotes Live in NYC on September 23rd. So it’s off to the sheet music for me.
Tickets for the live episode of Scriptnotes in New York just went on sale. If you’re worried about missing out, [get one and come back.](https://www.telecharge.com/Off-Broadway/Scriptnotes-Live-with-John-August/Overview)
The show will be Monday, September 23rd at 8pm at New World Stages, on 50th between 8th and 9th. Tickets are $10 each. You can get them at the box office and save a $6 Telecharge fee. ((We had to use Telecharge because of theater contracts. Grumble.))
The LA show sold out in four minutes, but I doubt that’ll happen in New York.
Our very special guest will be Big Fish’s lyricist/composer Andrew Lippa, who will join us for a discussion of writing for the stage, writing with a partner, and John’s worst habits.
We’ll have special surprises and a cash bar around the corner, so join us if you can.
USA Today’s Elysa Gardner interviewed me and Andrew Lippa about *Big Fish* and the influx of movie-based [dramas on Broadway this season](http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/theater/2013/08/26/fall-broadway-preview-focusing-on-musical-adaptations-of-dramatic-films/2676519/):
> “The musicals that have been very successful with audiences over time are generally the ones that traffic in big emotions,” notes Lippa, whose credits as a composer and lyricist range from Broadway’s *The Addams Family* to the darker, more reflective *The Wild Party*. “You don’t see a comedy a second time, because the jokes aren’t as funny, mostly. But people have gone back to see *Les (Miserables)* five, six times.”
Lord knows I hope he’s right. In Chicago, I met women who saw Big Fish five times in five weeks.
It’s usually comedies that get adapted for the stage: *The Producers, Legally Blonde, Priscilla Queen of the Desert.* This year, in addition to Big Fish, we have upcoming adaptions of *The Bridges of Madison County, Rocky, and A Time to Kill.*
Longtime podcast listeners will know that Craig Mazin hates Kickstarter and loves Broadway cast albums, so I’m fascinated to see how he’ll react to this.
Yank!, a 2010 off-Broadway hit that came so, so close to opening on the Great White Way, is running a [Kickstarter campaign][kickstarter] to record a proper cast album. I never got to see the show, but one of its lead actors (Bobby Steggert) stars as Will in Big Fish, so I’ve gotten to know the show through him.
Written by brothers Joe and David Zellnik, Yank! is the WW2-set story of Stu, a young recruit who falls in love with a fellow soldier. The show combines the spirit and exuberance of 1940s pop with modern themes of identity and prejudice.
The Craig-who-hates-Kickstarter would probably say that if people want a Yank! cast album they’ll buy it, no campaign needed. That’s called Capitalism and it’s How Things Work. An investor sees an opportunity, fronts the money and gets rewarded for his risk. And that’s really how it used to work: music labels covered the costs of cast recordings — sometimes even investing in the stage production — because cast albums made money.
But that money’s largely gone. Recording a cast album is expensive and profits are slim, so finding someone willing to front the money has gotten much harder.
The Craig-who-loves-musicals no doubts wants this album to exist, not only so he can own it but so that he can hear it on XM on Broadway while driving around in his Tesla. Craig’s not a snob about whether a show is “really” Broadway — I’ve heard him sing tracks from Falsettoland.
Yank! is trying to raise their [last $7,000 by Thursday][kickstarter]. I kicked in, and if enough readers and listeners do the same I bet they can do it.
In fact, I’ll make this promise: if they hit their goal I’ll gladly sing a song from Yank! at our live podcast on September 23rd. And I might rope Craig in to help, because the third thing I know about Mr. Mazin is that he loves a showtune.
So let’s do it. Let’s do this for Craig, whether he likes it or not.
[kickstarter]:http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1046922831/yank-original-cast-album “Yank! on Kickstarter”