It's Tough To Keep a Eden a Secret...

Gee news gets out fast... Planet Eden is mentioned in this week's blog post by Examiner.com blogger Gregory Kastigar!

". . .Douglas is working on the stage musical Planet Eden: The Musical with local broadcast personality Rick Emerson and Ragtime: The Musical musician Kurt Crowley. You can follow the musical’s progress on the Planet Eden blog. Douglas is also producing a short film called Salt and Silicon with director Warren Pereira, which will be out next year. You can follow Douglas and learn everything he has learned about filmmaking on his Oregon Independent Film blog where he provides links to good books and articles about filmmaking, and summarizes the talks and panels he attends." Read the full examiner.com article > > >

Director of Publicity and Logistics Vanessa Anthony Reports for Duty!

Fresh off her stint assisting at the communications console for the Portland Creative Conference, Vanessa Anthony has agreed to perform the role of Director of Publicity and Logistics for Planet Eden: The Musical.

Vanessa provides content for various newspapers, magazines, social media networks, and websites across the country. Vanessa has been a contributor to such local outlets as PDX Magazine, Examiner.com, The Oregonian, Baltimore Magazine, The Portland Sentinel, NeighborhoodNotes.com, and LivePDX.com. She also writes a resource blog for writers on Oregonlive.com called Writer’s Block. Welcome, Vanessa -- your excitement and enthusiasm are infectious!

"Planet Eden" Crew Member Feared Lost Over Denver Skies in Helium Balloon

The story of the helium balloon run amok over Denver this week struck fear into the hearts of collaborators of "Planet Eden."

As they were having lunch at the "Side Door" restaurant in SE Portland, Aaron Kirk Douglas and Kurt Crowley stared up at a TV screen watching the CNN story. "OH MY GOD!" shouted Douglas "Was Oakley taking our spaceship out for a spin?"

"No!" said Crowley, "There's a little boy in that thing!"

They were relieved to soon learn the boy was at home hiding in the attic. Of course, some people think the whole thing was a hoax and that his parents knew their son was at home all the time.

Whatever. We just can't figure out what that dude was doing with our spaceship.

Local and National Broadcast Personality Rick Emerson Joins Cast of Planet Eden

How cool is this?
Radio personality Rick Emerson, host of the Rick Emerson Show, has joined the cast of "Planet Eden." Rick is currently host of "Outlook Portland" every Sunday morning at 6:30 am on the CW network.

But the crazy out-of-this-world news doesn't stop there folks! Faster than you can say "Weekly World News" there are even more surprises coming our way! Stay tuned for more strange happenings and amazing feats of magnificence.

Aliens Sighted Near Sanctuary Vortex

Reports from the Eden Sanctuary indicate strange lights were seen last night hovering near the area. One witness reported seeing the ship put its powerful spotlight on a cow below (see illustration).

No additional information is available at this time.

Oakley Design Studios Engaged as Set Designer for Planet Eden: The Musical

Timothy Oakley, mastermind and genius behind Oakley Design Studios, will put his talents to work on the set for "Planet Eden."  Mr. Oakley's latest "out of this world" space-age projects include set dresser and set graphics for some great movies this year including "Star Trek" and "Terminator Salvation." Tim is also a master graphic designer and does logos and all kinds of neat stuff which you can see on his company website.

Here, Tim was exclaiming: "Holy cow! That's one heck of a lot of snow!" (Photo courtesy Aaron Kirk Douglas. Taken: Vista Bridge - snowstorm of Jan. 2009)

Proof that UFOs Exist is Everywhere!

Planet Eden Composer Playing "Ragtime" at Portland Center Stage

Kurt Crowley, the composer for Planet Eden: The Musical  has had his hands full lately as the accompanist to the cast of "Ragtime" at Portland Center Stage.

Kurt reports "the score is about 400 pages and only a few lines of dialogue go by without any underscoring.

Considering that it's a nearly three hour show - that's an awful lot of work! Your chance to admire Kurt's playing in Ragtime ends November 1st. Get your tickets now!

"Planet Eden" Talent Scouts Set to Attend PATA Auditions in January 2010

Watch out Planet Earth! Talent Scouts from "Planet Eden: The Musical" will be landing at the Artists Repertory Theatre in January, 2010 for the Portland Area Theatre Alliance auditions.

Our talent scouts will be looking for a wide range of singers whose talents are so great they can only be described by others as "out of this world!"

Submission of "Planet Eden: The Musical" to CoHo Theater for Co-Production Consideration

On September 28, 2009, we submitted our application to the CoHo Theater for consideration for Co-Production for their 2010-2011 season.

CoHo is a great little theater in NW Portland and one of the few places  in town that exists to encourage and support new playwrights. Although the deadline for CoHo's submissions is December 4th, we submitted as early as possible in the hopes of providing the theater board members with ample time to consider the project as one of their three co-productions for 2010-2011.

The Regional Arts and Culture Council Grant Submission

Toward the end of August it was time to submit the application to the Regional Arts and Culture Council for a project grant. The maximum an artist or group of artists could apply for was $6,000.

Our application seeks funding for a series of staged readings, free to the public, where the audience becomes part of the process in shaping the outcome of a finished work. Decisions on grants will be made in January, 2010.

August in the Recording Studio

By August, we were already laying down some tracks!

Kurt had just raced back from doing a show in Montana that was a really big hit, and we met for a couple of hours on a Wednesday for lunch and caught up on developments with the script; the next day, he came over to our place.  In 90 minutes Kurt finalized pretty cool versions of four of our songs and we raced over to Dead Aunt Thelmas in Sellwood for a two hour session.

I did my best at working up some introductions and saying a few lines and Kurt played AND sang four numbers (15 minutes) that was the max allowable for our application for some grant funding.

Dawning of a New Day: The Tanning Bed Song

Here on Planet Eden, we don't mess around.  We started in April really talking about the project and what our characters might be like.

One day, Aaron was experiencing some special rays of light from a tanning bed when suddenly a melody started in his head, along with lyrics too! He jumped out of the tanning bed, grabbed a pen and a paper towel from the dispenser and quickly wrote down all the words he could remember and scrawled a melody-like graphic across a very messy treble clef....

After writing it out a little more coherently at home, and giving it to Kurt, it was later transformed into a kindler, gentler and more complete version of an idea that came from a little too much exposure to sunlight.

Welcome to Planet Eden

In the beginning...

Aaron and Kurt were sitting around one day after practicing... Aaron had this crazy idea that he wanted to sing again somewhere and so he was going over songs in preparation for a singing gig ... and then he thought better of it.  Instead of putting on a show as background music for some of his friends... why not write something new. Something fresh.  Take all those years of piano lessons (barely remembered now) a decade of acting classes and musical theatre performing, and write a musical?

Better yet, could Aaron talk Kurt into writing the music? Clearly Kurt was up to the task.  And so one day around the kitchen table staring out over downtown Portland, the germ of an idea for a new musical was born.