CHRYSANTHEMUM EFFECT is the story of an American family, set to the backdrop of the nation’s bicentennial. Tensions build as a father and husband lies near death, fueling the fireworks that forever scatter Rose, her daughter and two stepdaughters. Act One is a discordant, downward spiral, centering on the dying father and the breakup of the family. The father, never seen on stage, is the only tie holding them together: without him the family flies apart. The explosive dynamics between Rose and her daughter and stepdaughters dominate the action. Act Two takes the remnants of the shattered family and rebuilds them into a harmonic resolution of loss and love.
HOT SUMMER NIGHT KINGDOM OF ICE MOMMY & ME
Christina Morrell Erinjean Jewell & Mandy Lemmons
Derek Fox
THE THANKS THAT BUTTERFLIES
YOU GET Carolyn Cole
Jan Prokop &
Shaina Taub
The music to The Chrysanthemum Effect, a musical drama, was not written to be pretty, but to express the raw emotions and yearnings of a disturbing family drama, and to support the lyrics therein. Rather than rendering for full orchestra, a piano quintet offered an economy of notes which, in this case, I found to be a more poetic and intimate use of harmony. - Derek Fox