A Year in the Life: The Making of the Musical: Paul Eliason: The Musical

Two weeks ago my buddy David and I decided we wanted to become best friends with this guy Paul in our ward. So we emailed Paul to invite him to do something with us and he DID NOT REPLY! DISASTER! That night after Institute I awkwardly tried to walk past without him noticing me, since obviously he hated us. Well, he instead stopped his conversation, said "Hey Rachel", and then told me some story AND mentioned that he hadn't even checked his email yet AND said that his birthday was in less than two weeks and his dream was to write/star in a musical for his birthday. And David and I said we could help.

This led to a wonderful, magical, fun, friend-building, and really pretty odd experience. Paul had some songs in his head and David would turn them into actual music. I just added enthusiasm. Paul's roommate Joe was supposed to debut the trombone after 20 years, but ended up being stuck at work thanks to Harry Reid...but luckily had the foresight to get an understudy, who hadn't played since elementary school.

The musical was Monday night at my house. Luckily my flight back from Dallas wasn't delayed, and I was able to memorize my part on the plane...

Paul shared a lot about the past year of his life since moving to DC. The audience loved it.

David and I were the soundtrack

Check out that trombone debut!!!

We had an intense battle duet. It was a crowd favorite.

Paul felt a lot of angst.

I played a character that in Paul's mind was trying to destroy him...it's complicated.

You can watch it yourself here. Warning: my co-worker watched this video and his response was "if I knew this guy I would have probably thought it was funny, but instead I just thought it was weird."

A Year in the Life: The Making of the Muscial: Paul Eliason: The Musical from Andrea Candrian on Vimeo.