Taking Stock of Big Shot The Musical

'What's a man to do?' the bigshot 'never loses a case ' lawyer sings in one of the best songs of the night. Lauryn Gaffney, book, music and lyric writer of this new musical, didn't seem to ask any such question when she finished writing it; she just went and put her show on. I spoke with Gaffney last summer, just as she was about to embark on a journey to the San Diego Fringe Festival with her score, cast and band. Last Thursday, Bigshot was back in Dublin playing the Liberty Hall Theatre for one night only, where I finally got a chance to see it and catch up with Gaffney following her San Diego adventure, where they picked up the 'Spirit of the Fringe Award' nod as well.

The usual route for musicals are, of course, adaptations. Think of any major musical and its probably come from a novel, play, or in recent times, movie. Original musicals have cropped up from time to time such as Next To Normal and Love Never Dies, with varying degrees of success, but they are few and far between. If you are going to write a musical the most obvious path is adaptation. So, Gaffney's decision to write an original could be seen as brave, but the choice fits her 'can do' energy and drive.

Speaking about the festival experience, Gaffney says that it "was a dream come true. The dedication and enthusiasm from the cast members were what snatched us the award in the end." The cast is made up of students from various courses that happen to include dance, acting and in the case of one cast member, Actuarial Mathematics. Passion is a big ingredient for them all.

"The audience in America in some aspects reacted differently to the show," Gaffney told me. "They found certain lines very funny that we wouldn't necessarily laugh at! With regards to the ending the Irish always react unexpectedly but in America the reaction was constant. Overall they reacted better than I anticipated."

For the festival they had a shorter running time to contend with, which brought about it's own issues. "The shorter time task initially was a huge challenge. Cutting the songs in half and eventually cutting entire numbers wasn't easy," but in the end, it brought up "various ideas that ultimately," Gaffney explains, "made the show better." Reminding us that musicals, as it was famously said, aren't written, they're rewritten.