Original Broadway Cast Album

PigPen’s company ethos and approach to WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

For PigPen Theatre Co., the seven-man band of theatremakers from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama who have worn nearly every hat in the industry (writing, acting, directing, composing, producing, puppet-making, festival curating), there is really only one leader in the group: story. 

PigPen has spent seventeen years becoming one of the longest running ensembles (and friendships) in the American Theater. Despite all that time together, PigPen’s capacity to surprise each other remains as high as their capacity to finish each other’s sentences. This is what has allowed them to turn what could have been a recipe for too-many-cooks into a full-service story-generating cross-disciplinary kitchen. The results are often poignant, playful, and sophisticated stories that awaken the imagination and inspire audiences worldwide to live life more creatively. PigPen’s goal in all of their shows is to transport the audience with a gripping tale, while simultaneously inviting them to experience the thrill of the process that got it to the stage.

But the beating heart of all their endeavors, the engine of their collaboration, has always been music. If ever there was a creative problem that seemed insurmountable, music was almost always the answer. And with seven tunesmiths, PigPen has a seemingly endless well of melodies to suit every mood in their original shows, homespun spectacles like their flagship show THE OLD MAN AND THE OLD MOON, a rollicking sea-faring adventure performed to rave reviews all over the country. PigPen’s affinity for music also took them on the road as a band to concerts and music festivals in over 40 cities a year, bringing their penchant for spinning a yarn into their sets and elevating the evening. They continued bending with the rules of musical storytelling with THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, an adaptation of the Newberry Award Winning novel which PigPen wrote, co-directed, and performed in, produced by Universal Theatrical, as well as a collaboration with VIRGIN VOYAGES on a pop-up, traveling trunk-style immersive cabaret show set at sea.

But all roads lead to the circus, as they say (and if they don’t, they certainly should!) The group’s innate “all-hands-on-deck” collaboration was a bedrock to the WATER FOR ELEPHANTS writers room for eight years. Everyone in the room (producers, director, bookwriter, composers) took the feather in their caps out, rolled up their sleeves, and hammered out characters, plot, and themes that would make a compelling stage adaptation. The building blocks of dialogue, songs, style, and resourceful theatrical tricks were all in conversation, but only if in service to what this group of a dozen people deemed to be the most compelling narrative collectively. Only after a story event had been ironed out thoroughly would PigPen transform it into song.

The company’s process for songwriting is constantly evolving, but for WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, it tended to fall into one of two categories. The first would begin with one or two members presenting an initial idea composed of lyrics, a melody, or even just a striking visual or staging concept, and the group would take it and run with it – adding instrumentation, tweaking lyrics, or writing new sections. The second category would begin with the band jamming – improvising on a genre, an emotional arc, a musical interpretation of an environment.

In either case, one “head songwriter” would usually emerge to put their individual stamp on the song. For example, the folk stylings and lyrics of Gillen, Falberg, and Ferguson paved the way for ROAD, ZOSTAN, and FUNNY ANGEL respectively. Shahi’s percussive groove, mimicking the hoofbeats of an injured horse, became the foundation of EASY. Melia often brought guitar forward ballads, like SILVER STARS, or Marlena’s poetic voice to the group. Weschler’s wordplay is all over the show and finds a home especially in August’s LION early on. Nuernberger notated every melody along the way – going so far as to compose “proof-of-concept” orchestrations and arrangements for the entire score, which helped to bridge the imaginative gap between the initial demos and the grander aspirations for the sound of the show.

But despite this loose approximation of hierarchy, every song in its final form is the product of all seven writers. Lyrics and instruments would exchange hands almost daily, songs were split and combined, shifted and rewritten, translated and transformed. And this went on for eight years, until the show sounded, not like any single individual, but the unpredictable yet cohesive sonic world we experience on stage every night in WATER FOR ELEPHANTS.

Listen to the music that influenced PigPen Theatre Co.