(spirited music) - Will you "Consider THIS?"

You hear a sermon in church and you're inspired to do something almost out of this world.

And Dave Getz is just that somebody who we have found.

And you have written something special called "Ruth: The Musical."

But before we get to that, I wanna know a little bit more about Dave Getz.

- Yeah.

Well, thanks so much for having me on today.

This is such a privilege to be here in the studio talking about this project, which now has been part of my life for about 14 years.

So, my story though begins and pretty much happens the whole time here in Central Illinois.

I was born and raised in Morton, Illinois.

I attended Illinois Wesleyan University for my undergrad in Music Education.

And I got hired right back at Morton High School, my alma mater.

So I kinda say I've just grown up on Interstate 74, just going back and forth from Morton to Bloomington-Normal.

And my dad worked here in Peoria, so we did a lot of things over here.

And it's been, obviously, a great place to live and grow professionally as well.

And that's kind of pretty much been my whole story.

- That's awesome.

So you're teaching at Morton High School now.

- [David] Yes.

- You're a premier potter or something like that.

I'm not exactly sure.

- Yeah.

And I do have the special caveat of saying that my mom's great grandpa was one of the original founders of the Morton Pottery itself.

- Really?

- So, you know, when people ask, you know, "What's a potter," I have a little bit of family pride in being able to tell that story.

- You should, absolutely.

Okay, so, you studied music, you studied composition.

And then you went to a Sunday sermon.

And it was the gospel, or just the sermon?

- So, actually, when you say I was studying music composition, I actually wasn't at school studying composition.

It was always something I've been just dabbling with on my own, even since I was a little kid.

And I was home for a school break.

It was my senior year, I think, probably around Thanksgiving time.

And I'd just heard the sermon on the story of Ruth.

And, you know, looking back at your life, you know, a lot of things I now look at and see were kind of, you know, coming to a head that this was gonna be an impactful moment.

You don't know that at the time, right?

- [Christine] Right.

- But the pastor was just teaching on the story of Ruth.

And the very first kind of inciting incident, conflict of that story, just really gripped me artistically, kind of thinking like, "Oh, I bet this would be a... "You know, if this were a show, "this would be a great moment for a big song number."

And so even in church that day, I just sketched lyrics to like, "Oh, I bet this is what that person would've sang "if this, you know, were a show."

And I didn't have dreams of, "Oh, I'm gonna turn this into a big production.

"You know, this is gonna be, you know, my passion project "for the next decade."

But it was just one of those ideas that I never really let go of.

And, you know, it just slowly, slowly materialized until it became a full thing.

- Well, so share a little bit about the story of Ruth and Naomi.

- Yeah, so this is a, you know, timeless story.

That's actually the first words that you hear in the show is the words timeless.

And it's not my story.

So I can, you know, brag about that story because it really touches every intersection point I think of the human experience.

And it's not told in a way like the Greek myths where these heroes are larger than life and they're doing, you know, crazy adventures.

These are all conflicts and situations that I think we can all relate to.

- Both joyful and sorrowful.

- Yeah, yeah.

I mean, Act One takes you through the, you know, pits of despair.

And just Naomi experiences, you know, tragic loss.

Ruth experiences the tragic...

They both experienced the loss of their husbands.

And for Naomi, she's away from her family, her homeland, and she's actually living in Moab, which is where Ruth is from.

And so the inciting incident that I first decided to write about was actually from the perspective of Naomi's husband, Elimelech, who because of a famine in the land of Israel decides he's going to move his family out of the land of Israel to Moab.

And, you know, for the Jewish people, that's basically leaving the land of God's promise and protection and provision.

And so that was the song I originally wrote.

And it's still, you know, in the show there.

But it kind of sets in motion this idea of, you know, "What am I gonna do?

"Am I gonna, you know, trust in God even though, you know, "there's no food here, I can't provide anything.

"Or am I going to leave this land of promise "and go away?"

- Take the leap to Moab.

- And so that was the first song I wrote back in 2011.

At the time too, I can even go back and look at my sketches.

I sketched out a couple other, you know, song titles of like, "Oh, maybe this would be another song "somebody would sing."

But it really didn't become any sort of a serious project until probably six, seven years later.

