Musical comedy makes its way through the maze to Bay Street

Ever wonder how a new musical comedy finds its way to a theater willing to give it a workshop production? In the case of “Murder for Two,” with music and book by Joe Kinosian and book and lyrics by Kellen Blair—which will be on stage at Bay Street in Sag Harbor for a one-night workshop performance on Saturday, January 23—the process seems like a marriage of “connect the dots” and “find a way through the maze.”

Picture a game board, or a maze drawn on paper. Bay Street Theatre is in the center; Mr. Kinosian is at one entry point at a top corner, and Mr. Blair is at another. At the other two corners are musical theater producer Jayson Raitt and director Thomas Caruso.

Mr. Kinosian, whose corner represents a small town near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, enters the maze and makes his way to Savannah College of Art and Design, where he studies film and television production. After graduating in 2003, he heads to New York City, where he works on some movie shoots, although he begins to realize that, based on some of his training and experience in high school and college, he is more interested in playing piano for musical theater and acting.

Meanwhile, Mr. Blair enters from his corner out in Seattle, Washington, and goes directly to film school at Chapman University in Orange County in southern California. By the time he graduates, he has realized that he really wants to work in musical theater, and so he heads for New York.

In the fall of 2008, the two men’s paths cross for the first time when both enroll in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, where some 15 lyricists like Mr. Blair are paired off with composers like Mr. Kinosian and given assignments to work on that will introduce them to the rigors of songwriting collaboration.

After completing an assignment to come up with a “charm song” for “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Mr. Blair said in a telephone interview this week that both men thought the process was “a good mix and a good time and we worked well together.” During the summer break between the first and second years of the two-year program, both of them wanted to write “something we could do ... something that would be very funny and easily producible.”

The result was “Murder for Two,” a two-person murder mystery mu-

sical comedy in which one actor plays the detective, another actor (Mr. Kinosian) plays all the suspects, and they both play the piano.

And the game might have stopped there if Jayson Raitt hadn’t entered from his corner, arriving in New York some four and a half years ago to develop new musicals, after seven years of working with the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Jumping in with both feet, in 2006 he produced the annual festival of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre in New York.

Mr. Raitt had been introduced to Mr. Blair a year and a half ago when Mr. Blair moved east from L.A. “When Kellen went to BMI, I gave him some advice,” Mr. Raitt said in a separate phone interview this week. “I told him to write something people want to see, make a lot of money, and then he could write musicals about the issue or the disease of the week,” he said with a laugh.

After Mr. Kinosian and Mr. Blair finished writing “Murder for Two,” they put together a first reading last summer—and one of the people invited to see it was Mr. Raitt.

Calling it “the most hysterical reading I’ve ever been to,” Mr. Raitt said that he saw the writing partners’ talent right away, and knew just what to do with it. “I can shepherd this,” the producer recalled saying to himself. “I can see it thriving in regional theaters across the country.”

The show was now close to getting a full workshop production, but one more link was needed to connect the project to Bay Street. Enter Thomas Caruso, a director Mr. Raitt had known for a long time, whose sensibility, in the producer’s view, would be “a good fit.”

Mr. Caruso was brought on board in September to help put together another reading in October. Having directed “Earth to Bucky” and a couple of readings at Bay Street, Mr. Caruso had established a solid relationship with the theater’s artistic directors, Sybil Burton and Murphy Davis, and he asked them to come to New York for the October reading.

That invitation, and their experience at the reading, led to another invitation, this time for the show to be presented in Sag Harbor. As of now, at least two more workshop presentations are planned: at the Adirondack Theater Festival in Glens Falls, New York, in July, and at a theater in San Francisco in the fall.

Since Mr. Kellen doesn’t perform, casting for the role of the detective posed a challenge. “We have a rare asset in Joe,” Mr. Kellen acknowledged, “a writing, acting, singing piano player.” But any fears the creators might have had about finding the right person to play opposite the composer-performer were erased when Adam Overett, a friend of Mr. Kinosian who moved in the same musical theater circles, showed up for the audition.

“Adam got the jokes right away,” Mr. Kellen said. “He was the first one who auditioned who got the frenzied pace and humor.”

And since Mr. Kinosian already knew him, Mr. Overett proved to be an easy fit for an antic piece that features one character playing the piano at some points, another playing at different times, and sometimes two characters playing together.

Looking back on the experience of creating the show, Mr. Kellen said that “the really fun part was working on the book together.” In the beginning, there was a clear division of labor, with Mr. Kinosian writing all the suspects and Mr. Kellen writing the detective. “Joe approached it from an actor’s standpoint,” Mr. Kellen recalled, “creating individual voices for all the suspects, different characters. I was working to have the detective drive the show forward.”

In a separate interview, Mr. Kinosian confirmed that the two men started out on separate tracks, but he said that within a few days the process became more integrated, with both writers working on all the characters and the story.

“Joe has a good ear for dialogue and great punch lines,” Mr. Kellen said, explaining that while he was working to make sure story lines were working and arcs were completed, he “might suggest ‘this is the type of joke that should go here,’ and then Joe would come up with that kind of joke on the spot.”

The story that unfolds during the tightly choreographed action around the piano involves Officer Marcus, who longs to shed his shoddy reputation and finally become a detective. The perfect opportunity to prove himself arises when great American novelist Arthur Whitney is unexpectedly shot in the forehead at his surprise birthday party. When Marcus is thrown into “a zany drawing room full of bombastic ballerinas, bickering old couples, and wiseacre choir boys,” according to Mr. Kellen’s synopsis, “he quickly learns that everybody in town has a dirty little secret.”

From Mr. Raitt’s perspective, the main goals of doing the show at Bay Street are twofold. One is simply to take advantage of the opportunity to work with the team at Bay Street Theatre, whom he saluted for their commitment to “developing new work and new shows.”

The other main goal is “to fine-tune and continue working on the show,” the producer said. “It’s very close ... It’s almost there.”

“Murder for Two” will be presented at Bay Street Theatre on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor on Saturday, January 23, at 8 p.m. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. and tickets, $15, will be sold at the door. While the Bay Street box office is closed, tickets for all events can be purchased on the night of performances. For questions or more information, call 725-0818 or visit www.baystreet.org.