Book and Lyrics by June Rachelson-Ospa
Music by Daniel Neiden
(Based on a story by Jonathan Ospa)
WELCOME TO TOURETTAVILLE is a story about a boy named Mark Brayne, (a fictional twin for Jonathan), who discovers he has TS. Mark travels to the planet Tourettaville, where he comes face to face with aliens Tick, Blinky, Screamer and their leader, the Big Bleeper. The aliens befriend Mark, inspiring him to self-acceptance and a new self-confidence, and sing, “One Of A Kind You.” NOTE: Fast forward to 2012. Jon is attending his third year at a wonderful college. He’s studying film, is a great guitar player and an award-winning writer of plays, and short stories. TS didn’t stop Jon from pursuing his dreams and becoming a successful, wonderful young man. And he never did turn into an alien.
PLAY DETAILS:
- CAST: 2f 3m
- Dad Brayne/Tick
- Mark Brayne
- Mr Pencil/Dr. Snooze/Dr. Head/Ticonia/Eyeclops/Iscream/Big Bleeper
- Mandy/Blinky
- Mom Brayne/Screamer
- RUNNING TIME: About 37 mins
- Simple setting, if any
- Contemporary and fun costumes
- Minimal props
- Order #3341
REVIEW:
From The NY Times
What’s So Funny About Tourette’s?
by Steven McElroy
Jan. 15, 2006
The doctor is narrating an account of his patient’s rapid decline as a result of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal form of degenerative dementia. And he’s wearing a grass skirt and hitting bongo drums.
If the scene sounds odd, so may the news that it is being featured in NeuroFest, a festival of a dozen plays devoted to Creutzfeldt-Jakob, Tourette’s syndrome, autism and other neurological disorders. Bizarre touches like the bongos are common in these plays; the intention is to “take tragic things and find humor in them, without minimizing the tragedy,” said Edward Einhorn, the artistic director of Untitled Theater Company No. 61, which is producing the festival.
The shows are being presented with seminars on individual conditions, but theater is central to the program, running through Jan. 29 at Theater Five in Manhattan.
Mr. Einhorn became interested in exploring the disorders after reading “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” by the neurologist Oliver Sacks. He says he found himself identifying with even the most unusual case studies. “In a way, they weren’t all that far out there,” Mr. Einhorn said. “I could really see how it related to me.” If that seems extreme, Mr. Einhorn frames the subject as Theater of the Absurd. “We are all, in some way or another, doomed — doomed to be sick, doomed to die, doomed to have problems,” he said. Still, “you can’t help but see the comic side of it.”
He found enough curious artists to participate, including some who have been patients, doctors or relatives (his own mother suffers from dementia) struggling to understand conditions that can be heartbreaking but can have “odd pluses, too,” he said.
Or, as Dr. Sacks has written, sometimes neurological disorders “can play a paradoxical role by bringing out latent powers.” That might have been the case with Jonathan Ospa, who became the co-author of a musical about his disease, Tourette’s, when he was 7. His NeuroFest entry, the autobiographical “Welcome to Tourettaville” has spawned a comic book (above), illustrated by his brother, Jacob. “It’s become bigger than just me,” Jonathan, now 13, said. “I wrote it to feel better.”
His mother, June Rachelson-Ospa, also his co-author and lyricist (the director Daniel Neiden was another collaborator), recalls taking Jonathan, then 6, to a psychologist who watched him blink, twitch and blurt expletives, a scene recounted in the show. The doctor declared that nothing was wrong with him. “It wasn’t a very fun experience,” Jonathan said. “But now we can all just laugh about it.”