- So Naomi became Ruth's mother-in-law.

- [David] Yeah.

- And she suffered loss because her husband died and both of her sons then, so Ruth's husband and then another son.

So there was a triple sorrow there.

Why did Ruth go with her mother-in-law?

I mean, it was just the human heart strings tugging towards this woman who's really deeply distressed?

- I mean, that's a question I think we have to answer, I try to answer artistically in the show.

And that is probably the most famous moment in the story, if you're familiar with it, is Ruth saying to Naomi, "Wherever you will go, I will go.

"Wherever you will die, I will die."

And so you hear kinda that verse is probably the most famous one that gets quoted.

But, you know, Ruth had another sister-in-law, Orpah.

And Orpah stays in Moab and does not go back to Bethlehem with them.

And I tried to stick pretty to the source material in the show.

But the one creative liberty I saw and I think I added in was Ruth kind of having a soliloquy moment where she's basically saying like, "I don't know Naomi's God.

"I don't know Naomi's land.

"I don't know Naomi's people.

"But I am going to be with her, "even though this is gonna be completely foreign to me."

'Cause at least what I interpret that as we don't really have confirmation that Ruth knew the God of Israel before joining this family or anything like that.

So I did write a song about just trying to explore that question of why is Ruth doing this?

- So you use many of the words straight from the Bible and the stories.

And then you also composed the music.

I mean, that's pretty incredible.

And you were how old then when you did this, when you started it?

- Yeah, so if it was 2011, I'd just turned 21 that summer.

And again, I've been composing my whole life.

So even as a little, you know, eight, nine-year-old, I would, you know... My piano teacher would gimme a song to learn, and I would come back having learned it my own way.

And part of that was, you know, I could play by ear.

I could hear something on the radio and, you know, sit down and play it at the piano.

So it was very easy for me to, not learn the song correctly but learn it good enough to just make up my own version.

And so it really wasn't until early high school that I became really disciplined to, I'd say, like, understand music theory and really figure out, you know, why these dots and dashes and symbols can produce like the stuff that Beethoven and, you know, Bach were writing.

So actually, I took piano lessons from Dr. Ed Kaizer at Bradley through high school.

And he really helped me kind of just understand that, you know, just the why behind music.

- [Christine] Exactly.

- And as a kid, especially when it does come kind of naturally to you, it seems like a magic trick, right?

There's just that you can hear these incredible things.

But until you study it, you don't realize like, "It's just another language."

- And then how do you put it down on paper?

(David chuckles) - It's a lot of grammar, you know.

And it is learning just, you know, why these things work the way they do, how it's organized.

And now, you know, being a teacher now for about 13 years, and I teach a lot of composing students, and I try to use the analogy that it's like a big box of Legos.

That, you know, little kids can put stuff together with no pattern or direction and have a great time.

But experienced craftsmen can make, you know, replicas of the Empire State Building and the Mona Lisa out of these same Lego bricks.

- Without the instructions.

- Probably so.

And the kids that are really interested in it will seek out, you know, model kits where they can follow the directions.

And so, I'd say that's kind of where I was at when I started writing this musical.

You know, I was finishing my degree in Music Ed.

I had spent, you know, four years at an incredible, you know, kind of conservatory at the School of Music at Illinois Wesleyan.

And so I was kind of, again, not knowing at the time, but I think I was ready to start a big project like this.

- The leap.

- The leap, yeah.

- Well, I noticed that you have the fingers for tickling the ivories.

- Yes.

- You know, I mean, there's a certain look to pianists.

And their fingers are long and cover a lot of territory.

So you wrote this and it premiered seven years ago.

So you're doing things by sevens.

Have you noticed that?

- Yeah, I guess so.

- It took you seven years to put this together.

Then you premiered it, and then another seven later.

So tell me about the premier.

What was the most difficult part of that whole thing?

I know you were concerned if anybody would even show up.

- Yeah.

I think if you're a creative person, you're always battling that internal conflict of, you know, will my work be appreciated?

And I think premiering this in my hometown, I kind of knew I was gonna get... You know, I was gonna get, my friends would probably come.

My family was all gonna come.

And they were all gonna probably tell me it was great.

