The Writers
About the Composer
Alan Ross Fleishman
After starting his career as an award winning classical pianist and music major at Duke University and a Duke Ellington Scholar in jazz studies at The Eastman School of Music, Alan moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film scoring and music composition. His first exposure to musical theater was as associate music director for Sondheim’s The Frogs at the Odyssey Theater. He then continued his musical education studying film scoring at UCLA with the great David Raksin, Walter Scharf, and Don Rey, and songwriting with Marty Panzer. While taking a short 30 year foray into the world of visual arts as a fine art dealer and then into the “green” sector where he currently runs his own solar consulting company, Alan also stayed connected to his musical roots and in 1999 was selected for the prestigious ASCAP Film Scoring Scholarship. He also scored several feature films, numerous short films for television and even a season of webisodes for an internet based reality show. In 2008 Alan collaborated with the legendary songwriter Arthur Hamilton (Cry Me A River) and multi Grammy winning producer Kenny O’Brien to write and produce a song for the Obama campaign. Alan joined the Academy for New Musical Theater in 2009 where he met his collaborator Eric Dodson. That Frickin' Ring (formerly A Ring in Brooklyn) started as a 15-minute musical entitled The Ring which was written as their final project for their core curriculum year at the Academy, and is now their first full-length musical together.
About The Bookwriter/Lyricist
Eric Dodson
As a UCLA film undergrad, Eric began writing, producing and directing plays and musicals for a teen theatre troupe for the Dept.of Recreation and Parks performed at Theatre Palisades. He put his writing on hold to take a job with CBS NY, then Buena Vista Distribution and currently KCBS-TV. 25 years later, he rediscovered his writing passion after enrolling in the Academy for New Musical Theater's core curriculum in 2009. In addition to current projects That Frickin' Ring and Mistletoe, Mistletoe with Alan, Eric is also currently writing book and lyrics for Duplexity, a full-length musical being developed through ANMT for West Hollywood's Celebration Theatre for which he and his collaborator, Jake Anthony, have been awarded a 2011 National Alliance of Musical Theatre grant.
The Story Behind the Story
7 Random notes
7 random notes. That’s how it all started for me. 7 other composers and I plunked our fingers down on a keyboard one after another. The instructor said, “OK, now you have to write a melody with those 7 notes in that order. Those are the rules for one of the songs in your 15 minute musical”. The lyricists were each given a lyric they had to use and book writers a line of dialogue. We were all told the theme for the show we were to write was “The Promise and The Price”. It should be about heroes and traitors. Now go away and come on back tomorrow with a show. So off we went to Denny’s after class that night to write a show, actually an outline for a 15-minute musical to be produced in a few weeks as our graduation project for the Academy for New Musical Theater (now New Musicals Inc.) core curriculum program. O...K... ?!?? Now what? So we had met our 5 actors, we knew who was going to play the parts. But what parts? What do we write? Well, these actors look like they could all be around the same age. Maybe they could be going back to their high school reunion. That might be fun. Someone would be betrayed, someone could be a hero, someone could have made a promise, and there would be a price to pay. What would tie them all together? Aha! A Promise Ring. And so was born A Ring In Brooklyn...at Denny’s in North Hollywood at 1 am with our fries getting cold, but we didn’t care. We were going to write our first musical!
Just like that, Eric and I launched our careers as musical theater collaborators, and armed with plenty of enthusiasm and of course my 7 random notes, I retreated to my piano and proceeded to write the first song I Promise. Now, I didn’t know at the time it was I Promise, because Eric hadn’t written the lyrics yet. All I was thinking at the time was, how the hell am I going to make these 7 random notes sound musical? OK, I can do this. How about a ballad in the style of Cole Porter or Gershwin or something from that era. No problem. The notes will tell me what they want to say. And sure enough, they did. I Promise was the first song we wrote for the show and Eric brilliantly and perfectly blended my melody with his words and story to create this wonderful climactic moment between Gordy and Gina. So now, knowing where we were going, the rest of the show fell into place (right Eric, it just fell into place?) and soon enough, we had 4 other songs and a 30-minute musical. Did I say 30 minutes? Oops. Enter our dramaturge and New Musicals Inc. Executive Director Elise Dewsberry with her editing knife and those damn rules, “15 minutes boys. Them’s the rules.” How are we going to cut even one note or word from our masterpiece? We wrote it. It has to stay. No? Well OK. It’s your class. But someday we thought, if enough people like it, maybe we can make it into a full length show.
Well, that was back in 2009. And people did like it. So much so, that now Elise was singing another tune. Make it bigger. Give us a real musical. Make em laugh. Make em cry. Make it wonderful. We’ll produce it if you do. So we did and they did. This journey into my musical past found me exploring Disco, Jazz, Tango, Pop, Rock, a little classical and more traditional musical theater styles as well. As the characters grow and discover who they really are, so does the music in it’s own way. I Promise and those 7 random notes are still exactly the same as they were that very first night in N. Hollywood, but the show has grown up around it and so have I. That ring has touched us all, in very magical ways.
Alan Ross Fleishman
Current Status
Our show is now titled That Frickin' Ring. There are new songs and a fresh approach to staging and our creative team is being assembled now. Interested parties are invited to contact us for additional information on our next production. You can also submit your email info on our contact sheet and we will update you on the details as they become available.