James Jordan, a neurology resident from Cleveland who studied playwriting at New York University, takes the comic impulse further in his one-man show, “CJD.” (He’s the bongo-playing doctor.) The harrowing illness gave Dr. Jordan “that ambivalent feeling of both horror and fascination” when he encountered it in a patient, he said. In his show, he couldn’t stifle the need to laugh: “It’s Spalding Gray meets Oliver Sacks meets The Onion.” — STEVEN McELROY
“Tourettaville is on the level. Not only is it for real, but it’s a genuinely touching, heartfelt show that really will teach children valuable lessons about this misunderstood condition.” nytheatre.com
AWARDS:
Winner of the 2000 KENNEDY CENTER Very Specials Arts Award
WELCOME TO TOURETTAVILLE won the prestigious VSA Arts Playwright Discovery Award in October 2000, selected by a panel of judges, including Wendy Wasserstein; Marlee Matlin; Jack Hofsiss (director of Broadway’s THE ELEPHANT MAN); and film producer, Fred Zollo (“Quiz Show”). The award was presented by Barbara Kennedy Whitten who stated, “The committee was captivated by TOURETTAVILLE…struck by the bold use of humor, music and fantasy to take on sensitive and often painful issues and by doing so, took the audience to new levels of enlightenment and understanding.”
Winner: “Best Ensemble” NEUROFEST Spotlight On Festival 2004
PERUSAL MATERIAL:
- Here is a Video Teaser from the NYC Production:
In the video above the ACTORS are: Paul Bacon, Evan Daves, Lisa Ellex, Paul Jackel, Katie Scharf
PRODUCTION TEAM: Musical Director- Peter Saxe. Director- Daniel Neiden
- An animated video containing the “One of a Kind You” segment, is on YouTube:
(NOTE: The video is being expanded and will soon contain the entire story)
- There is also a Comic Book/Graphic Novella based on Tourettaville
- SONG SAMPLES: the first 16 were recorded live at the Identity Theatre production in 2012. The last two tracks are commercial album/single cuts by Dr. John and Wardell Quezergue (used by permission)
- The Podcast FILMED LIVE MUSICALS featured Author/Lyricist, June Rachelson-Ospa, and Publisher C. Michael Perry in an hour-long talk session about this musical and musicals in general. podcast – FILMED LIVE MUSICALS
REHEARSAL-PRODUCTION MATERIALS:
- Production Script PDF Rental — ORDER #3341a : $20.00
- Production Vocal Book PDF Rental — ORDER #3341b : $20.00
- Production Piano-Vocal Score PDF Rental — ORDER #3341c : $25.00
- 1st Performance Amateur/Educational Royalty (or Only Performance Royalty) — ORDER #3341d : $55.00
- 2nd Performance Amateur/EducationalRoyalty — ORDER #3341e : $45.00
- Full Orchestration Package PDF Rental — ORDER #3341h1 : TBA (Instrumentation to come)
BUTTON HERE SOON
- Piano (in Piano-Vocal Score), +Bass and Drum Arrangements Rental — ORDER #3341h2 : $40.00
- Performance-Trak Digital Orchestra Files Rental — ORDER #3341j : TBA
BUTTON HERE SOON
- Professional Royalties quoted on APPLICATION
BILLING CREDITS:
Welcome To Tourettaville
Book and Lyrics by June Rachelson-Ospa
Music by Daniel Neiden
NOTE: The names of the Playwright(s), Composer, Lyricist, and Bookwriter shall be equal in size, type, coloring, boldness, and prominence. No billing shall appear in type larger or more prominent than the billing to the Authors except for the title of the play. (In a press release all type, will of course, be the same size.)
ALSO:
THIS NOTICE MUST APPEAR IN ALL PROGRAMS, ON ALL POSTERS AND PUBLICITY MATERIALS AND INTERNET ADVERTISING/WEBPAGES FOR THE PLAY:
“Welcome To Tourettaville is presented through special arrangement with Leicester Bay Theatricals. All authorized materials are also supplied by LBT, www.leicesterbaytheatricals.com”
PRODUCTION HISTORY:
- Animated Version underway (see above) — 2022
- Midtown International Children’s Theatre Festival, Roy Arias Studios Stage II — New York, NY — 2015
- 13th Street Repertory Theatre – NYC — 2012
- Identity Theatre, NYC — 2012
- Ship of Dreams (from Tourettaville) featured on CD: “Songs for Children 3 To 103” — 2009
- Kindness Concert at Bryant Park, NYC – 2007
- Bozomoon Productions at NEURO Fest — 2004
- PREMIERE — Kennedy Center, attended by Congress — 2000
PRODUCTION PHOTOS:
From the Identity Theatre
From the catalog of
