Montclair High School senior James Feinberg loves theater. Now Feinberg, who will attend Brown this fall and plans to major in Literary Arts, has created his own original musical, one that will be performed by Montclair High school seniors this month.
“Originally I had a concept for a screenplay about two actors playing the leads in a series of romantic comedies (like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan), who would, over the course of years, become close friends and then fall in love. But I had always wanted to do a musical for my senior option, and this concept was the only one I could think of that only really required two people — which made it a lot easier to implement. So I started working on it in September and finished the book and lyrics near the end of March.”
The result? “Boy Meets Girl,” a musical romantic comedy, where a depressed comedian and headstrong actress become close friends as they simultaneously evolve as a rom-com screen pairing. Boy Meets Girl stars Daisy Garrison (MHS senior) and Sam Norrie (MHS senior), both fresh off lead roles in SVPA’s Pippin.
In addition to writing the book for the musical, Feinberg directs and also penned all the lyrics and sought out composers Austin Karkowsky, Mark Roos, Kristen Dziuba, and Liam Kaplan (MHS senior) to create the music. Feinberg’s sister Lily Feinberg, an MHS sophomore, is production manager. Musical direction by Kristen Dziuba.
Feinberg says of his musical collaboration, “I worked with four separate composers, two from New York and Texas who I worked with via email and Google Docs, and two from Montclair. I would always write the lyrics first, send them away, and cooperate with the composer with notes and revisions on music they would send me.”
See “Boy Meets Girl,” Friday, June 10, 7 p.m. at the Little Theater at Montclair High School. PG-13 themes.