Musicals with Book and Lyrics by Gordon Leary
SOMETHING BLUE
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
PREGNANCY PACT
CHEER WARS
ACROSS THE RIVER
THE LONELIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD
REB+VODKA+ME
Synopses
Something Blue (2M,1W) – At the last minute, Geoff drives halfway across the country overnight to attend (or maybe crash?) his ex-boyfriend Casey’s wedding to childhood friend Joelle. But when he gets there, it’s all a bit more complicated than he expected.
The Magnificent Seven (2M, 8W) – Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps, and Kerri Strug made up the first U.S. women’s gymnastics team to win Olympic team gold at the 1996 Atlanta games. The Magnificent Sevenimagines their inner lives on the two days of team competition, as they reach for their young dreams and their faces on the Wheaties box, all leading up to a star-making vault heard ’round the world.
Pregnancy Pact (1M, 6W) – 15-year old Maddie is devoted to her three best friends and they are to her. When Brynn gets pregnant, the friends all plan to get pregnant and raise their children together in their dream of a perfect life. As other girls find out, the pact – and the dream – grows. The bubble bursts when their secret is revealed, leaving each of the girls to face the hard realities of love, responsibility, and growing up.
Cheer Wars (2M, 8W) – Halle Bolingbroke has been groomed from birth to become captain of the New London Lady Leopard Varsity Cheer Squad by her mother Doretha (the current coach and former captain herself.) The trouble is, Halle’s just not sure if life is more than cheering. But when Nuella Percy, Doretha’s former rival, comes back to New London with her cheerleading-machine of a daughter, Charmain, a battles erupts not just for control of the squad, but for cheering itself.
Across the River (2M, 5W) – 13-year-old Tranquil is sent to live with her grandmother in Cleveland for the summer in 1969. She strikes up a midnight friendship with Eddie, a 15-year-old wheelchair-bound boy who lives across the polluted Cuyahoga River. Over a nightly cigarette, the two kids share a journey through a burning river and to the moon with Neil Armstrong.
The Loneliest Girl In The World (3M, 3W) – Anita Bryant always knew that she was destined for greatness. She just had to figure out what God wanted her to do. She tried becoming Miss America, a pop star, a professional homemaker, a national treasure – all to no avail. After becoming a cultural crusader, she finally knew she was living God’s plan. But was it God’s plan to spur the gay rights movement with a single pie to the face?
REB + VODKA + ME (4M, 8W) – September 11, 2014 would have been Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold’s 33rd birthday and the Tumblr community of his fans, known as Columbiners, spent the day thinking of him. The mourning was interrupted when Chardon High School shooter T.J. Lane escaped from prison that evening, throwing the true crime community into a frenzy. REB + VoDKa + ME follows a girl through the events of that day, her own eighteenth birthday, exploring the quest for community and understanding of the misunderstood.
Bio
Gordon Leary is a Brooklyn-based bookwriter and lyricist from Chagrin Falls, Ohio. With composer Julia Meinwald, full-length musicals include PREGNANCY PACT (2012 Weston Playhouse premiere, 2011 Weston New Musical Award, 2011 NAMT & YIMT Festivals), THE LONELIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD (2018 Diversionary Theatre premiere, 2016 NAMT Festival, 2015 Polyphone Festival at University of the Arts, 2014 Ars Nova OutLoud Series), THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2020 Flint Rep premiere, 2019 Urban Stages, 2016 Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Festival), REB+VoDKa+ME (2018 OPERA America Discovery Grant, 2017 YIMT Festival, 2016 R&D Group FINDINGS Series), and SOMETHING BLUE (2020 Diversionary Theatre, 2019 Page 73, 2019 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival.) Other musicals include CHEER WARS (Karlan Judd, composer; 2009 Richard Rodgers Award, 2015 York Theatre, 2010 Directors Company) and ACROSS THE RIVER (Hyun Rim Kim, composer; 2013 Seoul Musical Festival, 2009 Daegu International Musical Festival.) Gordon was a member of Page 73’s Interstate 73 (2018), 92Y Musical Theatre Develpment Lab (2017-18), Musical Theatre Factory Writers Group (2016-17), Johnny Mercer Colony at Goodspeed Musicals (2016), Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Playgroup (2016), The Civilians’ R&D Group (2015-16), Ars Nova’s Uncharted (2013-2014), and the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program (2009-10.) Gordon has developed work with the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Prospect Theater Company, New York City Children’s Theatre, and Dance Heginbotham. Gordon is a proud graduate of Vassar College and NYU/Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. For more information, please visit www.omfgordon.com.