Transient Days and Musical Nights

Brian R. Lowdermilk ‘05 surrounds himself with words and music. The walls of his room are papered with quotes, a keyboard stands in one corner and a poster advertising a musical hangs upon the closet door. Upon closer examination, Lowdermilk’s name appears on the poster under the words “music and lyrics by.” The poster advertises Lowdermilk’s original musical, Transient Days. While exploring a love triangle between three teenagers, the show deals with adolescent sexuality and the constant struggle that teenagers undergo to find themselves during the “transient” period of their lives.

After collaborating with Zach Altman, a student at the Julliard School who wrote the story on which the show was based, the show was performed at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia this past May. The entire show is sung and it is performed against a black stage. The original cast consisted of two men and one woman, although the roles are not gender dependant. “The plot is secondary to the way the story is told,” Lowdermilk explains. “The story emerges from the three characters’ commentary on their situation.”

While the story itself is fictional, Lowdermilk did draw from personal experience when writing some of the songs, many of which were not composed specifically for the show. He likens the effect of the songs to pointilism, with each song a separate but integral part. Lowdermilk’s next project, again with Altman, is a piece about teen suicide that is loosely based on Camus’ Caligula.

Watching people experience the musical, his first complete and coherent work, surprised the author. “It says something for live theater—how it is powerful and universal. It was interesting to see how the audience in Philly reacted to the piece,” he says. “While some people in the audience clearly did not appreciate the show, others were crying by the end.”

When asked about his influences, Lowdermilk names Jason Robert Brown and his off-Broadway musical Songs for a New World. Other influences have been William Finn, David Shire, Jonathan Larson, Stephen Sondheim and bad country music. “I truly believe in musical theatre and the shows that are coming out now allow us to see its future,” he says of his favorite medium. “And I’m in love with it.”

Transient Days will be performed in Minneapolis in November and an off-Broadway production will go up at the Director’s Theatre in June 2002.