30 Days of NYMF: Castronauts

By Bobby Houston (Lyricist and Co-Writer)

Speaking truth to power- it's always so thrilling, isn't it? And EXACTLY what we've all been wanting to do for the last eight years. So what better fantasy than a drag queen taking on a dictator? And you just know that Fierce Diva is bound to win.

Castronauts didn't start out with a world-changing agenda, or any agenda at all - it just happened.  My friend Patricio and I were whiling away the early '00's, watching Italian film comedies from the 50's - (the best of the bunch is "Ugly, Dirty and Bad")  and amusing ourselves crafting a book musical about a dysfunctional family that solves its problems with sequins and screaming. You know show folk.

Then we got into NYMF.

Which is rather incredible because our first composer (thankfully nameless) had bailed on us the day before the submission deadline. So yes, folks, I am here to report it is indeed possible to squeak into NYMF on the strength of your book, lyrics, and attitude.

And even though Castro would deny it, there is a god -who apparently loves musical theater, and who decided to send us a magnificent, accomplished composer who turns out to live three minutes away -the lovely and handsome Randy Courts. A composer who had just spent six months steeping himself in Latin music and was willing to be seduced by Lolita and her troupe AND write 18 songs in 10 weeks. Then once we put Randy's music to the book, there was so much heart and soul (not to mention comedy) coming out of these people - it was Pandora's Box.

Suddenly we had a middle-aged drag queen sitting in Fidel Castro's lap, singing:

If Cuba is a woman

Then Castro is her man-

And Castro sure can make it last

A ten-times-five-year-plan

--all the while brandishing a scissors above his head, with the entire cast chanting Now! Now! Now!

But in the end, she is a Woman. Thus, her message of liberation and compassion is delivered with love - and percussion and close harmonies and feathers. And isn't that the whole point? That life IS a cabaret. Well we think so.

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