Alyce the Musical, Aug. 23-25
By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
Staff Writer
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Oxford Resident David Fazzini has always dreamed of creating an original musical.
“I dabbled with composition my whole life,” he said. “I wasn’t really in musicals in high school until my senior year, and I got the lead role of Frank Butler in “Annie Get Your Gun.” I spent the last 25 years or so being as close to the stage as possible. I fell in love with the art form. Finally I just thought, ‘wouldn’t it be cool to create something’.”
That dream will be realized in August when “Alyce the Musical” will be performed on stage at Meadow Brook Theatre.
Fazzini is a music teacher and theater director at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, and has been for 25 years.  He also has a degree in music composition, which led him and Mitch Carter to want to write a musical together. Carter wrote the story and lyrics, and Fazzini composed the music.
“The idea came to us a long time ago, but we’ve really worked on it the last 3-4 years,” he said. “Mitch chose two short stories that he was playfully looking to for inspiration.”
The musical is based on the ‘Feathertop,’ a short story by Nathanial Hawthorn, author of ‘The Scarlet Letter’. It tells the story of Mother Rigby, a witch who builds a scarecrow to protect her garden and brings it to life with a magic pipe, which keeps him alive. The scarecrow, named Feathertop, begins to fall in love with a girl in town. He sees his reflection as a scarecrow, instead of a man, and discards the magic pipe as he would rather be dead than to live as a lie.
“Mitch then took that and blew it up into a huge play,” he said. “The only thing we bring from the story is the witch and scarecrow brought to life. It’s a love story in the end. I just love the magic of it.”
Fazzini said he is most inspired in the composition by Stephen Sondheim, known for his composition of the music in musicals like “Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, “Into the Woods”, “Merrily we Roll Along” and many more.
“Not that I’m writing music like him, but the style of that show is in that style,” he said. “It’s a 15 piece orchestra. It’ll sound like classical music in a way.”
The cast of about 45 are mostly associated with Notre Dame Prep, either as current students or alumni.
“Not only is the school supporting the project, the alumni is where the talent came from,” he said. “It’s It’s a dramatic show, it’s a fairytale, but it’s mainly a love story. Hopefully a thrilling night for people.”
For more information and tickets, visit alycethemusical.com. See “Alyce the Musical” at Meadow Brook Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Aug. 23-24, 2 p.m. Aug 25.