Local writer helps to give 'Oedipus' new wrinkles

BY SHARON LEFF
Correspondent

In January, Howell High School graduate Gil Varod set out to write a children's musical with some of his friends, not knowing that the end result, "Oedipus for Kids," would be chosen for production at the upcoming New York Musical Theatre Festival.

With only a month to go before the submission deadline for summer festivals in New York, Kimberly Patterson approached Varod with the idea of writing a musical for children.

After considering several options, Varod said, nothing seemed fun or interesting and finally he suggested Oedipus despite the play's violence and incest.

"It ended up being such a wacky idea," Patterson said. "It became really silly to try and figure out how somebody would do [the adaptation.] The more we talked about it the funnier it became."

Although the original intention was to write a children's musical, the play turned out to be a comedy geared for adults, or, as the play's Internet Web site states, "A child-friendly 'Oedipus Rex' goes horribly, horribly wrong."

The story follows a group of actors trying to put on Oedipus only to find that things do not go as planned. Varod described the show as a play within a play

The friends submitted "Oedipus for Kids" to the New York International Fringe Festival and to the 2006 Next Link Project of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.

The New York Musical Theatre Festi-val is an annual three-week event held in September that presents new musicals in midtown Manhattan. About 400 people submitted their work and 18 were chosen by a panel of celebrity theater judges.

The judges' decision to accept "Oedipus for Kids" came as a surprise to Varod.

"We submitted because why not? We really didn't think it would get in," he said.

The play was also accepted to the New York International Fringe Festival, but the playwrights could only accept one invitation.

Patterson said that after the friends had chosen Oedipus as the foundation of their work, they had to decide how closely they wanted their play to be like the original. They did not want it to be an adaptation of Sophocles' work, but instead their own retelling of the tale.

"We did a lot of research trying to decide how much we wanted to base it on the myth," she said.

Patterson said writing the original music and script was a collaborative process. Varod focused on the lyrics while she concentrated on structure and dialogue. Robert J. Saferstein composed the music.

The casting process for the show is complete and rehearsals will begin in mid-August. The play will be about 90 minutes long and the first show will be Sept. 12.

"We're still doing some rewrites and finishing up on the songs," Patterson said.

Patterson and Varod are familiar with the process of working on plays.

Varod lived in Marlboro, but attended the Freehold Regional High School District's humanities program at Howell High School, where he worked on school productions. He graduated from Howell in 1999 and is currently working on two other musicals.

Patterson, a Pennsylvania native, also worked on plays before and is hoping "Oedipus for Kids" leads to more work in the theater world.

"Hopefully this will get our name out there and we'll have more opportunities," she said.

For more information about "Oedipus for Kids," visit www.oedipusforkids.com or www.nymf.org.