SexGhost Up Their Theatrics - Grid City Magazine

Local musicians collaborate with STU drama students in new production.

It’s an incredibly busy time for city theatre groups. Since the beginning of the year there have been nearly a dozen locally produced theatre events ranging from readings and workshops of new plays, to fully produced works of musical theatre, comedy and drama, each offering a unique and inspiring experience for Fredericton audiences. And the trend continues…

This weekend welcomes a unique collaboration between St. Thomas University Advanced Drama Production Students and Fredericton concept band, SexGhost, who have come together to explore the travails of life in the service industry through an exciting new production.

“Our guitar player Kevin Belyea approached us with the idea that we get involved with the production his Advanced Drama class at STU would be putting on in March,” said SexGhost bassist, Will Pacey. “At first we had no idea what the concept would be, but we were excited with the idea of being a stage band for a play as our whole concept as a band is kind of like a rock opera. And personally, I’ve wanted to do music for a play since my first year of university.”

SALES! is a collaborative project written entirely by the students involved, with dramaturgy by Next Folding Theatre Company’s artistic director Jake Martin, who happens to be a member of SexGhost. Using a selection of lyrics from the play, the band crafted a series of songs to compliment and highlight what the students have created.

While each member of the band has been involved in theatre in the past, this collaboration marks the group’s first time scoring a production.

“All four of us [in the band] have some theatrical background,” said Martin. “There is already a performance aspect to live music and taking elements of theatre and mixing them in can do a lot of really great things. Some of my favourite acts to see are musicians who understand how performance works. It doesn’t have to necessarily be full out insanity like throwing chickens at people, but even little things to engage the audience can give them a real show.”

In preparation for the performance, which will take place March 22 and 23 at Wilser’s Room, students and the musicians involved have been rehearsing together under the guidance and direction of instructor Lisa Anne Ross.

“The interesting thing about this project is that the band is part of the show,” said Martin. “We aren’t necessarily composing music for the stage, we’ve kind of tackled it in the same way we would tackle writing music for the band. Which has lead to some other strange challenges. Like realizing that we have to write things that fit female vocals better or we have to use or tweak lyrics that other people have written. It’s been a really neat puzzle and Lisa’s given us a lot of freedom to really interpret these lyrics in whatever genre we want to play around with. So we get to play a little out of our usual style, which is really fun.”