The Herald spoke with some of the principals from “Guitar Strings, a Cowboy and a Lost Peacock” about getting the play to curtain, how the production materialized so quickly, the process of collaboration and some of the difficulties experienced along the way.
Caitlin Cannon, “Becca Carter”/songwriter
On incorporating her original music into ‘Guitar Strings’
Two of the songs were songs I’d already written; they were songs on my first record, and two of the songs are songs I wrote specifically for the play after I read the script. This is really funny: My character is basically a slightly more annoying version of myself. She’s a singer-songwriter from Portland, (Oregon),but she’s never finished a song. So I have a song called “Halfway Things,” and I wrote the song about an ambiguous breakup. It was one of the first songs I wrote.
It was like I had written that song for this play. I was thinking I was going to have to rewrite some of the lyrics to have it make sense. There’s this one line, “I know it looks aloof when I don’t pick up the phone. It takes a lot of effort to leave it alone.” When I originally wrote that, it was about, “I’m not going to pick up my phone to call you, and it’s hard not to call you.” And now it’s about her always being on her phone, because she’s from 2015 and he’s from 1915, and it taking her a lot of effort to leave it alone is about her learning to be with herself.
On why she wanted to do the play
I thought it was a really, really good opportunity for my music. I really like Sarah (Syverson). I think she’s really talented, and I knew it would be a creatively fulfilling experience to work with her.
When I was a little girl, I was going to do theater, and I pursued it all the way into my 20s, and I moved to New York to do it, and then I didn’t want to do it anymore after a while. I needed to do something else. Then, music just became my job. Now, I still choose for music to be my job, but to be able to have those two things come full circle and to get to have my songs written into a script and to get to perform them as the character as opposed to myself, is so cool.
On writing a song from in a character’s voice instead of her own
My character is not that deep [laughs], so my lyrics in the songs in the play are a little more … they’re not dumbed-down, but they’re more universally relatable. I’ve let some clichés exist in the songs where, if it were my personal song, I wouldn’t allow those clichés to be there. It’s different to be writing a song for the purpose of what the play needs, as opposed to what it is what I want to say. But I’m still really proud of them. I like them. They’re good songs. I’ll play them at my shows.
David Holub
Note: The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity
