K The Ken Bradbury Foundation

← The Works

Follies 2006

2006

The surviving record of this 2006 follies is little more than the spark that started it. In a journal entry dated May 29, 2005 — a Sunday — Ken recounts "the dreaded call of death" from Gin Fanning, suspecting that the planning committee had "secretly voted to find someone who could butter me up." With characteristic humor he wondered who would even still be around by the following September, then landed on the idea that would carry the show: "So… maybe pirates?"

From there the concept took shape only in fragments. The idea sheet sketches the whole premise in a single line — pirates, with a set built around a pirate ship — and leaves the plot to be filled in later. Tammy Zink was lined up to choreograph. Beyond that, no script, cast list, or program survives in this folder; the documentation captures a show at the very beginning of its life rather than at its premiere.

It is possible this pirate concept grew into the later staged production "A Pirate's Life for Me," but the early notes here stand on their own as a glimpse of how one of Ken's shows began: a phone call he dreaded, a wry journal page headed "In da Beginning," and a cheerful "Ah Hoy!" scrawled in the margins.

Production Notes