Quantum Physics: The Musical

Look on the side panels of this page to find information about the show - song clips on the left, reviews and pictures on the right. "Recent posts" include reviews, from newspapers and audience members, and some peeks behind the scenes written by your intrepid blogger, Vanessa (me, aka composer, co-writer & producer). Enjoy!

It's five days after our last show and I'm beginning to recover enough to post here. Before I could recover I had to pay some attention to my almost three-year-old daughter who has been incredibly patient and happy despite her parents (the creators of the show) being so busy. Ian and I (the parents/creators) are very happy with how the show was received - the buzz around the city and the Fringe in particular was great, and audiences would come out just shining and smiling. Several cases of husbands, who are usually dragged to theatre they don't enjoy, who were ecstatic that our show spoke to them. Lots of physicists came, and laughed at the physics jokes. Theatre folk came, regular folk came (we call them "civilians"). There were jokes for everyone. Even my jokes got laughs, which pleased me to no end, because I always think Ian's the funny one.

I did have a bit of post-show letdown, which is what happens after all the excitement is over, and you look around and realize how much housework you have to do.

But we're looking at theatre's around the country to talk to about this show.

Please, post a comment when you come by, we'd love to hear from you! Just click on "comment", below.

Arts Rational ranked us the #1 Fringe show on their "Best of Fringe" radio program on September 15!

We keep receiving written raves from our audience members.

"We're still riding high on the fun we had last night. [My daughter's] singing 'Quarks' and we're killing ourselves laughing about quantum physics being "a bunch of hoofala". I consider this show a service to humanity; tour it please." Lisa B., New Westminster.

"My wife and I were at the Friday show and loved it! Thought the cast was strong, music great and choreography just fine. (despite what one critic said). It's a show for all ages (we're 60ish, but 'Young at Heart')" - Stuart.

"The songs were definitely the highlight of the play, which is fortunate since it is a musical. They were largely up-beat with lyrics rich in nerdy references to physics, and Star Trek alike. . . All of the cast did a terrific job! . . . Leon Willey, and Amy Wallis stole the show. Combine all of this with Leon's uncanny physical comedy, Amy's unbelievable voice, and their mutual good looks and you've got quite the power house of entertainment. . . All told it was a fantastic play and a very enjoyable way to spend 75minutes. I laughed, I giggled, I may have even guffawed. " - JonBen (posted on his webblog at http://jonben.blogspot.com/2005/09/wave-collapsed-and-state-is-good.html)

I just found this on a website - reviews of our show from some audience members!

Their group's rating of our show: "100% positive"

"Hi-larious! The actress playing Lt. Gwen Shapley is quite the talented little pixie."

"Well, this was a very clever, funny performance. The music was lively, and the perfomers were good. I thoroughly enjoyed it."

" I enjoyed the musical tremedously (enough to wish I could have afforded a soundtrack). . . the event was both quite cool and worthwhile. (I thought the lyrics of many of the songs quite clever)"

"The musical was funny, sweet and educational in turn."

"Funnier than I thought it would be!"

"I learned some interesting "smart people" stuff! Fun event."

from http://firefly.meetup.com/12/events/?eventId=4760866&action=pastdetail

I am in heaven. All of my anxieties and fears are quelled. We had a full house - almost sold-out, in our big venue - and the audience was just plain happy the whole way through. What a relief - to know that the word is out that our show is good, that it's a fun show, that people are coming. We had two reviews, one excellent, one good, and people are talking about it. What an excellent feeling.

Our last show is Saturday the 17th at 6:15pm. I have a feeling it's going to be sold-out. Come early!

