"Born To Do This": Joan of Arc's Journey to Norwell's Company Theatre

In just a few weeks, the world premiere of a rock opera is coming to the Company Theatre in Norwell, and it's a production that tells the story of a strong young woman you may have learned about in your history books: Joan of Arc. "Born To Do This" is the brainchild of Zoe Bradford, a playwright and co-founder of the Company Theatre. She returns to the show to talk about the show and her creative process.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend, where each
week we come together we talk aboutall the topics important to you and the
place where you live. So goodto be back with you again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. Now, whenyou think of rock operas, a
few albums immediately come to mind,At least for me, I'm thinking Tommy
by the Who, The Wall byPink, Floyd green Day's American Idiot.

(00:30):
And then on the stage, ifyou're talking about rock musicals, We've got
Rent School of Rock, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Rock of Ages. I
mean, the list is a milelong, and they're all so good.
Over in Norwell at the Company Theater. For a few years now there has
been an idea for a new rockopera percolating in the mind of Zoe Bradford.

(00:51):
This all comes from a young womanwho was alive, not anytime recently.
We're talking centuries ago, a womanmany, including Zoe, say,
is misunderstood and taken too soon.Yes, and I don't need Voltaire to
keep this stroll from my give it. It's called Born to Do This and

(01:27):
it's the story of Joan of Arc. Let's learn all about it. We
last heard from Zoe during the heightof the pandemic. But Zoe, you're
back here on the show with usnow. It is so good to have
you here again. And I'm sohappy, honestly that the theater is going
strong. Right. We are agem. I'm very proud to say that.
M forty four years ago I foundedthe theater with my partner, Jordi

(01:49):
Saucerman, my theater partner who didPassing twenty twenty. But we miss her
terribly, but we carry on inher legacy, for sure. We have
um we're basically a musical theater company, but we try to do non musical
plays and so on once in awhile as well. Each each season we
put on at least eight performing eightproductions a year, so it's quite aggressive.

(02:13):
And you know, as far asour schedule goes, we are busy
all the time. And we alsohave a youth theater that produces teen musicals
that's very challenging and well attended.People love them just as much as our
regular shows. Well sure, Imean people when it comes to kids in
theater. I remember back in theday when I was in elementary school in
high school, my mom would alwayscome to my theater shows. I think

(02:35):
at that age you have a lotof fun with it, right, You're
learning about your own persona and you'reallowed to be really whoever you want to
be on the stage. So Ireally enjoy it. We're all about be
who you want to be, whoyou are. That's what our show is
about too. I mean it reallyis, you know, dare to be
yourself. That's that's a very importantmessage. Yeah. Yeah, Now,
last time we talked, we weredealing with the I guess the after effects

(02:57):
of the height of COVID. ObviouslyCOVID is still here, but it really
did hit the theater industry pretty hard. And talk to me a little bit
about how you are working to recoverfrom that. Well, you know,
it's important to just stay in thepublic eye. We did all during COVID.
We did outdoor performances as much aswe could, whether allowing, you
know, tried to just keep peopleengaged in any way that we could.

(03:20):
We carried on. We started backup in twenty twenty one. I mean,
obviously ticket sales are a little lesspresale now. I think all the
theaters are finding that, so thatmakes it a little more nerve wracking for
the producer. But you know,people need entertainment and we're here to provide
it, that's for sure. Well, yeah, speaking of entertainment, we

(03:42):
are mostly here to talk about somethingthat's been kind of percolating in your brain
for a long long time. Thisis a show about Joan of Arc.
And when I was told that thiswas a thing and this was happening,
I'm like, wait a minute,does a Broadway show a rock opera about
Joan of Arc. I've got tolearn about this. So this was your
idea. Tell me about when youfirst got the idea that, hmm,

(04:04):
I want to make a rock opera, and then hmm, I wanted to
be about Joan of Arc. Howdid the whole coming again? But that's
a great question. You know,I have a couple of pretty hugely successful
actually musicals that I wrote, cowrote with others. You know, I'm
not a composer, but you know, writing the book and lyrics and so
on. So I was award winof my glory Land in the nineties with

(04:25):
Paragon Park. In the two thousands, I said, I got another one
in me. But I just couldn'tfind anything that was inspiring. Man,
I just sort of tucked it away, and then just one night it just
was so odd. It just Joanof Arc just popped into my head no
reason at all, and I wasjust like hmm, and it was just
right about Joan. It was almostlike a message like okay, okay,

(04:46):
well let me let me find outabout more about her. I mean a
lot of people know how she died, but when you find out about how
she lived, Wow, what anda remarkable young woman she was. She
was just like so few others thatI've ever read about. And I immediately
became excited and went to one ofour musical directors here, Melissa Karubia,

