I was commissioned to score my English class’ hurriedly put-together production of Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) by Ann-Marie MacDonald, a satirical comedy which follows Constance Ledbelly on a subconscious voyage in the worlds of Othello and Romeo and Juliet, where she tries to prove that both these plays were originally intended to be comedies.
She searches for the Gustav Manuscript, seeking help from Desdemona and Juliet in order to prove her doctorate, all while interfering, dismantling and poking fun at the plots of their respective plays. I hurriedly completed the 27 minute work (33 minutes with stings and extras) in a period of three weeks, then generated mock-ups for the production using NotePerformer.
The unfortunate outcome was that the play’s only performance was delayed to a day I was out of town, so I was neither able to attend the performance nor operate the soundboard, rendering the music poorly utilised in the actual production. Out of posterity, I will not let my hard work all go to waste, so I have published the score for those to listen to it as a concert suite.
