The first name I drew was that of Chris Davis, a member of the Facebook group I haven't actually had any real contact with in several years. At first that felt like an inauspicious beginning to this series, but then I realized it actually makes for a pretty good introduction to the chronology of TAPAS and Stuff Productions.
It all began in late 2017. Several years after happening upon the theatre scene in Quincy, Illinois and finding it the one place I'd ever been where I didn't feel like a clueless loser, I returned with intent to start TAPAS -- the group was properly founded on March 28, 2018, and Chris is one of the small handful of people who's been part of the group from that very day.
But before that, back to Quincy I came, quickly joining the cast of their production of She Loves Me and with big plans in mind. Inspired by the theatre community I had found and my recent deep dive into the complete works of Team StarKid, I had written a musical about the classic Dungeons & Dragons hero Drizzt Do'Urden, in the style of the Harry Potter musicals which had put StarKid on the map. With a completed script and lyrics, and an idea for the melody of roughly half of the songs, the next step was to get a composer, and I was sure such a mind could be found in Quincy. Speaking with director Brandon Thomsen about it over the course of She Loves Me rehearsals, he eventually guided me to Chris Davis.
We had a meeting at Steak n' Shake, facilitated by Gretchen Wolfmeyer, now a TAPAS staple, whom I had just met during She Loves Me. I pitched the project to Chris, we went home and I sent him all the material via email... and that's the end of that story, nothing ever came of it.
The last thing I'm aiming to do is try to paint Chris as flaky; he was not the first composer I'd met with, filled in on all the details of the Drizzt musical, and agreed to get started, only for things to get in the way before it ever began. Nor was he the last. I might be tempted to suggest all composers are that flaky; let's just say that we at TAPAS have had terrible luck with them over the years. Getting better all the time! These were all steps on the journey and I learned a little bit each time.
Probably for the best that the pursuit of the Drizzt musical never took off at the time. The script was twice as long as it should have been, and Drizzt is not as obscure of a character as my hipster ass believed him to be; I expect the fact that I've only read half of his adventures has resulted in a number of terrible inaccuracies in the original script which people would have noticed for sure. I'll get back to it one day, after gaining a thorough understanding of the entire Drizzt saga and the community surrounding it.
And so, yeah, haven't spoken to Chris in a few years. When people don't follow up with me, well, I'm not willing to nag them very hard. Sometimes I wish I was, but I can't imagine that going well. People have rich and detailed lives going on and often agree to take on more than they can handle. That's just life for you.
But he remains in the TAPAS Facebook group, where he's often among the first few people to see any given post. And he's active on Facebook in general, where little glimpses of his life pop up for me now and then. He speaks highly of his four children, as he should. Every year he posts a tribute to his late father with the exact same photograph each time, every Thanksgiving he shares "Alice's Restaurant", and, ah, here's a picture of him hanging out with Ed Asner when he came to town in 2018, so that's freakin' sweet.
I always like to imagine that everyone I know has a future with TAPAS, so I hope I haven't seen the last of Chris. Thank you for reading part 1 of this series on the blog. The other 40... have the potential to be out in the next 40 days. We'll see.
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