Matt Werner's Blog

Burning Man: The Musical is now a feature film!

Burning Man: The Musical had its world premiere on Broadway On Demand and Streaming Musicals on August 27, 2021. Watch the film now.

After working with the composer Gene Back for 6 years, we’re excited to announce that our satirical musical comedy has been turned into a feature film. It was shot on a soundstage with 10 actors during April, 2021. Watch the behind-the-scenes on the making of the film on YouTube.

To learn more about the background on this project, read my interview with Oakland Magazine.

First West Coast Reading of Burning Man: The Musical

The composer Gene Back and I are excited to present the first staged reading of Burning Man: The Musical on the West Coast at Z Below in San Francisco on December 7-8, 2019. A limited number of tickets are available for free at http://www.zspace.org/burningman.This new musical comedy about hippies vs. techies follows Molly (AKA Sparkle Pony) on her journey at Burning Man. Learn more about the musical at http://burningmanthemusical.com/.Book and Lyrics by Matt Werner
Music by Gene Back
Direction by Domenique Lozano
Music Direction by Krista Wigle
Executive Producer Matt Werner
Associate Producer Danny Marin
Stage Management by Anastasia Wirth
Sound Design by Michael CreasonCAST
Molly – Maya M Sherer
Bill the Billionaire- Göran Norquist
Joe – Bryan Munar
Hazel the Hippie – Susan Gundunas
Chad/Ensemble – Benjamin Pither
Ensemble – Claire Pearson
Ensemble – KC Dela Cruz
Ensemble – Jack Isaacson-BrewsterTHE BAND
Keyboard – Naomi Sanchez
Guitar/Bass – Julian Shipp
Drums – Mark AbbottADDITIONAL TEAM
Orchestrations – Rodney Bush
Production Assistant – Jacob Battersby
Production Assistant – Dillon FeldmanIn Partnership with Z SPACE at Z BELOW in San Francisco, CaliforniaSpecial Thanks to:
Executive Artistic Director Lisa Steindler
Associate Artistic Director Rose Oser
the Production and Front of House Teams at Z Space*Burning Man: The Musical is a parody of the Burning Man event and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Burning Man Project*

Burning Man: The Musical pitch to Broadway producers on Friday, Feb 8th!

The composer Gene Back and I are going to present Burning Man: The Musical this Friday, February 8th at 1pm EST to Broadway producers as part of "Sing Tank," which is like Shark Tank, but for aspiring Broadway shows. We'll be the last of 7 shows giving 5-minute pitches to producers. Tune in on Facebook Live, and a recording will be posted at http://nycoc.org/accelerator-winter-2019/.

Throwback: My Off-Broadway debut!

Agnus, a crime drama I co-wrote and co-produced, ran at Theatre Row at 42nd St & 9th Ave in Manhattan in January and February, 2018. My co-writer and co-producer, Ise Lyfe, played the title role of Agnus, an odd-looking man who is accused of a heinous crime. The show is set in a futuristic prison barge 30 years in the future, and it explores issues around the criminal justice system and technology. My pitch is that it's a crime drama like "A Few Good Men," but set in the future.
Politically, the show was well-timed for the New York audience, in that Donald Trump had been in office less than a year, and he had already tried to establish a 'Muslim ban' and was detaining migrant children at the southern border for indefinite periods of time. Our show addressed these political hot-button issues such as racial profiling and unlawful detention, and we hosted a series of talkbacks and a residency in the space for nonprofits to use our theater for events on dark nights.
For more info about the show, see https://www.agnustheplay.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/agnustheplay/.

The show was an Actors' Equity Showcase directed by Nelson Eusebio starred Ise Lyfe, Khalil Kain, Brian Burke, Kiran Rhe, Rachel King, H. Foley, Erik Parillo, Natasha Edwards, Cedrice Weber, and Lester Perez. Here are production stills, and photos from an audience talkback.  

Throwback: My NY debut in BARS Workshop Vol 2

Back on September 5, 2016, I teamed up with a dozen highly-skilled actors, singers, dancers, and rappers to put on the #BARS Medley Vol. 2 at The Public Theater in New York City. This was my acting debut and New York City writing debut.




The assignment was to take classic works of literature and rewrite them in modern verse, for a modern audience. The course was taught by Rafael Casal over several weeks the summer of 2016, and Daveed Diggs joined us for the final performance.