But when you write something of this magnitude, I wanted the, you know, feedback and the credibility from people in my field to say, you know, "This is not just a, you know, "side project of a music teacher, "but this is actually a credible work of musical theater."

So I think that's where the nerves came in is that, you know, what have these last seven years been for?

You know, have I put in all this effort to just write something that's just gonna be, you know, a nice pat on the back from people that knew me.

So there was that kind of trepidation.

But there was also just the excitement of having, you know, completed it.

And I think I actually agreed to do the premiere before I'd even written most of the second act of the show.

- You were asked to premier it?

- Oh, no, that's not true.

I asked people basically like, "If I finish this, will you help me put it on?"

- [Christine] Okay.

- That was kind of, my first ask was to some people I knew in the community.

So I kind of showed 'em what I had done up to that point, which was probably, you know, I'd say the show was probably like maybe 60% written at that point.

And so it was kinda like, "Is there enough here to have a good product?"

So when I got the initial, you know, thumbs up from them, then I'd say the hardest part of the premiere was finding time to finish writing the show while I was doing the administrative side of, you know, recruiting talent and putting rehearsal schedules together, finding venues and all that stuff.

So this time around, it's a lot easier because the show is written, and I don't have to do that work anymore.

But there's just a lot involved in putting on a musical.

- So, yeah, not only did you write it, but then you were the director and the producer.

And you also are a performer because you were on the piano.

- [David] Yeah, yeah, I was wearing a lot of hats in 2018.

- And you will again this time.

- So this time around, I'm going to be the conductor.

Because I've now orchestrated the show for a string orchestra.

So there's gonna be strings, a piano, and an expanded choir.

We only had eight people in the chorus last year.

I intentionally kept it pretty small.

But this time, we've expanded, you know, kind of the whole scale of the production.

So I don't have to practice the piano this time, but I do have to at least know my music well enough to wave the stick and keep everybody together.

(Christine and David laughing) - So you had auditions for the premiere, I believe, or did you?

- Not exactly.

It was a lot more kind of word of mouth recruiting.

I knew I needed, you know, pretty competent, classically trained voices to sing the lead roles of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz.

So I kind of put out a call to, again, people I knew in the area.

You know, being a local music teacher, you know most of the people who are doing this sort of thing.

And I got the names of two ladies who before I even had called them and they agreed, I had no idea that they were nationally touring opera singers.

So Courtney Huffman Frye and Alison Meuth, who ironically both now teach in the same hallway at Bradley University, not at the time, they weren't even in the same town, but they got connected to me.

I reached out, asked them if they wanted to perform in the show.

They both said yes.

And then I went and read their bios, and my jaw just dropped.

And I was like, "What are they doing "agreeing to do the show, you know, of a rookie composer?"

And, you know, I had no credentials to my name at that time.

And so the fact that they agreed to join that product is really what made the premiere successful.

- Oh, I guess.

So they will be returning for- - They will be, yes.

- All right.

- Very, very fortunate that they enjoyed their experience enough to come back.

- And then where did you find the strings?

Where are you bringing those people in from?

- So those are pretty much all local connections of mine.

A lot of them are people...

Some of them are my former students.

Some are, you know, students who have job shadowed me and have gone on and are either studying or have studied music.

A lot of them are just local, you know, people who play in string quartets and coworkers like that.

So it's kind of nice to call in a bunch of favors.

And the nice thing now is, at least I can tell them that there is a fully formed show that has already played once and has been successful.

- "I'll get to that," that last time.

"I'm working on that."

- Yeah, yeah, the first time around, it was a lot of... Again, 'cause I hadn't even written all the songs.

So it was a lot of trying to convince people like, "I think it'll be good, but we'll have to wait and see."

And thankfully, I think it went okay.

- So that was in 2018.

- Yes.

- And so this year, it is at... You'll be performing at Five Points.

- [David] Yeah, Five Points in Washington.

- Okay.

So there's a little bit of a difference there.

Now, let me back up a little bit.

Before you even really decided... You already had your toes dipped, but before you decided, you were in a performance at Peoria Players.

- Yeah, that's true.

So that's kind of the, I would say the inciting incident in my story.

- Okay.

