BWW Interviews: Creator of NYMF's SHELTER, Brittany Bullen

Talented actress Brittany Bullen has written the book, co-written the lyrics and music and appears in SHELTER, a new pop/rock musical opening Thursday, July 26th as part of the 2012 New York Musical Theater Festival. SHELTER tells the story of Jeanine, a woman with a troubled past who is faced with the challenge of counseling residents of a Philadelphia women’s shelter. The women she meets and the struggles she faces help her to begin to start over. Filled with romance, laughter and tears, this contemporary story is about what it means to be a woman and to really live.

Bullen's other works for the stage include Hello, Lemon! and Yellow, which was most recently produced at Brigham Young University. Her acting credits include The Spitfire Grill (Percy Talbott), Jane Eyre (Title Role), Seussical, The Musical (Sour Kangaroo), A Christmas Carol (Belle) and Urinetown (Little Becky Two Shoes).

The actress chatted with BWW about why she hopes future productions of SHELTER may serve to benefit communities throughout the country.

What originally made you take on the subject of homelessness for your play?

Well actually, at the time I knew very little about homelessness. All of this started because I was talking with my friend Brighton, who is actually our director, about how she was always looking for shows to direct for a lot of women because as you probably know, there are tons of women who want to do musicals, and not as many men. So I started brainstorming about what a musical like that would look like and that's where the idea came from.

And what made you decide to incorporate a rock score?

Well, it seemed to be kind of a natural connection seeing how we wanted to set the show in present day. And we wanted to capture the feel of the struggles that these people face. It just seemed like the most natural connection.

I understand you worked with your brother-in-law on the score. 

Yes. I had about half of the songs kind of written in my head before I sat down with him. I would go to his house three days a week, he would sit down with his software and his keyboard, and I would kind of sing it out for him and give him suggestions as to the general feel for the orchestration I wanted it to have, and then he would help me flush it out.

Had the book been completed at that point?

Yes, at least the first draft had been completed, but then of course there were revisions since then.

What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced when you were writing the book?

Probably the number one thing was at the time, when we first undertook the subject matter, I wasn't familiar with anything about homelessness, so we really had to learn about what that experience was like, what kind of people you might find in homeless shelters as well as the details of ins and outs of what it means to be in a shelter. We wanted to portray them accurately and with sensitivity. So finding that balance - the accuracy was probably the biggest thing.

So you actually visited homeless shelters?

Oh yes, several times.

Is the story based on the lives of the residents you met at the shelters?

Absolutely. Some of our story lines come from people that we actually talked to who were homeless at the time, some came from people that we knew who had experienced or who had had brushes with people who were homeless. We had one character for instance, who is not homeless herself but has a sister who has mental cognitive, physical difficulties and for that reason, can't live a normal life. So she keeps going to the shelter to try to get her to come home but her sister keeps running away and ending up back in the shelter where she came from. So that was a real story of someone we knew who had been in that situation with their sibling.

You act in the play as well. What has that experience been like?

It's been really fun. As a performer myself, and that's really where most of my experience is, I think I would be sad to not be in the show. But I didn't want to be the kind of person who writes a show for myself, so it's more of a cameo. My role is non-speaking for most of the show.

Is it hard for you to watch someone else direct your play or is that something you enjoy?

I do enjoy it. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to have that role as well. But it's nice because Brighton is a friend of mine and the process has been very collaborative from the beginning. She has always been very open to my input and we really developed the show together from the beginning.

Do you find she takes the show places that you never thought about before or maybe sees certain things differently?

Absolutely. I think she has a really good eye and she always brings my attention to things that I might not have thought of. She's been absolutely instrumental in the process of making this what it is.

The play opens on July 26th. What are your expectations? What are you most looking forward to?

We've been so busy putting this show together, I really haven't had time to have any expectations! (laughing) I'm just thrilled that it's happening at all - as long as our set doesn't explode and our cast members make it through their lines, I'll consider it a success.

I wanted to ask about the journey of the play. Once the book was completed and the music and lyrics written, what was your next step?

The first thing we did was we sat down and had a reading, which was an adventure. We learned a lot from that experience. We went into a pretty significant revision process right away after that. But since Newell, my brother-in-law, was going away to graduate school in the fall, we had a very limited window of time when he was still around. He wanted to music direct our first production of it, so we did a workshop production in spring of last year, that he musical directed and that was almost right away after the first reading. So it was very fast, very fast workshopping process. And the show changed a lot then and after it was over it continued to change. 

When you said it underwent revisions, was that because hearing the words read aloud  was so different than reading them on paper?

Absolutey. And even when you read it out loud, there's no substituting for what you learn from an actual production. That's why I'm so glad we actually produced the show and put it on stage because some things you just really don't know if they're going to work or not until you put it in front of an audience.

Did you make revisions based on audience reaction as well?

Absolutely. We've gotten some really great feedback and we have a really great community here of artists and professionals who I really respect. so we have gotten some really helpful criticism along the way.

I understand a portion of the ticket sales will go toward local homeless shelters?

Yes. For every ticket we sell, our Production Company is donating $3 to a local shelter...With our last production we raised $10,000 for ten different shelters, so each shelter got $1,000. But it's more of a general mission, it's not always a specific 'every ticket we sell we will donate $3', it's more that with every show, whatever we are able to do we will. We want to use the show to help people in that situation.

That's wonderful. Can you give me a brief synopsis of the story?

The show tells the story of a woman named Jeanine, who has been homeless herself, and she comes to work at a homeless shelter as a counselor. It's about how her experiences there and the challenges that she faces help her to move on from the difficulties of her own past and learn that through serving others, she heals her other wounds from the past.

Where do you hope to see the production go in the future?

In my dream scenario, I would love to see the show produced all over the country. I wrote it in such a way that it would be really easy to put into an educational setting. I'd love to see it done in colleges, by community theaters, places like that where it gives emerging artists a lot of opportunity for some really great roles to play. The show has just tons of colorful characters to explore and it's really easy to put on. Obviously, costumes and set can be done very economically. So it's a great show to be done on a budget, which means that if you have any extra that you bring in, it gives you a really great opportunity to get involved in your community and to give back. So my dream for the show is that it will be used to benefit communities all over the country.

SHELTER is playing at PTC Performance Space (555 West 42nd Street) as follows:

Thursday, Jul 26th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Friday, Jul 27th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Friday, Jul 27th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Saturday, Jul 28th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Saturday, Jul 28th, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Sunday, Jul 29th, 2012 at 5:00 pm

SPECIAL DISCOUNT CODE: SHELTER is now offering 40% off tickets with the promotion code SHELTER15. As Bullen explained, "we want to make sure that people have access to the show even if they're on a budget, particularly students. We would love to have students in our audience." To purchase tickets, please click here.