(05:09):
who composes quite a bit, evendoes youth composing as well, and you
know, like creat a musical inthree weeks kind of thing with our summer
program with our students. But um, and she's got to the musical running
in Boston, which she musically composedthat. So anyway, I knew she
had that under her belt. AndI said, mel I want something that's

(05:31):
um, you know, catchy,but rock, contemporary, exciting, accessible,
memorable, and she said, Ican compose in any style you want.
And I'm like, okay, wellthen you're the person for me,
you you know, so she andshe then I told her about the theme
and she laughed, but then shestarted looking into it, and then we

(05:54):
were looking into it together. Andthen we invited Michael Hammond, who was
my co author on Paragon Park,to be basically our basically he was trying
to think of the right. Wecall him a collaborator, but he was
the everything guy. He was putting, he was keeping us organized, he
was, you know, doing editfor us. He was you know,
cheering us on or remarkably as aswe composed and so on, and so

(06:19):
we um worked on us for acouple of years. But then as here's
what the interesting thing was was,as the political climate was heightening, as
women had more challenges in the publiceye, it seemed or some things were
going sort of backwards for women.Um I said, you know what,
we havent do this now. Sowe made the commitment summer of Jane twenty

(06:42):
twenty three, let's get this done. And so in the last year and
a half we really pushed. Wewent into retreat sometimes at the Glastonbury Abbey
and Hingham was really fun. Itwas beautiful there, it's quiet. We
could just hide because at the theater, at Company Theater, it's it's at
the inner Machine. We're constantly busy, so we had to kind of runaway
and trade this thing. And andand we would, uh, Michael and

(07:05):
mel and I would sit around andtalk about stuff, talk about current events,
talk about all the historical stuff weread, talk about the characters we
wanted to be in it, andthen we just ran with it. That's
a really good point, like,how are you meshing current events when it
comes to women's rights and everything elsegoing on? How are you making it
a point to mesh that while notlosing the historical side of the story of

(07:25):
what really happened to Joan of arcRight, this was six hundred years ago,
right, But some days that wewould come in on our writing sessions
and it would feel like this happenedyesterday. Um, you know it was
Joan really defied her her authorities.Um, she was actually put to death
because she was wearing men's clothes,which I think is kind of a relevant

(07:48):
point right now today. Um.And she you know, did she her
station in life? You know,she was born a peasant, she was
illiterate, and yet she was brilliantin the she became a brilliant in the
art of war and strategy is whatI should say. She had strategies that
were profound, and she won asignificant battle in one hundred year War led

(08:11):
an army of five thousand men.I mean men who were her comrades and
arms were stepping aside and saying,let her do this. She knows what
she's doing. She'd never even beenon a horse before, and all of
a sudden she's traveling across France ona horse, and she was excited.
She wanted a war horse, andshe got a beautiful one from the Dauphin,

(08:31):
who, if you don't know yourFrench stuff, that's a prince who
was in hiding. They France hadno ruler at that time. France had
no no one in control. Theking was dead and the Dauphin had wanted
nothing to do with the war orthe significance of all of his people being

(08:52):
like taken over by the English.Wow definitely a man in hiding, and
it was her goal to not onlywin a significant battle where people in a
city called orle On were starving,they'd been prisoners for four months, they
had no water, they had alot of death in there and the whole
the all undersiege. And not onlydid she win that battle, which was

(09:15):
predicted to be almost impossible for theFrench to win at that point they were
so downtrodden, but then she proceededto get that Dauphin crowned as king.
Wow, all like miraculous things,really cool stuff. Yeah, her history
is really cool. But when youthink about, you know, how do
you believe a woman? Well,now here's another interesting thing is you know,

(09:37):
sometimes women in history are really questionedwhen they say something like I can
lead an army or I have visions. So there's a spiritual side to this
story as well, because as aneleven year old child, the archangel Michael
came to her and she continued tohave some visions throughout her young life,
and you know, and she waslaughed off. And current day people some

(10:01):
people will say, well, wasshe you know, just get the frontic
or did she have issues? Butwhen you read her the trial transcripts she
was in a trial for five months, You're like, there's nothing wrong with
this woman. She as sharp asanything, or all of her answers are
coherent. She's kind of sassy anduh, you know, tried to remain
with her sense of humor, whichwe found very important as we were creating

(10:24):
this. You have to have somehumor in this thing, and you have
to have a believability in this person. Sure. But you know, as
I was saying to some people,you know, nobody, she said,
I have a vision and this iswhat I have to do to save our
people, and you know, waslaughed off. But you know, Moses
came down from a mountain and said, a burning bush track to him and

