Max Kuenzer plays Jesus in “His Story the Musical.”
Anna Brown’s apartment looks out over an upscale dining, shopping and entertainment district north of Dallas.
Among the restaurants, shops, outdoor stage and indoor go-kart track is a coming attraction, one developing near the 180-foot Ferris wheel. She can look out her window and see the Broadway Tent, where a team of actors spend their days singing and dancing to music she first wrote as a teenager.
Soon, the view will include a large billboard for “His Story the Musical,” a musical she penned. It is scheduled to open May 5.
It’s been a long, yet more recently whirlwind, journey for the former Hancock County resident. Now 22, she’s seen the work grow from songs on a page, into a professionally produced soundtrack, and now into a live experience expected to attract thousands of visitors at the Grandscape entertainment development in The Colony, a northern Dallas suburb.
BIRTH OF A MUSICAL
Brown was a teenager on a mission trip to Kenya when a friend played the “Hamilton” soundtrack for her. Uninterested in history before that, the 15-year-old fell in love with the songs and found a love for history ignited within her.
She then thought how powerful it could be for someone to present the Bible in such a way. At first such thoughts were along the lines of, “Someone should do that.” Later, though, she wondered if she were the someone meant to do that.
So Brown stayed home from a family hike one day and wrote a hip hop-infused song referencing the first chapter of John about Jesus being “the Word.”
She packed a small keyboard for a 2017 mission trip in Peru and, during bits of free time, whipped out 10-15 more songs.
Her parents, Joshua and Sarah Janisse Brown, a former Fortville town councilwoman, saw something special in these songs and sought to help Anna to have them professionally recorded. Connections were made, and doors were opened. A friend in Ukraine, where the Brown family was ministering at the time, connected them with producer Pawel Zarecki in Poland.
Professional vocalists performed the lyrics during recording sessions in Los Angeles. Anna sang the part of Mother Mary, and her sister Rachel sang one of the supporting parts. The songs were released one by one on YouTube, with the whole soundtrack premiering on Palm Sunday (April 14) 2019.
“I thought an audio musical was all it was going to be,” Brown said.
But one day the recordings landed on Bruce Lazarus’ desk.
GETTING A HEARING
It wasn’t a description that would make a Tony Award-nominated producer stop in his tracks: Someone called Bruce Lazarus and said his friend’s 17-year-old daughter had written a musical about Jesus.
How sweet, he thought.
But to satisfy a friend who kept asking, he was going to at least listen to one song.
“It was like, ‘Wow, this is great,” Lazarus said. “… By the third one, I was crying.”
‘WATCH THIS’
Lazarus invited Brown and her parents to New York. More people joined the team, and like the vocalists who had made the tracks, there’s an list of past credits among those participating. Director Jeff Calhoun has been nominated for two Tony Awards (Disney’s Newsies, Bonnie & Clyde). Choreographer Eamon Foley worked on Annie at The Hollywood Bowl. Music supervisor Rick Hip-Flores has worked on Broadway; he and Poland’s Zarecki are arrangers. “Duck Dynasty”’s Willie and Korie Robertson have signed on among the producers.
Twenty of the original 30 songs were kept for the musical, and Brown wrote some additional songs to complete the score.
A team of actors performed songs at a workshop in New York. Seeing the musical choreographed, “It hit in a completely new way,” Brown said. “You really feel like you’re part of it.”
Lazarus hired a photographer and videographer to capture their work. He said some found that unconventional, perhaps unnecessary, and said he was wasting his money.
But having those glimpses of how the performed songs could look on stage made it easier for potential supporters of the production to see what they’d be backing and find it powerful.
“‘Watch this’ allowed me to raise $7.5 million in less than six months,” Lazarus said.
SETTING THE SCENE
He bought a tent from Cirque du Soleil. It’s one of four large air-conditioned tents set up or coming soon in the Grandscape complex for the stage, lobby, dressing rooms and restrooms with sinks.
The tents and Ferris wheel are a big part of the scene from Brown’s apartment overlooking the site. She and sister Rachel have been spending their days with the cast members, who had their first week of rehearsals during Holy Week.
“They’ve been so helpful in understanding Anna’s music — not to mention they are both just the sweetest people in the world,” said actor Max Kuenzer, who plays Jesus.
Kuenzer was working in New York when he got a text from a former teacher, connecting him with another of his past teachers, who told him about “His Story.” He sent an audition video, and soon he was moving to Texas.
He finds Brown’s picture of Jesus in the score to be honest, compassionate and even raw.
“I think there’s plenty of exciting different parts of the gospels that we tell in this story in such a creative new way,” Kuenzer said, “that a lot of people may not have thought of before or imagined before, that leaves them wanting more.”
‘JUST SO HAPPY’
Brown said it’s “mind blowing” to see a large team of actors and artistic staff gathered around the goal of presenting the musical. She and Rachel sometimes just look at each other now that these songs they worked on as teens have “become this thing that this entire choir is singing.”
“I’m just so happy waking up every day and getting to come here and create,” she said. “(That) they love something that I wrote when I was a teenager, and they are just pouring everything they have into making it the best it can be, it’s just really, really humbling.”
MUSICAL COMES FULL CIRCLE
“His Story the Musical” will be the first production in the new Broadway Tent, nestled among Grandscape’s other attractions in The Colony, Texas, just north of Dallas. The dining and entertainment complex is about 10 miles away from the Universal theme park to be built in Frisco.
The production will be presented in the round, with the stage surrounded by 1,300 seats, the farthest being about 13 rows back. The setting also allows for 360-degree projection.
“We don’t want to lose the intimacy and playfulness,” said lead producer Bruce Lazarus, “and yet there is a design around it that is awe-inspiring.”
“His Story the Musical” opens May 5 in Texas. Learn more at hisstorythemusical.com.
