Blaney hopes music gives you the creeps
North Tustin resident wrote score for classic thriller.

By MICHAEL RYDZYNSKI
(For The Tustin News - October 28, 2004)

Rob Blaney is not easily scared. Until he saw "The Woman In Black." "I'm not scared very easily, and I've never seen a really good ghost story work on stage," said the North Tustin resident, recently named interim director of contemporary worship at Concordia University in Irvine. "But we sat front and center and jumped in our seats the whole time. I loved it." "We" being Blaney and Michael "Mic" Shackelford. They saw a production of "The Woman In Black" at a North Hollywood theater more than a year ago. That's when they both knew they would have to do the show one day at Concordia, where Shackelford is a resident (more than half-time) drama professor.

Fast forward to one year and several projects later. The show is ready to open tomorrow for a three-weekend run, the longest in the Lutheran university's history. "It's the first production at Concordia with a professionally written music score," said Shackelford, who will direct the long-running successful play.

"The Woman In Black" is a thriller written in 1987 by Stephen Mallatratt and is still running in London's West End after more than 6,000 performances, making it the second-longest-running show in England's history (behind only Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap").

"Mic gave me the script, which I read several times, and I watched some horror films, like 'House of Wax' and other Vincent Price movies, and listed to the soundtrack of 'Ghost Story,' to see what works and what doesn't work musically with horror movies," Blaney said. "This play presents a lot of good opportunities for underscoring. "Once we got the rights, and I read the script, I had the main theme in my head. When I first played it for Mic, he said it creped him out. That's when I knew I was headed in the right direction." "By then, I already had forgotten what I heard in that North Hollywood production, so I was working from a clean slate," he said, pointing to his head.

Besides the music - "Harsh, strident playing on the piano, and haunting melodies that evoke emotions of being unsettled and tense," according to Blaney - he also incorporated sound effects into the score. "Church bells, London city street noises, the wind, creaking floors and the usual horror-movie stud," he said.

The score for "The Woman In Black," which took six months to write, represents Blaney's first since "Here I Am," a work-in-progress he began with other artists two years ago that has yet to see a full production. "We've work-shopped it around Los Angeles and Orange counties," he said of the musical loosely based on George Orwell's "1984." "We've had readings of it done by Equity people (theatrical union actors) from Los Angeles and New York. It's got a hard-rock score like 'Rent,' and we're still working on it with rewrites, and I'm still composing for it. But I'm not worried: it took 'Jekyll & Hyde' 12 years to reach Broadway, so we still have a few years to go."

Before being named interim contemporary worship director, Blaney was the quintessential freelance musician, working as a music director of college, university, high school and community theater musicals all over the Southland and even up north, such as several summers with the Sacramento Music Circus, a musical-theater Equity organization.

"I've also accompanied here and there, such as the California Women's Chorus and various churches and schools," said Blaney, who began his career accompanying choirs in his schools from the fourth grade through high school and even Concordia, where he accompanied the Chapel Choir while a student. The Foothill High School alum (Class of '87) also performs in the Hollywood studios, where his recent soundtrack credits include "America's Sweethearts" starring Julia Roberts and "Life Without Dick" with Harry Connick Jr., who appeared in the movie. "Harry's a very nice guy," Blaney said of the man with whom he performed on the soundtrack.

While attending Concordia, Blaney opted to get an art degree. "I knew about a number of my friends going for a music degree who then got burned out and went into a completely different career," Blaney said. "I loved music too much to risk getting burned out on it, so I went instead for a general art degree, doing painting, sculpture and drawing." Blaney doesn't do much with his art degree, other than decorate his home, help with the set design of a play he is musical-directing, remodel friends' bathrooms, design a couple of posters for Concordia shows and assist his parents in choosing house-paint colors.

"I don't think my dad was too thrilled at first when I told him I was going to be a professional musician," Blaney said. "But he has been supportive and both my mom and my dad are proud of what I've done. They attend all of my shows and usually bring a small contingent of people."

It was his parents - his mother still plays piano - who gave Blaney his first musical training. And his last. "I can read music, and I can play by ear," said Blaney, who started playing piano because he'd always hear his mother play every night after sending the kids off to bed. "All I can say about it is, it's a gift - a gift nurtured by my love of hearing my mom play."

But since getting the contemporary worship position, Blaney has had to turn down more playing jobs from Hollywood. "Let's say that now, I've learned to be more selective when work calls," he said. Still, Blaney's urge to perform is great. And nowhere has it come blaring out of him more prominently this year than in the Coffeehouse on Broadway benefit concert at Concordia earlier this month. His dead-on impersonation of Jerry Lee Lewis doing his signature "Great Balls of Fire" - complete with a kicking over the piano bench and playing the upper register of the piano with his right foot - brought down the house. "I almost did Ray Charles, but changed my mind at the last minute," he revealed. "My style of playing fits Jerry Lee Lewis' better. And the song served as a nice preview to the Gala of Stars benefit concert Concordia puts on every spring which Mic and I organize. This spring's theme will be '50s Prom Night. And 'Great Balls of Fire' is the number I usually end my performances at senior centers and country clubs.

"But yeah, that (coffeehouse performance) definitely was the wildest rendition I've done."


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