An Irish musical seeks its big break

Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner have high hopes for their new musical, "Parcel From America." It's been years in the making.
October 30, 2024

An Ashland trio shops their story in New York

By Jim Flint for Ashland.news

When Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner first heard Tomáseen Foley’s story “Parcel From America” at the Ashland Community Center, they couldn’t stop talking about it.

Michael J. Hume is co-writer and co-lyricist for a new Irish musical being shopped in New York.

That was 26 years ago.

“It was a beautiful, funny, very moving Irish tale about one special 1950s family Christmas in a west County Limerick village,” Beecham said.

Today, the Ashland couple may be on the threshold of bringing an expanded version of the story to the big stage. In 2018, along with longtime writing partner Michael J. Hume, they optioned the rights to turn Foley’s story into a musical.

On Wednesday, Oct. 30, “Parcel From America” will be shopped to New York producers, directors, other theater professionals and Irish influencers.

“We’re presenting two readings at Theatre 555 on West 42nd Street, a 160-seat venue on Theatre Row,” Hillgartner said.

They hope the audience they’ve invited will have the same experience they had decades ago, watching Foley stand on a stage and tell his story.

“Only this time there will be a gorgeous score of songs and a cast of Broadway veteran actors, backed by an all-star band of Irish musicians,” Hillgartner said. Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Jonathan Luke Stevens will be one of the actors.

Decades in the making

It’s been a long journey since that Ashland Community Center program in 1998. Beecham and Hillgartner bought Foley’s first CD of the story and listened to it many times over the years.

From the number “Raleigh Royal Roadster,” performers sing about a boy’s wish for a bicycle in a 2022 Dublin production. Ste Murray photo

For 20 years it was sort of top-of-mind and on the back burner at the same time. When they optioned the rights in 2018, the work began in earnest, with writing, revising, composing, holding readings and even staging performances.

“Tom holds the underlying rights and receives royalties for that,” Beecham said.

Foley remembers a musical version winning best new musical at a Cleveland reading.

“And, one Christmas, donkey’s years ago, the late, great Jim Giancarlo produced his own musical version of the story at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre,” Foley said. “It played to sold-out houses all during that Christmas season.”

Seeing the first fully developed musical in Dublin in 2022 was a most memorable moment for Foley.

Women perform the traditional brush dance in the opening number of “Parcel from America,” performed in Dublin in 2022. Ste Murray photo

“To see it in the flesh, with my American family and my Irish family all present, and with a sterling all-Irish cast, was overwhelming.”

When they optioned the rights from Foley, Beecham and Hillgartner were staying in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, at the time.

“Michael came out to join us for a few months,” Hillgartner said, “and we got down to work on the show, working out the structure of the piece.”

Prior collaborations

The three of them had collaborated on several prior projects since 2004. Beecham and Hume focused on the story, or “book.” Hillgartner wrote the music. And they all had a hand in the lyrics.

Foley’s original short story included some traditional Irish songs, which added to the charm of the tale. However, Hillgartner believed dropping only classic Irish tunes into the show wouldn’t serve them well.

“I wrote 12 original songs and adapted four traditional tunes,” he said. “But I wanted to be sure that whatever I wrote was filtered through an authentically Irish lens.”

That’s where fourth collaborator Kevin Corcoran comes in. An Irish pianist, composer, songwriter and producer, he has written the soundtracks to five short films and released two studio albums as a solo artist. Corcoran arranged the music for “Parcel From America.”

“How Kevin Corcoran came to the project is a great story in itself,” Hillgartner said. “Like all good Irish tales, we met in a pub.”

Hillgartner and Beecham were in Dublin in January of 2018, visiting an old friend. After seeing a pair of one-acts at the New Theatre, they were having a drink across the street when the cast of four and the director and playwright came in.

“We bought them a round of drinks and began talking shop. Kevin was the director.”

Hillgartner and Corcoran hit it off and agreed to stay in touch.

Mother and daughter share a moment under winter stars on the first and only white Christmas Tomáseen Foley remembers from his youth in Ireland. The musical adapted from his short story may have a New York future. Ste Murray photo
And then to Ireland

In December of that year, Hillgartner, Beecham and Hume went to the Emerald Isle to do more research.

Having become friends with Foley, they wanted to meet his family, spend time where he grew up, and walk the land of his family farm on Sugar Hill outside Templeglantine, Limerick. The parish is part of the Sliabh Luachra area around the border areas of counties Kerry, Cork and Limerick, where there is a rich Irish cultural tradition, especially involving Irish traditional music.

“Tom answered hundreds of questions and told many more fascinating stories of life in 1950s rural Ireland,” Beecham said.

 “Our families all joined us in Dingle for Christmas and New Year’s Eve,” Hume added. “Total enchantment.”

In addition to serving as co-librettist and occasionally as co-lyricist, Hume had another job.

“Anything that smacked of Catholicism in the script was sourced by me,” he said, “the former altar boy.”

“Foley vetted every word of the script,” Hillgartner said. “His sister Daisy also advised on the Irish words.”

Finding the balance

A challenge in the adaptation process was creating the right balance of music and dialogue, as well as the music itself.

“Songs in a musical are seldom your typical verse-and-chorus pop structure,” Hillgartner said. “They have to move the story along. We also had to identify those places in the story that cried out to be sung while recognizing those places where dialogue was the better vehicle to carry the freight”

On the way to this week’s readings in New York, the musical was presented numerous times as a reading — in Dublin, Chicago, and Ashland — and then there were several sold-out performances as a fully staged musical production in Dublin.

The widow Bridge shares with her neighbor’s son the glorious new bicycle she’s surprising her son with for his birthday in the 2022 Dublin production of “Parcel from America.” Ste Murray photo

“Our takeaway from the Dublin production was the story works for Irish audiences,” Beecham said. “We also learned we needed a big, lighthearted number in the second act, and we needed to know more about two of the townspeople in our story.”

A new musical number solved both problems.

Prolific writers

Hume, Beecham and Hillgartner have co-written two previous musicals together: “They Came from Way Out There” and “Dogpark: The Musical,” both premiering in October of 2018, when Hume’s contract with OSF was not renewed after 27 seasons with the company.

Beecham and Hillgartner met at OSF in the spring of 1978 in an audition for “The Tempest.” She was in the company in 1977 and 1978, he in 1978 and 1979. They married in Seattle and have lived in Ashland since 1994.

In addition to acting for regional theater companies around the country, they have been successful writers.

“As authors of young adult fiction, we publish under the name Jahnna N. Malcolm,” Beecham said. “Together we have written more than 130 books, numerous CD-ROM games and learning systems, television scripts, a movie script, 11 musicals and one play, which premiered last month in Nashville.”

Their series, “The Jewel Kingdom,” was rereleased by Scholastic Inc. 2020 and is in development as an animated series.

A story in that series, “The Ruby Princess Runs Away,” was made into a short film, directed by Beecham. It won the best drama award at the Burbank International Children’s Film Festival in 2001.

What do they hope to gain from the New York readings?

“Fame and fortune are always lovely,” Hume said. “But specific professional feedback would be an excellent starting point.”

And after two decades of dedication to the project, there would be nothing more satisfying than seeing the musical captivate audiences with a successful run on Broadway.

Reach writer Jim Flint at [email protected].

Picture of Jim

Jim

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