30 DAYS OF NYMF: Day 6 Outlaws–The Ballad of Billy The Kid
Day 6 Outlaws - The Ballad of Billy The Kid
OUTLAWS - The Ballad Of Billy The Kid
Written by Alastair William King, Perry Liu and Joe Calarco
My Billy the Kid Story by Perry Liu
One of the reasons certain stories and myths stay with us is because of how we relate to them. Billy the Kid is still relevant today because it is part of our American legacy. It's the story of how we raise boys to be strong and stoic, to keep their emotions buried inside. It's our romance with violence and guns handed down from generation to generation, father to son.
My childhood was affected by a long, drawn out and painful divorce, leaving me without a father. I found myself as a teenager feeling very alone and withdrawn. But instead of getting caught up with the wrong crowd, I was one of the lucky ones, I stumbled upon the theatre. While other "Billy the Kid"s of this world may have exploded with violence, I exploded with theatre. I let the emotions that were bottled inside of me out onto the stage, into song and ultimately onto the written page.
Fast forward to 2001. It was an exciting year for me. My wife and I were expecting our first son and my writing collaborator, Alastair King, and I had written our first musical together, OUTLAWS and we were really starting to see momentum. It was the year that our musical was going to get its first professional production.
Then came 9/11. The world stopped. Like most writers, I had a day job and mine was managing a corporate graphics department in the World Trade Center. That fateful morning, I was having trouble tearing myself away from my newborn son and I was late for work. You know how the rest of that day plays out. When the dust settled, I found myself out of a job, my play cancelled, and without focus. I decided to focus on the things that meant most to me: my family. I put OUTLAWS in a box, became a stay at home dad and turned the page on a new chapter of my life. Over the next ten years, I had another beautiful son, we moved to the burbs, I got involved with the PTA ? and even ran for a position on our towns Board of Education (and I won!). Then one day the phone rings, Alastair, who went on to write The Family Fiorelli, at NYMF 2007, had entered OUTLAWS into the festival and we had been chosen!
As I pulled OUTLAWS out of the box and read it again for the first time in a very long time I realized that I was now reading this story from the perspective of a father as well of as a son. And as my boys, now ages 6 and 10, ran through the room happily chasing each other, I was happy my Billy the Kid story was going to have a new legacy.
To buy tickets or to learn more about Outlaws- The Ballad of Billy The Kid go to www.nymf.org/outlaws or call 212-352-3101
Videos
