Okay - I started this series two years ago with the intent of doing it daily and finishing it in just over a month. I did 15 of 41 installments over the entire course of 2024 and none in 2025. I wish people would stop telling me that the way I fall off and never finish anything is "okay". In no universe is that okay. I need people to have actual expectations of me. My expectations for myself are not too high, it's ridiculous to say so.
So I'm back and will once again be attempting to do this daily. Some members have been subtracted from the group in the past year and one person has been tentatively added. Can't be sure how many installments this series will ultimately have, but it'll be in the vicinity of the original 41.
Today we're looking at Allison McElroy, née Hutson. Her story of joining our crew is a really fun one: when I was gathering the cast of Keys & Kingdoms to record the pilot, Adrienne Fisk, one of the stars of Better Yet?, dropped out of playing Stacky. I was a little bit devastated. I went to Mason and I lamented about how I'd felt Adrienne was the key to the character and how would I ever find someone else who could be so effortlessly funny, sexy, and nerdy all at once.
Allison's name came up instantly, which was very intriguing.
This would have been around mid-2021, I think... timelines are hard... when the theatre was re-mounting their production of Chicago which had been nearly ready to launch when the pandemic hit, and Mason was working with Allison on that. I believe Allison was the one who tells the climactic "Lipschitz" story in "Cell Block Tango". I met with her after I went to see the show and she joined the cast!
Later on when Jen had to drop out, I looked over the team and found that Allison was easily the best candidate to replace her as Alvissa in Irregular Fantasy - resulting in her taking up Jen's former distinction of being the only person to star in both projects.
So she came into the studio and laid down her voice along with the rest of these guys, including singing "Stacky's Ballad", a big solo song. She was very interested in the recording studio and I believe she started working with the engineer, Isaac, on her own musical projects at some point before he left town.
At the end of that year, I worked with her in a production of Beauty and the Beast; she played one of Gaston's trio of groupies, which I found very amusing, as those girls served as the basis for Stacky's design.
Allison also took part in the photoshoot we did to provide reference poses for the Irregular Fantasy teaser, portraying Alvissa physically as well as vocally.
That teaser, we actually finished and released. That was a long time ago. Haven't made a lot of progress since then. Haven't spoken to Allison much either. I keep hoping to bring her back to perform "Elvish Lament", Alvissa's song from an upcoming Irregular Fantasy short promo... but we just can't seem to finish that song. Every time we finish it, it just... comes out bad. So we're back to square one and looking to take a third attempt at putting a melody to the lyrics. And I'm starting to think maybe Allison shouldn't sing it anyway. It's in Swedish. We might need Alvissa to temporarily have a vocal double who speaks Swedish.
So, not sure what Allison's been up to lately. I know of course that she got married last year, that's great. And, as alluded before, she leads a band called The Whatevers who seem to be doing pretty well lately, but I've never had the pleasure of listening to their music.
I've asked her if she knows of another recording studio we can use now that Isaac's out, but on those occasions when I reach out to every team member, well, Allison's among those who doesn't really engage, so, not entirely sure how she's doing lately. Actually, the entire Keys & Kingdoms cast are among those who tend not to answer, which is the kind of weird and unsettling pattern that my anxious brain can't let go.
I suspect that after five years, they just don't really think any of these things are really going to happen. I can't really blame anyone who has that mindset about me, but I'm really trying. I hope this blog post finds Allison and the rest of the team well! Check the 2024 tab for the first 15 installments of this series, and I will again be attempting to put these out daily.
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