A brief history of Vassals on the Loose, part I

Around May 2004, William Ramsey and I were standing in the parking lot of the McDowell building, likely for some sort of Scouting function. He mentioned to me that he and a friend (Will Wadas, perhaps?) had planned an operetta while on the bus for a band festival. This absolutely captivated my imagination, as I had recently discovered the awesomeness that is Gilbert and Sullivan. Soon I had commandeered the project and was planning out an operetta. I took the title (Vassals on the Loose) and general idea (vassals...on the loose) and ran with them. I researched the middle ages, finding interesting, nearly humorous tidbits in the 1961 World Book Encyclopedia in my basement (remind me to do a post on that). Did you know that the French city of Rouen burned down six times between 1200 and 1225? I planned a Dramatis Personae, with a King, Queen, Vassals, Vassals' wives, and various other characters (including a Baker the Baker. I thought it was funny at the time.). I even wrote the opening song during ward choir practice.

Soon, Will and I began to work in earnest. Throughout the summer we traveled to each others' houses, sitting in front of a computer and writing. We still had very little idea how the story was to end. Thus far we hadn't quite found the absurdist aesthetic you know so well, so we made many lame Gilbert and Sullivan references. For example:

George: Right. . . and what say you, Henry?
Henry: [Mumbles something unintelligible, seems like an insult.]
George: Well, that's two armies.
Henry: What? Oh Big D!
George [riled up]: Oh, what profanities! I am very offended!

(Note also our extremely realistic dialogue.)

Very soon we decided to add the barbarians. After all, the vassals needed an enemy. Seeking to buck the stereotypes of barbarianism, we made the barbarians "cultured and refined/Eloquently defined." This, however, came only after we decided that they would "all wear beards" and all sing tenor. Yes, our absurdism had begun its ascent to center stage. (Sadly, I cannot give an exact account of the development of the storyline; my emails from the time period are lost to the the servers of Walmart Connect, to which I no longer subscribe (thank goodness), and Will's are lost to his odd practice of keeping only 42 emails in his inbox at a time.)

We came to the decision that Will would write the tunes and I would write the accompaniments; from Will's point of view, this meant he was in charge of the music and I was in charge of the lyrics. From my point of view, it meant we were equal partners in both. (Hey, I wanted to write music too. And I didn't want TOTAL blame for the script.) I convinced my mother to buy Finale 2004 so that we could create scores more easily. In all, we were filled with exuberance and optimism for the show. Or at least I was.

And so our story pauses, there in midsummer 2004.