I contributed writing to "Rapper in the Rye" introduced by Javier Muñoz from Hamilton, and also the finale piece titled "The Mediocre Gatsby." I acted in Lord of the Flies, Autobiography of Malcom X, and Great Gatsby.

Here are some behind-the-scenes photos:








Participants who made BARS Vol 2 possible include: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Pharoahe Monch, Javier Muñoz, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Anthony Ramos, Sarah Kay, Carven Lissaint, Carlos López Estrada, Jalene Goodwin, Janelle McDermoth, Karl Igleslias, Ricardo Perez Gonzalez, Shannon Matesky, Sofia Snow, Benjamin Earl Turner, Broke MC, Jay Adana, Zeniba Britt, Nora Fox, Ato Blankson-Wood, Ryan Nicole, Zainab Jah, Lindsay Meck, Jon Victor Corpuz, Jared Dixon, Danny Bevins, Nate Lombardi, Ashley August, Matt Werner, and Virginia Cavaliere.

A Burning Mixtape coming out August 22!

Album artwork by Krusty Wheatfield
A collection of 12 songs from the first half of Burning Man: The Musical will be released online on August 22, 2016. These songs feature the vocal talents of Natalie Weiss, Christina Bianco, Travis Kent, Forest VanDyke, Molly Gallagher, and Colin Buckingham. We'll also be releasing a 30-second trailer for this song cycle on August 15!

#BARS Workshop - Week 3

Black Thought and Rafael Casal in conversation at The Public Theater on August 1, 2016

The third week of the #BARS Workshop began with an hour-long interview between Black Thought from The Roots and instructor Rafael Casal. The full interview is on The Public Theater's Facebook page.

During the interview, Black Thought shared a number of entertaining stories, including the band's names before they were called The Roots, how The Roots had to compete against Boyz II Men in their high school talent show, and how he first met Questlove. But the story that really stood out seemed like one Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories from Chappelle's Show. Black Thought talked about the time Mos Def left the recording studio to get a fish sandwich:

Hear @blackthought explain what happened when he & @MosDefOfficial tried to record DOUBLE TROUBLE #fishsandwich pic.twitter.com/HU7DGZUzV8— #BARS @ The Public (@barsworkshopNYC) August 3, 2016

What impressed me during the interview was Black Thought's work ethic. He had "made it" by any degree of evaluating success, and yet he was working as hard as he ever has--in fact he seems to be hustling harder now that he's "made it" than before because he needs to make every gig count. The interview at the #BARS Workshop was his 4th gig that day, which started at dawn on a movie set in Brooklyn, then he went to 30 Rock for a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and then recorded a track with hip hop legends, while he was leaving 30 Rock to come to us. It was only 7pm when the interview started, and I wonder if he had a 5th gig that evening. This work ethic of Black Thought, Questlove, and others in The Roots is astounding!
#BARS Workshop participants with Black Thought from The Roots

Some of the funniest moments of the conversation came towards the end when Rafael Casal moved away from the interview format and played games with Black Thought, including a "Deep Thoughts" style game where they pontificated on deep questions in a humorous manner. Rafael Casal, a man of many talents, can add late night TV host to his resume. After the interview, we each got to meet with Black Thought, and he was really attentive to what each of us said (despite having been working since dawn).

Sarah Kay leading a poetry-writing workshop in the 2nd half of the #BARS Workshop

After Black Thought left, Sarah Kay led an inspiring poetry workshop instructing us how to write our homework assignment. She performed a poem which we gave her a standing ovation for. She told us to focus on images and metaphors that the audience would immediately connect to. The key, she said, is to talk about abstract ideas like love and hate, using sensory details that the audience emotionally responds to. Using sensory details makes the material more accessible and allows you to trigger emotions and feelings in the audience to draw them into your story. We wrapped the class with a short writing exercise.

Looking forward to Week 4!

#BARS Workshop - Week 2

To start off the second #BARS Workshop, instructor Rafael Casal interviewed the playwright and poet Lemon Anderson. The interview was livestreamed on The Public Theater's Facebook page and also filmed for a longer video series. During the interview, Lemon talked about how he brings a real hunger to all of his projects and insists on not doing anything half-assed or watered down. To illustrate this, he recalled collapsing during one of his one-man performances in part because he refused to drink water while he performed--to not show the audience that he's vulnerable when onstage. Lemon also talked about be 100% authentic with his work and not compromising to critics:

"I had to learn how to protect...how I am being criticized as an artist." - @LemonAndersen #BARSLAB @PublicTheaterNY pic.twitter.com/ZAYaBcZ6ux— #BARS @ The Public (@barsworkshopNYC) July 30, 2016

Casal expertly interviewed him asking questions ranging from how Lemon expresses his Puerto Rican heritage in his performances and also his upbringing during the golden age of hip hop to his work.


