NEW YORK (AP) – There’s not much to do in eastern Idaho in the winter. It’s freezing, windy and depressing. Why not create a musical?
Stay-inside weather – plus a healthy dose of heartache – helped spark the creation in 2009 of “Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera.” Six years later it arrives in steamy on 42nd Street in New York City, a snowball’s throw from Broadway.
The show is the creation of Garrett Sherwood, Ryan J. Hayes and Jon Peter Lewis, three artistic guys with little musical theater experience who shaped and grew it into one of the highlights of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
The show’s first real production was in Lewis’ living room in 2010 for a handful of friends. He used Christmas lights to mark off the stage and filled bowls with dry ice to make fog.
“I remember the dry ice was hissing and popping during the performance,” he said. “It’s been a kind of learn-as-you-go type of thing.”