Most of the time when high school teachers show videos to their students, it’s a great chance to pass notes, check text messages or catch up on sleep. But the video Emily Weiss’s neuroscience teacher showed her class several years ago caught her attention.
It was the story of Clive Wearing, a brilliant British musician who developed one of the worst cases of amnesia ever recorded after encephalitis destroyed part of his brain. Once a respected classical music conductor and producer, all he could remember after was how to play music and how much he loved his wife Deborah. Because of his condition, each moment felt to Clive like the first time he had been conscious for years. Each time he saw his wife, he fell in love with her all over again – greeting her with a warm embrace and exclaiming, “Deborah, my love! How long has it been?”
“It was the most unbelievable version of true love,” says Weiss, now a Communication senior. “He was always so excited to see her. His love for her was so exaggerated that it was really funny and sweet, but ultimately sad because it was such an uneven love.”
The story intrigued and inspired Weiss so much that, after seeing the video again in her freshman psychology class, she decided to write a musical based on it. That musical, How to Wake Up, premieres tonight at Shanley Pavilion.
Weiss, having worked with Communication senior Ryan Smith on Waa-Mu and having seen Communication senior Diana Glazer’s directing capabilities in 2004’s Assassins, asked the two to help her transform the psychological case study into a musical. After the three began working on the script and music, Smith had to leave the project, so Communication sophomore Philip Markle joined Weiss and Glazer to help write music and lyrics.
“I came on board in January, right before auditions were to begin, which meant that in a week we had to get callback material ready,” Markle says. “So right from the start, it’s been a fast-paced writing process.”
Now singing and acting in the show in addition to writing for it, Markle says How to Wake Up is the “most rewarding thing” he has ever done.
“I believe so passionately in Clive’s story,” he says. “I’d never come across a story that translated so perfectly into a musical – music was such a part of Clive and Deborah’s life before and after his illness.”
The musical focuses mainly on the relationship between Clive and Deborah, played by Music seniors Ben Diskant and Laura Quest. Communication senior John Dixon plays John, a character Weiss calls “an amalgamation of all of Deborah’s other lovers.” Four other actors complete the cast – Markle, Music freshman Nick Shultz, Communication sophomore Lauren Rankin and Communication freshman Lily Howard – mainly playing the members of Clive’s choir, but also filling in where other characters are needed.
Glazer says the musical is effective because it’s “in a very classic way, a story about human emotion and relationships.”
“There are no gimmicks, nothing in the sense of the glitzy, tacky musicals that are really popular today, ” Glazer says. “It stands for something (Weiss) and I really believe in – that if you really love someone, you will do anything for them. They just get under your skin, and you can’t forget them.
“There is something so special about what’s happening now that the past and future can’t compete.”
How to Wake Up is playing at Shanley Pavilion, 2031 Sheridan Rd. Showtimes are at 8 p.m. tonight and 8 and 11 p.m. on Friday, April 21, and Saturday, April 22. Student tickets are $5 at the box office.
Medill sophomore Anna Maltby is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