After the Lemon interview, we did a quick free write exercise where we got into groups and wrote scenes from famous movies, similar to what the first #BARS Workshop did for their final performance. We were given very limited time to write and perform as a group, and the goal was to get the creative juices flowing and rap in front of a group without inhibitions. Nobody's piece was going to be perfect given the time constraint, but the exercise was to get those who had never rapped before in front of an audience, a chance to do so in a low-stakes, supportive environment.

Looking forward to Week 3!

Todrick Hall as Religious Experience

The late David Foster Wallace likened watching Roger Federer play tennis to a religious experience in his famous NYT profile of the Wimbledon star. In a similar vein, watching Todrick Hall perform live onstage last night in Straight Outta Oz at the Gramercy Theatre in New York was like a religious experience for me.

I’ve seen a lot of good theater over my past 18 months living in NYC, from seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda/Daveed Diggs/Leslie Odom, Jr. in Hamilton three times, to seeing almost every show that’s played on Broadway the past year. And Todrick’s performance was just as good, if not better than the many show-stopping performances I’ve been privileged to see this season. As far as a spectacle--for creating a world and letting the audience enter into it--Straight Outta Oz delivers better than most current Broadway shows, and then some.



The show started with men in military uniforms exiting the gates of Oz and marching onto stage. Todrick came out wearing a baby blue suit with white clouds on it, which he also wears at the beginning of his hour-long, Formation-inspired music video also called Straight Outta Oz.

Todrick Hall in the opening of Straight Outta Oz at the Gramercy Theatre in NYC on August 5, 2016

Todrick Hall, with a mic in his hand singing concert-style, walked slowly through the uniform-clad men dancing like they were in a hip hop dance competition. By the time Todrick reached the center of the stage, people were losing their shit. The few hundred people in the standing-room only section at the front took a step closer to the stage to see this man who wrote, choreographed, and was starring in this autobiographical piece about his life, told through the lens of Oz and Disney characters.

The only other show I could remember that matched the level of energy and fan excitement was in late March, 2016 when I saw Lin-Manuel Miranda walk onstage to an ovation so long that Alex Lacamoire held the orchestra from playing for several bars, just for the audience to scream with excitement. Lin-Manuel Miranda created, wrote, composed, and starred in Hamilton. But with Straight Outta Oz, Todrick one-ups Miranda in that he also choreographed his piece.

My favorite songs were Papi and Water Guns, which Todrick sang showcasing his impressive vocal range. Despite watching many of his YouTube videos, I was stunned to hear his upper-register. He riffed high notes like Natalie Weiss. And this was while he was dancing some of the most innovative, contemporary choreography I’ve seen in a show this year.

Todrick Hall, backed by a Gospel choir, takes the crowd to church early in Straight Outta Oz

What made the Straight Outta Oz accessible to a wide audience, is that there were entry points for the audience no matter their race, political beliefs, or gender identity. There were emotional songs sung by a woman playing his mother who sang on par with The Color Purple Broadway cast. There was a rocking Gospel number complete with a choir catching the Holy Ghost and a love story between Todrick and the boy he first loved. There was never a dull point in the show, as they cut to short video clips projected on the wall behind the gates of Oz featuring Wayne Brady, Beyoncé, and other luminaries.

Because most of the crowd was standing, it was good that 70-minutes into the show we had a 15-minute intermission to take a seat. In the crowd at intermission, I spoke with Broadway actors, professional dancers, and YouTube celebrities who were in awe of what they just saw. People said statements to the extent of: “I knew he could dance and sing in the studio--but to see this onstage--it’s incredible. His live singing is off the chain! It’s just as good, if not even more real than in his videos.”

I remarked to a friend who’s an actress in a touring show about his stage presence, and she responded, “Yes being a YouTube celebrity is one thing--but to translate that onto stage into jaw-dropping performance, after jaw-dropping performance is a whole 'nother thing.”

Todrick Hall as a wicked witch and leader of "The Green Revolt." The song Wrong Bitch recontextualizes the ideas behind Black Lives Matter in the language of the Oz universe.