Quantum Physics: The Musical

Sept. 15, 16 and 17, Stage 2

You have to see it to believe that partners Vanessa LeBourdais and Ian Gschwind can make quantum physics sexy and funny. Step on board the rocket ship Lollipop with Capt. Joe Arthur and crew and take a trip to the subatomic level where everything is very, very small. Watch the captain go ga-ga over his very own hadron accelerator. Get the lowdown on atoms, hadrons and quarks. Brush up on your Bohr's Law of Complementarity, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the Theory of Parallel Universes. LeBourdais' music, ranging from tango and calypso to heavy metal and ballad-and everything in between-is upbeat and catchy. The choreography is lively, the lyrics are a hoot and the four performers have enough energy to put NASA to shame. You can't take your eyes off pint-sized live wire Amy Wallis and Barbara Tomasic simply sizzles when she sings "Gravity is Getting Me Down." If this show tours the country's high schools-and it should-you can expect a whole new generation of atomic scientists to emerge. -Jo Ledingham

I just realized that other than posting a reply to one of my posts, there isn't really a way to contact me directly from this website. I'm trying to fix that, and my email address has been in the 'about me' section for a while. However, here's where you can contact us:

ifoundaquarter@shaw.ca

Sorry for the lack of hyperlink on that. I'll see what I can do.

Vanessa

Quantum Physics: The Musical opened last night and the audience loved it! They laughed, they cheered, they laughed again. We had a real mix of people, from young physics students to older theatre goers to artists. I stood at the door hawking our show CDs - which ran through my hands into theirs almost as fast as I could sell them - as people went by saying "Great work!" "Good show!" and the like.

I think I spent most of the show in another dimension. I feel like I've just give birth. The cast is flying high after all the opening night nerves we all had.

Jo Ledingham, the reviewer from the Vancouver Courier, said she fully enjoyed the show and that it should travel all across the country. Look for her review next week.

QUANTUM PHYSICS: THE MUSICAL

Hold onto your seats, get ready to jump into the quantum world on the Space-Time Ship Lollipop with Captain Joe Arthur and his crew. Award-winning musical theatre creators Vanessa LeBourdais (Composer, Larger Than Life: The Musical, Gremlin) and Ian Gschwind (Gremlin) are teaming up again for a musical comedy about the quantum world set to blast off during this year's Vancouver Fringe Festival.

A top-notch cast of Vancouver musical theatre performers are crewing the Lollipop, including Amy Wallis (Evita, Alice: A Wonderland, and Beauty in the Arts Club's upcoming Beauty and the Beast), Barbara Tomasic (The Last Five Years, Sound of Music), Leon Willey (Storyeum,The Fantasticks), and Michael Walker (A Christmas Carol, Can-Can). Keri Minty joins the crew as quantum choreographer.

Quantum Flux Equity Co-Op presents:
QUANTUM PHYSICS: THE MUSICAL
Book and lyrics by Vanessa LeBourdais and Ian Gschwind
Music by Vanessa LeBourdais
Director/Stage Manager/Producer: Ian Gschwind
Musical Director/Producer: Vanessa LeBourdais
Choreography: Keri Minty
With Barbara Tomasic, Michael Walker, Amy Wallis & Leon Willey
Waterfront Theatre, Granville Island
Friday, September 9 at 7:45 pm
Saturday, September 10 at 10:45 pm
Sunday, September 11 at 2:00 pm
Thursday, September 15 at 10:15 pm
Friday, September 16 at 9:45 pm
Saturday, September 17 at 6:15 pm
Tickets $10/8 at the door 604-255-0366

It's 11 pm on Monday night. We open Friday. Tech is Wednesday. For those of you who don't know, normally in a theatre, technical rehearsals will take place over three to five days - long, twelve hour days. For the Fringe, all shows get three hours total. Besides which, you have only fifteen minutes to set up everything you need before each performance, and another fifteen to get it all out of the theatre again. All of which makes for most Fringe shows having low technical requirements. Well, our show is all about the performances, the music, the dancing, the comedy - so we're leaving the "quantum world" special effects to your imagination. But this is the point - again for those of you who've never been involved in a theatre production - where everyone gets tired, everyone's working incredibly hard, everyone's trying to get it together, to get the show where it needs to be for opening night. All over the city theatre folks are pulling long hours. I've spent the day listening to the recording of the CD that we made last night. In my heart I'm really excited, even if in my adrenals I'm exhausted from all the coffee I've been drinking to keep awake.