#for clarity: this is not a 'roxy is mother' joke.

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Hsidjdidj you guys remember Sidekicks AU?? From ages ago??? Where Roxy has a hobby of fixing random shit she finds in the staff tunnels and accidentally revives Helpy, Barney (Foxy's bird) and Flower (Chica's cupcake), as well as unintentionally allowing a wet floor to gain sentience?? So she has all those guys she's got to keep safe and hidden as well as the Minis???

Imagine that... But now Cassie is also part of the squad. Roxy's pack consists of nothing but little guys and a giant enemy spider and that's so fucking funny to me

But also can you imagine the reactions after everyone eventually knows about all the bots, when Cassie joins them too? All of them just staring at her and her little guys like "Really? Another one?? How do you keep doing this???" and honestly? She's got no idea.

[fourteenacross]

what is ghost quartet about?

That, my friend, is the $64,000 question.

I’m only slightly joking.

Ghost Quartet is a musical in the style of a concept album by Dave Malloy, originally starring Brittain Ashford, Gelsey Bell, Brent Arnold, and Dave. It’s very simple, with no real costumes and very little movement. The four actors play all the instruments and generally stay in their designated corners for most of the show.

The show is told non-linearly, with 5-6 plotlines (depending on your interpretation) populated by different characters in different time periods. Reincarnation is a big theme of the show, and it’s implied (and maybe outright stated) that the character each actor plays in each story is the reincarnation of the same soul.

With me so far? 

I swear the show is actually pretty easy to follow if you have that in mind and maybe read the Genius annotated lyrics as you listen to the cast recording (I recommend the Live at the McKittrick version, which is on YouTube in full and available to purchase at Dave’s BandCamp).

Plotline one: Rose Red and Pearl White:Rose and Pearl are sisters in folklore olden times. Rose is in love with The Astronomer, who’s kind of a douchebag and steals her poetry about the stars and publishes it under his own name. As she grows to hate him for that, he falls in love with her sister. Enraged, Rose goes to The Bear and asks him to kill the Astronomer and turn her sister into a crow, sealing them together into a cave until the crow has to either starve or eat her lover’s corpse. The Bear promises to do so if Rose retrieves one pot of honey, one piece of stardust, one secret baptism, and a photo of a ghost. After going through several lifetimes to get these things, she presents them to The Bear, who refuses to kill the Astronomer and turn Pearl into a crow–he just wanted her to bring him honey. Rose, in a rage, kills the Astronomer and drowns her sister in the river.

Plotline two: The Ushers/Starchild:(Note: This story is a twist on the Poe story “The Fall of the House of Usher”) Rose steals a baby from her teenage mother and baptizes her in the ocean. The baby, Starchild, grows up apart from the rest of the world after being baptized into a strange faith against her will. The Starchild’s mother is Roxie Usher, and Roxie is so devastated by losing her child that she falls ill and dies. Her mother orders her corpse to be locked into a vault in the basement for two weeks. Her brother, The Fool, decides to leave the house and go to NYC to play cello in a rock’n’roll band. One night, during a storm, Roxie breaks free of the vault and stumbles into her mother’s bedchamber. The shock give her mother a heart attack and she dies. This plotline also includes some flashbacks to when Roxie and The Fool were young children.

Plotline three: Arabian Nights:Rose/a reincarnate of Rose in the form of Dunyazad approaches Scheherazade of “1001 Nights” fame. As an ancient, Rose/Dunyazad requests a piece of stardust in the form of an untold story. Scheherazade isn’t sure that she has any, but tells Rose/Dunyazad of a dream she had of meeting a younger version of herself. Also in this plotline is Shah Zaman, who (in this story) is the king demanding stories from Scheherazade, and David, a piano player trying to connect with the ghost of Thelonious Monk.

Plotline four: Soldier and Rose:Rose/a reincarnate approaches a soldier in Sarajevo in the early 90s, attempting to seduce the soldier to get her jar of honey. The Soldier tells Rose she can have the honey, but first she must dance with The Soldier and then kill her to get it, but it would be a mercy killing. It’s implied that Rose does this.

Plotline five: The Camera Shop:A modern day Rose enters a camera shop manned by a descendant of folktale olden time Rose. She claims to have lost her camera, but really she smashed it after taking a photo of a “ghost:” on a subway platform where she was waiting for a train, The Pusher pushed a modern Pearl down in front of the train. The Driver didn’t have enough time to stop and, instead of helping, Rose took a photo just as Pearl was struck by the train, her photo of a ghost.

Plotline six: Other:This is my own designation/interpretation of several songs outside the narrative. These four characters, Rose, Pearl, David, and Brent, fully aware of their past lives for the first time, reflect back on the chaos and sorrow of their past while also accepting they can’t change it. This is “I Don’t Know,” “Any Kind of Dead Person,” “Four Friends,” and a couple other songs that fall outside of our narrative.

Again, I swear, if you really pay attention and listen to it, it’s not super hard to follow. Because it’s a musical “concept album,” the tracks are designated during the show, along with titles that make it clear what plotline you’re in for each song. And the show is really beautiful. Dave wrote it specifically for Brittain, Gelsey, Brent, and himself, so it really showcases Brittain’s voice and Gelsey’s nine million musical talents and Brent’s cello playing. It is a very cool, very weird little piece of theatre, and if you’re in the Seattle area in January, I highly recommend you check it out!

(And, if you’re looking for any more clarity around any parts of the plot specifically/have any more questions, let me know!)