After the intermission, a memorable song was when Todrick came out dressed as a drag queen with female dancers in yellow bathing suits with “Wrong Bitch” written on them. The show’s format of being a mix between Broadway show and hip hop/R&B concert with many performers holding microphones was the perfect format for the content. It could have benefited with a stage larger than the Gramercy Theatre provides, but the dancers were able to pull off the choreography in the limited floor space.

Todrick Hall came into the audience singing during the song Wrong Bitch.

The show ended on a very strong note--Todrick did a 20-minute curtain call performance which was a mashup and medley of songs from his most popular YouTube videos. What impressed me most during this section was the sustained energy and life in the performance. Two hours into the show I saw some of the most elaborate and creative pieces of choreography of the night.

So many Broadway shows I see reference dances from another era, such as tap and jazz, and it was quite refreshing to see references to several popular dances from the past 5 years in his medleys and mashups. I was surprised to see the Bernie Lean, Whip/Nae Nae, The Dab, twerking, and Todrick’s own creations like Dem Cakes Tho make small appearances in the choreography. Not only is he playing intertextually with the Wizard of Oz and Disney universe through his lyrics, but the dance choreography contained playful reinterpretations of these popular dances, which many of the YouTube generation immediately recognized.
Todrick Hall making art and political statements with this creative reinterpretation of Black Lives Matter in the context of Oz in the song Wrong Bitch.

What made the show work on multiple levels is that there’s the spectacle of the sheer talent of those singing and dancing onstage, but then there’s the emotional depth of Todrick airing out difficult life experiences in front of an audience. And also, there’s a wit and depth to Todrick’s lyrics that make me amazed that he also wrote them. The Wizard of Oz puns and references such as “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” “Imma tell the story my way // 'Cause the only way home ain't on this yellow brick highway” to his raps in Papi and Waterguns play with extended metaphors and the lyrical depth of a seasoned songwriter. To those who may have dismissed Todrick as a cover artist or online-only artist in the past, the live performance of Straight Outta Oz is a tour-de-force, which appeals to audiences of all ages and backgrounds, and even--gasp--theater critics.

-Matt Werner

Matt is a freelance journalist specializing in the arts and author of 3 books. He’s currently living in New York City and writing Burning Man: The Musical with the composer Gene Back.

Behind-the-Scenes of the 1st Burning Man: The Musical video

The weekend of August 8, 2015, a mad group of Burners, actors, and filmmakers made a 5-minute video of the opening number for a new musical called Burning Man: The Musical.



With $5,000 raised via Kickstarter, this group of about 30 people on camera and another 20 behind-the-scenes put in a Herculean effort shooting in 4 locations over 3 days, mostly in borrowed spaces in Brooklyn and Queens to pull off this shoot.

For many of us, it was our first time meeting, but there was a wild energy that weekend, and ultimately the whole was greater than the sum of our parts. What started as a small concept video grew into a full-blown music video under the guidance and vision of Kyle Fasanella and Amanda McHugh. We released the video 1 week before Burning Man 2015 (after Lillian Mauser-Carter edited the RED footage for 2.5 days straight) and put it out for the world to see.

We did not expect 130+ newspapers, radio stations, websites, and blogs to pick up the video and write about it:
“Bizarre, possibly brilliant.” - Ryan Bort, Newsweek“Steve Jobs would watch this video” - Melissa Locker, Time Magazine“Burning Man may be headed to Broadway” - Patrick May, San Jose Mercury“It's a little bit In the Heights, a whole lot of Rent, with maybe some Godspell and Les Miz thrown in.” - Robert Viagas, Playbill“I'd never go to Burning Man, but I'd probably see this Burning Man musical.” - Bobby Finger, Jezebel“The tension between the self-proclaimed true Burners and the brogrammers...can only be resolved through song and dance.” - Fast Company“High production values...close to Jason Robert Brown...The people who put this together clearly have talent.” - Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair“Burning Man now has its own musical, and it’s fantastic” - Adam Brinklow, San Francisco MagazineIn honor of the one-year anniversary of that video, here's a look behind-the-scenes of how some of those memorable scenes were filmed.









We're releasing our next video (much shorter) on August 15, 2016 and a song cycle featuring half the music from the musical called "A Burning Mixtape" on August 22, 2016. Thanks to all of those who've supported the project so far, and we can't wait to share what we've been working on later this month!

Regards,
Matt Werner, writer/producer
Gene Back, composer
Burning Man: The Musical