- 'Cause it was 2017.

I remember it was about...

I'm a big journaler and like New Year's resolution guy.

And so, you know, every January, I usually go back and reread my past, you know, journals from that year and kind of make a plan of attack for the coming year.

And I remember telling my wife like in 2017, I was like, "I'm pretty close, you know, to finishing "at least the first act of Ruth."

And I said, "I either want to commit this year "to finishing the show or being in a show."

'Cause I'd never done music theater myself.

And so it was one of those where I was like, "You know what, I should probably get some experience "in actually doing community theater "before I try to put on my own show."

So I decided to make 2017 kind of the year for that.

So I auditioned for "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with the Peoria Players.

And it was a thrilling experience.

It was, I mean, really just so fun.

- There's a lot of talent in this area.

- Oh, well, that's what just kind of blew me away was just... And I mean, that's just one of our incredible companies we have in this area.

But just seeing how a whole bunch of creative people could come together to tell one story, and seeing how just every part, you know, even from the people who weren't on stage, you know, just all the tech and the lighting, the sound, and then, you know, to the actors and the directors.

And it just really inspired me to want to be a part of that from the inception and say, "Okay, you know, if this is how fun it is "to take somebody else's work and elevate it, "I wanna see what it's like to take something I've written "and try to get people around to elevate that."

- Okay.

Well, I like that; that's a good approach.

Now, you don't have costumes though.

You don't have period costumes.

This is more operatic.

Or will you?

- Well, I tell people, "I tried to write a musical "and I wrote an opera by accident."

(Christine laughing) And I think that just comes from my influence in classical music growing up.

I realize I'm probably in the rare company of teenagers who would listen to Beethoven symphonies to inspire me for sporting events.

And I've just always been drawn to that style of music.

And I think it's because, you know, I was really studying it and I kind of understood it.

And I realize it takes a lot of work to listen to classical music if you're not familiar.

So I'm grateful for my teachers who helped me just understand and appreciate that kind of music from an early age.

So there's a lot of classical influence in my show, but there's also a lot of Broadway that comes in.

So, some interesting feedback I got after the first run of shows was there was a lot of, someone told me it was "visual dissonance" to see someone in their early 20s playing something that we associate kind of with this, you know, more classical, high classical era.

And I took that as a profound compliment.

And I think just that this time around, we're actually trying to do a little more efforts to kind of modernize it.

So we're not gonna...

I think this time, we've talked about like, I think we're gonna do all black and have maybe some like light accented costumes, but not full-blown, you know, period piece outfits.

And I think by doing that, it really puts a lot of emphasis on the songs themselves.

And it allows the actors to showcase their vocal talent.

And, as far as we know, I don't think that really distracted from the storytelling.

- Well, I think that you have some wonderful ideas.

And who knows where you're gonna be in another seven years.

And now, this is gonna be July 12th and 13th.

- Yeah.

- All right.

So before I forget, how do people get tickets?

We still have some time to talk, but I don't wanna forget this.

- The first time around in 2018, a friend of mine, again, helped me produce the website.

So it's www.theruthmusical.

It turns out there's actually quite a few musicals that have been written about this story.

So it's hard to find a domain.

So we call it theruthmusical.

And there's a link there, you can go there and get tickets.

- [Christine] And get more information.

- There will also be tickets available at the door.

But I'd encourage you to get 'em in advance.

- So out of all this, I mean, it's frustrating, and you have some different kinds of songs in there.

It's not just all opera, you know.

I'm trying to think what, I can't remember.

You know, it's just one of those days.

But what was the most fun song for you to put together?

- Yeah, so, again when you have so much time, you know, looking back at seven years, there's so many different approaches I took to the crafting of the show.

And I think once I was in the mode of, I knew I was writing unto a performance, that really changed how I was approaching a lot of the songs, especially in the second half of the show.

Once I knew also I had Courtney in the role of Ruth and I knew what she was capable of, that expanded...

It's like an artist being given more colors to work with 'cause I knew, I mean, her, Alison and Steve.

- You knew her range.

- I knew what they were all capable of doing.

And so I would say a lot of the more songs that really showcase the strength of the vocalists are in that second half of the show, not that there isn't some big numbers in Act One.

