Eight Internet addicts gather in a support group called "Friends of Saul" in a church basement and share their stories. Dave Malloy’s Lucille Lortel Award winning musical “Octet” is running at Hudson Valley Shakespeare in Garrison, New York through September 7.
Malloy is a composer/writer/performer/orchestrator whose works include “Moby-Dick,” a four-part musical inspired by Melville’s classic novel; and “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812,” an electropop opera based on a slice of Tolstoy’s “War & Peace” – which earned 12 Tony nominations. He has won two Obie Awards, a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award, a Theater World Award, the Richard Rodgers Award, an ASCAP New Horizons Award and a Jonathan Larson Grant, and has been a MacDowell fellow and Composer-in-Residence at Ars Nova and the Signature Theatre.
For “Octet,” Malloy created the music, lyrics, book, and a cappella vocal arrangements. He drew inspiration from internet comment boards, scientific debates, religious texts, and Sufi poetry.
Hudson Valley Shakespeare’s mounting of “Octet” is the first since its premiere off-Broadway run. Music Director Simone Allen worked on both productions. Esteemed theatrical director Amanda Dehnert heads the show and joins us.
