Essential Event: 3rd Ward Member Matthew Murphy and Ryan Scott Oliver Combine Photography And Music For '35MM'

 

When 3rd Ward member and virtuosic dance photographer Matthew Murphy first told us about 35MM--an "evening-length multimedia musical" that he's been creating with composer Ryan Scott Oliver--the Kickstarter campaign for their project was around half of the way to its goal (and we were about the same distance from fully comprehending the unique and amazing production that they were putting together.)

Now that the Kickstarter campaign is finished, funded and then some, 35MM will take place on Wednesday, March 7 and Monday, March 12 at Galapogos Art Space in Dumbo. We caught up with Murphy again, and he helped us really wrap our heads around the piece. Read on below, check out some of Murphy's images and a video of one of Oliver's songs after the jump.

"We've lovingly coined the phrase 'Musical Exhibition' to describe 35MM," he says. The production brings the musical talents of Oliver, who is also currently writing the musical version of Freaky Friday for Disney Theatricals, and Murphy's photographic mastery, which we highlighted in January. "Full disclosure, we've been a couple for the past two-and-a-half years, so the evening really is a labor of love in the truest sense of the word," Murphy tells us.

"Originally Ryan went through my photos when we first started seeing each other and he was drawn to a handful of them so he created songs based on what he saw in the images," he says. "Sometimes the image would be literal and the story would connect immediately, while other times it would be a more abstract image that Ryan would spin a tale out of."

As those songs began to accumulate, Murphy shot more photographs for the project, and they presented the songs for the first time at Urban Stages in December of 2010. "A year later Ryan really began to shape the piece by adding musical transitions that reflect on the art of photography as a way of documenting time while also stopping time," Murphy says. "Each song is its own isolated story, but our hope is that the audience feels like for each four-minute burst they are immersed in a new world both visually and aurally."

"Some may be asking why we are doing a Monday and Wednesday evening and the reason is because we were determined to have some of Broadway's hottest young talent, which meant we had to work around their show schedules," he adds. And he's not kidding. 35MM's five-person cast features Lindsay Mendez (Godspell), Alex Brightman (Wicked), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Hair, Catch Me If You Can), Betsy Wolfe (Merrily We Roll Along, Everyday Rapture), and Ben Crawford (Shrek). "They are going to blow everyone's minds," he says.

"Our director, Jeremy Bloom, has been working with them over the past week and solidifying all of the ideas for how we will present the images," Murphy says. "We have a spectacular projection designer Aaron Rhyne who is creating an installation that will allow us to deconstruct some of the images when needed and present them in their full form at others."

Murphy himself will be finishing up the last images for the song "Why Must We Tell Them Why?" this week right here at 3rd Ward. Check out those images and video below and grab your tickets before they're gone.

-- John Ruscher