(10:45):
it was God and he wasn't lastlaughed off. I mean stranger things,
right, right, So you know, women, women have a question of
believability sometimes, even I think ofHarriet Tubman for instance. She you know,
she was had injured as a youngperson, but you know, still
proceeded to you know, and somepeople questioned her abilities and you know,

(11:07):
sanity, and look at all thelives she saved. I mean, unbelievable.
And even the present day, womenare often questioned, you know,
even though we may be the mosteducated on a subject, or we might
be the most somebody who knows somethingbetter than anybody else in the field,
and still because we're women, there'salways this like a cloud of deniability or

(11:28):
something over many of us. Soit's it's sad that this is a tale
as old as time, but it'salso relatable that it's a tale as old
as time, right, and theFrench you have wonderful stories. I mean,
let's think about it as the Hunchbackand like miss you know, and
all these beautiful tales. And Ijust was like, this should be not
only a French classic, but aclassic for everyone. I think, are

(11:52):
we've really tried to make our showattainable for young people after I saw the
Hamilton frenzy exactly, you know,and how people were just like wow,
I can tell you that, youknow, I learned so much about Alexander
Hamilton that I never would have thoughtbefore. But it's so catchy, you
know, It's so catchy and youcan't help but be kind of obsessed with
it. And that's how I feelour show is transpiring. There's all these

(12:15):
cool characters in it because her peoplearound her were so interesting that she has
this great supporting cast, and Ithink that makes the show rich. And
they have fun songs to sing andvery dramatic things too, of course,
but um, you know, whenyou lock yourself in a statue. That's
one thing. She's not trapped instained glass or in a story. She's

(12:37):
coming alive. That's so cool.Yeah, I love it. And then
I think of you know, andthen I think of kids. How could
a seventeen years old you know whosays, um, you know, I
will dare and dare and dare untilI die. I mean, who says
that? But she was so committedand I'll blew my mind too. It's
like wow, wow, Yeah,that you bring up a really good point.

(13:01):
When it comes to casting, youneed to make sure that the right
person is portraying this character. Thisnot just historical character, but also this
this character that you're creating in yourmind. What was the process like to
cast for this? Oh? Boy? Was that challenging? Yes? It
was because we had We had twoworkshops and I'm super grateful to about forty

(13:22):
people in each workshop, like workedthrough our act one and then worked through
it again. We never got toworkshop Act two for our timeline. But
in that process, you know,we picked two different women who had played
Jean Joan and then they were great. But then when we had the open
call, one actress shine and shewas shining out amongst amongst them all.

(13:48):
Her name is Eliza Gia Grande andshe's an up and coming Boston area kind
of like little celebrity there. She'sdoing very well with film and television and
theater. She was recently and LittleWomen, and I think it's great to
Boston stage where she played Joe andcoming off of that kind of a Tom
boyish kind of a role. Um, she said, yeah, I'm ready

(14:09):
to do this. And she's gota powerhouse voice but also a huge commitment.
And when she sang, um,just a phrase, you know,
a few phrases out of our titlesong, I'm like, oh wow,
okay, yeah, she gets it. So um, we were very excited
to cast her and then um andthen finding the others too. We also

(14:30):
show Jean's childhood a little bit.So I call her John because you know,
just like it wouldn't call John BellJohn. And right, Joan is
very um, you know, shewas so compelling as a child as well.
So she and her brothers are inum a portion of it, and
her parents, um, when they'rewhen they're all when the kids are younger

(14:52):
about you know, eleven years oldand so on. So that's really special
too. That was a fun thingto cast the uh, the young adult
and the child seemed to have similarsimilar mannerisms and gestures and look, so
that's really beautiful and uh, yeah, I love I love the casting process.
It's you know, intense, butit's very very important and everybody was

(15:16):
who's supporting her had to have that. Um, well, the actors had
to take a leap of faith.I think I really have to say that
because they don't know what it is. Oh and gee, you know,
you know whatever cabaret is playing.You know, they're auditioning down the street
and I know that. So Iwant to be in that sure, but
you know, but we but weconvinced enough people through our workshops and you

(15:37):
know, outreach that this would beoriginate a role. It's never easy to
be the first one to do something, but in a way, you're setting
the standard in that way, andthat's kind of heavy for anybody who is
on a stage doing that, butalso watching your ideas and your imagination come
to life, Like what is thatfor you? How does that feel?

