The Lady Takes The Mic

Death and Cupid run into each other at a piano bar one night — Death plans to harvest someone for the afterlife, and Cupid intends to make someone fall in love at a specific moment. While they wait, they have a long conversation full of gossip about various people at the bar. As immortals with magical powers, they can jump into scenes from people's pasts, or reveal what people are feeling underneath what they are saying. They zero in on associations the singers have with songs from a failed biographical musical, "The Lady Takes the Mic," about a hostage incident at a radio station.

Songs that are “performed” within the bar setting reference various popular and musical theater styles of the past several decades, while songs that exist in the minds of characters employ a more contemporary and edgy style. Many of the songs have dialogue or whole scenes interspersed with musical underscoring, but the demos are presented as “songbook” arrangements, without additional dialogue.

Greasepaint Shine City
Sadira is a young musical theater fan who lives in a small town but travels to NYC for a few weekends each year to see as many Broadway shows as she can. While visiting the piano bar, she sings a song from a musical called "The Lady Takes the Mic," which flopped on Broadway 25 years ago. "Greasepaint Shine City" is about the protagonist of that musical moving to New York to try to make it as an actress. It's the song that made Sadira fall in love with musicals when she saw an out-of- town workshop version as a child.

My Heart Is Easy
Matek is having his first night out after a medical condition that left him hospitalized. He is trying to cope with being unable to drink and with his newly reduced lung capacity, but he is in grateful for a new lease on life and a chance to sing for his friends. He decides to sing an old Motown song that he remembers from his youth, one that has taken on a new and personal significance for him as he contemplates his near-death experience and his relationships with the people around him.

My New Old Friend/Weight Of The World
Dennis works as an immigration judge. He deals with the stress of humanitarian crises and his reservations about government policy by singing happy songs and drinking too much. He begins to sing a schmaltzy, Burt Bacharach-esque ballad, but Cupid can hear the real song weighing on Dennis's heart, which is very different from happy song the rest of the bar hears. Cupid tries to subconsciously reassure Dennis that he has made a difference. As Dennis sings, the rest of the cast mutely acts out scenes from the lives of refugees Dennis had a role in assisting or denying help.

Learning I’m In Love Again
Inspired by Sadira's performance of "Greasepaint Shine City," two piano bar regulars, Grantly and Ellen, sing a duet from "The Lady Takes the Mic." It's a song of reunion between an estranged couple after the forced separation of a prison sentence. Neither Grantly nor Ellen is married—Ellen is happily single, whereas Grantly yearns to fall in love. Both enjoy playacting love, intimacy, and flirtation.

Kiss My Gun

After bringing the house down with “Learning I’m In Love Again,” Ellen is asked to sing another song from “The Lady Takes The Mic:” a climactic number in which the protagonist of that musical comes to work at a radio station with a loaded gun and holds her sleazy, sexist boss hostage on-air.  In this song she gloats about finally standing up for herself, but also grapples with the inevitable consequences of her actions.

Death Came To My Dreams
Tess, a prickly vocal coach who constantly feuds with other piano bar regulars, originated the lead role in "The Lady Takes the Mic," which no one realizes because she had used a stage name. Hearing other people sing songs from a show she staked her career on (and subsequently lost it over) brings up complicated feelings in her. In this song, Tess reminisces with Death. She sings about about the harassment she experienced behind the scenes, the way she was blamed for the musical's failure, and why she no longer performs on stage. The chip on her shoulder is bigger than anyone in the bar has realized. In Tess's flashback, Sadira portrays the younger Tess.

In My Place

Immediately after "Death of a Dream," the bar patrons tease and admire Sadira for her plan to open a piano bar back in her hometown. She has every detail worked out. It's a dream that's big enough to be difficult, but small enough it's not world-wide impressive. Sadira sings about what it's like to love musical theater passionately enough to center her life around it, without wanting to be a professional performer.