But writing for the choir was also a lot of fun.

'Cause, you know, writing soprano, alto, tenor, bass, that's where I, again, leaned kind of my classical training.

There's two kind of choir-only pieces that feature kind of just like a four-part chorale like you'd hear Bach write and then a really contrapuntal madrigal style song that you'd hear maybe in like the, you know, High Renaissance time.

So that was kind of a chance for me to kind of leave the more traditional Broadway style and write something that I felt like was my strength.

- So what do you wanna do from here?

Are you gonna do anything else?

Do you want this to go anywhere farther than Central Illinois, or?

- I think any artist who has put this much time into a project would want as many people to see it as possible.

And that is my goal for this would just be as... And again, to be also respected and feel like it's a credible piece in the canon of just musical theater.

I do want this time around also, the big difference also from our 2018 shows was I did those as charity events.

I wanted to use the themes of the story of Ruth to highlight nonprofits in our area that I feel were, you know, emulating the characters.

So I was able to work with Pathway Ministries.

I was able to work with the Midwest Food Bank.

And they were incredible partners to help me get those, you know, original shows off the ground.

So this time, I'm doing it as a more private, just entrepreneurial effort.

And so, this I think will help me I'm hoping to be able to use whatever profits I make from this show to eventually make a professional studio album that would make it marketable at a more national level.

So I do have goals, you know, that I would like to see this show hit.

A lot of that is also dependent on how much time I have to put into it.

So I do hope that, you know, with this run, I can get people who may have a creative vision for it and other directors may say, "Hey, I think we could really do something with this show."

So I'm very open to partnering with other theater companies, local and non, who would wish to see this show really developed as a full stage show.

- Well, even some church organizations could probably...

I mean, would that be a possibility?

You gotta go back in your journal and read all this stuff to see where you're headed.

- Yeah.

I think that is an interest.

A lot of people, you know, have asked me, you know, "Since this is a story rooted in the Bible, "you know, is it something that only like, "should just churches perform this?"

And I've always said, "That was never my intention."

I think this is a story for everyone.

And I think just the themes are so prevalent and even timely now to this particular cultural moment.

The fact that, I mean, we're dealing with immigration.

We're dealing with different racial backgrounds and figuring out how we're gonna resolve these tensions.

So I think just anybody can approach the story and find it both accessible to their lives and also just to reflect on our current cultural moment.

- Right; well, it is a story of compassion.

It's a story of many things.

But I think it's wonderful that, you know, as a young guy, you went to church and that just inspired you to take the leap, you know, the leap of faith, technically.

- And what I also hope... My first year teaching, I was able to start a club for student composers at Morton High School.

And every year, we give a student-composition recital.

We've premiered over 90 works.

I've been able to partner with all the local universities around here to, they bring in musicians to play the works of my students.

Because I think it's, one, the act of composition can be a very lonely, isolating business where you're just sitting, you know, with your, you know, at the computer or a notebook or just something and your instrument.

But to actually share that music and share that with, I think especially with your local community and the people who have inspired you, I think is something profound.

It does something...

I know it's done something for me.

And I hope it's done something for the people who have heard my music.

But being able to then also have my students see that I'm still doing this as an adult.

And I know a lot of people, this is their main job is writing shows and trying to get them produced.

You know, that's why you usually see them moving to Chicago or New York City, right?

You have to kind of go where the producers are.

So I kind of wanted to just say, "Hey, what if we just did this right here?"

You know, I didn't wake up in November of 2011 and look at my calendar and say, "Oh, it's time to start working on my musical."

- [Christine] Right, but you're doing it.

- And so I think anybody who has even a small idea and takes that first step can hopefully look at what I'm doing and say, "If I just keep building this fire "and keep bringing people around who will support me, "and also I can also encourage them, "I think that creates this experience "that is incredibly unique for our community."

- Well, you're incredible.

And you're helping out the next generation, a couple of generations.

Thanks for sharing the story of "Ruth: The Musical."

It's gonna be in July at Five Points.

So Dave Getz, thank you.

Thanks for sharing your story.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- I hope you enjoyed his story and learning a little bit about the story of Ruth.

Stay well.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music fades)