(16:00):
It's unbelievable. The first time Iheard some of the music, I have
this um, beautiful African American actorwho we just found a little bit later
in the process, was playing thearchangel Michael, and when he sang this
beautiful song chosen, I was justmelting. He sings it to the older
Joan and she's going off making thedecision to run away from home and so

(16:23):
on, and I just was gettingchills. Then I hear something like the
ensemble is joining in and for thefirst time and singing one of the one
of the group numbers. I'm like, oh my gosh. Because Melissa has
done a masterful job not only ofcomposing but of arranging harmonies because she herself
as a performer, so she knowsthat, you know, we want the

(16:47):
material to be rich, so thatthe actors can really glom onto it,
to feel that they if they're singingit, they've accomplished something, you know.
And then the four part harmonies andso on are really fantastic. And
then brought on Jerry Sikes. She'sa professor over at Berkeley and she does
orchestration is her thing, one ofher things, and she has orchestrated for

(17:11):
a fourteen piece orchestra, so we'reyou know, that will be my next
excitement is hearing all of them playtogether with the cast it's it's like a
dream. I'm so blessed to havepeople who got on the train to ride.
Well, look they've got a goodconductor. Right, So you've done

(17:32):
this before. Oh yeah, Imean you've done this before. You're a
beloved member of the of the CompanyTheater in the community. I mean,
people trust your vision and they trustyour expertise, and I, for one,
I'm really excited to see this andso tell us where people, like,
when is it going to open?Obviously it's at the Company Theater,
but you know, tell us allthe details we need to know. Yeah,

(17:52):
so we're going to be opening Julytwenty eight. Okay, we played
to August twentieth, so it's onlya four week run and uh it's weekends
Thursday through Sundays, and we're veryexcited for it. I think you can
just you know, go online atCompany Theater dot com and get tickets.
That's how most people do. Wehave some box office hours, you can
see that on our website. Um, you know, and uh, we

(18:15):
do have student rush available and grouprates and so on, so you know,
there's opportunities for all to be ableto come and see it, which
is wonderful too. And we can'twait for people to experience this and feel
the thrill of um no one's everseen it before, yeah, you know.
And and all of a sudden she'sout there in her armor with a

(18:37):
war horse. We actually even havea horse on stage. Not alive wow,
oh yeah, not alive one I'llquickly at in. But yeah,
with the whole thing, and uh, you're gonna feel like amazed. I
have a wonderful customer. Her nameis Rachel um and she is, uh,

(18:57):
you know, just a super talentsaid woman who is gonna you know,
we're combining contemporary with um, youknow, classic, so you're going
to see some things that you mightreally love it that. It's Rachel Padullah
Shoefeldt and she's very well known inthe Boston area for all her beautiful customing
and wigs and makeup work. Sowe're very lucky to get her too.

(19:18):
And my whole team is really umcreative, you know, my set designer
and so on. We've come upwith some really cool concepts in the in
the staging and the lighting, inthe sound effects, you know, in
visuals. We're going to be doingprojections. So I think it's gonna be
this like blast off thing. Yeah, it's not to be missed. You

(19:40):
know, I've been doing this forso long, and I know when people
are going to be bored or theymight tune out, or when they might
be confused about who's who. Youknow, even something even a beautiful masterwork
likely mi is you can just kindof settle in and think, oh,
yeah, that guy was one ofthe students and this and that. So
we you know, we're taking thatinto consideration. We're trying to address people
certain ways that are recognizable to theircharacter and so on. I think we're

(20:04):
really trying to be aware of whatpeople are gonna catch on too. I
think it's also a show that hasa lot of wonderful lyrics and actions,
and you might want to see ittwice, who knows. Yeah, I
mean it's only it's only a limitedtime. Yeah, absolutely, there'll be
a lot to see. It'll bea you know, kind of an extravagance

(20:26):
like you know, like Mulan Rougeoisor whatever. It's there's like oh I
might have missed that, you know, So there will be a lot.
But um, I think for anybodywho loves history, who or anybody who
loves um women empowering stories. Youknow, I think it's for them.
I think it's for young people becauseit's be who you are, you know,
um, dare to be yourself.You know, that's I think that's

(20:48):
one of the strongest messages in here. I mean, you know, yes,
she was faith driven because that reallyhelped her get through all of her
difficult things. But um, wewant people to feel in fired when they
leave, inspired that they can dowhat they were born to do. Sure,
you know, and they will beI have no doubt. All right,
Born to Do This. Zoe Bradfordfrom the Company Theater and the artiste

(21:11):
of Born to Do This. I'mso excited for your show. Thank you
so much for coming back to somuch. Great to see you. Great
to see you to appreciate it.All right, that's time for the week.
So good to be back with youafter a much needed vacation. I
hope you have a safe and healthyweekend, and please join me again next
week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio

(21:33):
on iHeartRadio.