Joel Feigenbaum (courtesy Joel Feigenbaum)
Joel Feigenbaum, KC native and widely known television writer and director unveils his first work for the stage at the Arts Asylum
Joel Feigenbaum — a guy with two architecture degrees and a long resume as a television writer, director and producer — is preparing to unveil his first work for the stage.
Wink, the Musical, a show he conceived and wrote and then nursed into its present form with composer Timothy Daniel Smith, will receive a workshop production July 9-11 at The Arts Asylum, 824 E. Meyer Blvd.
But getting to this point in his life and career — well, it was a unique journey.
Growing up in Kansas City, Feigenbaum got interested in photography as a kid, then made short movies with an 8 mm movie camera and then — while studying architecture at the University of Michigan — shot more movies with a 16 mm camera using drama-department students.
After achieving a second architecture degree from the University of Kansas, Feigenbaum said he soon moved to Los Angeles to see if he could break into the movie-and-TV business. One of his first jobs was writing for a weekly trade newspaper called Radios & Records, whose owners included Robert Kardashian and Bob Wilson. But he kept writing television scripts until at last, in 1982, he sold his first teleplay to a producer named David Jacobs, whose resume included prime time soaps. The script, which he cranked out in five days, was for a Canadian series called “Loving Friends and Perfect Strangers.”
Jacobs apparently was impressed by Feigenbaum’s ability to write quickly. That led to more work and eventually a job on Jacobs’ staff. Jacobs’ production company was responsible for “Dallas,” “Knots Landing” and “Paradise,” among others.
“I look at those early scripts and they were so awful,” Feigenbaum said. “David was the most generous person.”
Jacobs wanted his staff writers to become knowledgeable about all aspects of the creative process when they weren’t hunched over a typewriter or a keyboard.
“David required that you either be on set or going with location managers,” Feigenbaum said. “David was a huge believer in a writer can’t write if you don’t know all aspects of the business.”
The result, ultimately, was an astonishingly productive career for Feigenbaum as a writer, producer and director of primetime TV. According to imdb.com (the Internet Movie Database), Feigenbaum wrote scripts for a succession of series, including 10 episodes of “Dallas,” nine episodes of “Knots Landing” and 17 episodes of “Paradise.” Ultimately, he moved to the director’s chair, working on a range of shows. His directing credits included 16 episodes of “Charmed” (2000-2005) and a whopping 50 episodes of the family-friendly “7th Heaven” (1996-2007).
His career continued even after he decided to move back to the Kansas City area, commuting to LA to work on various series.
But in the process, he reconnected with a lady he pined for but never approached at Southwest High School. She was Sharon Fate, who was two years older — and from a teenager’s perspective that made her virtually unapproachable. They met again as adults and are now married. And that relationship was the impetus for Wink, the Musical. The title acknowledges its debt to the 1819 short story, Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, about a man who falls asleep for 20 years and awakens only to be amazed by all that he has missed, including the American Revolution.
“It’s crazy,” Feigenbaum said. “You just don’t know. That’s the crazy serendipity of life and a lot of that magic is rolled into Wink.”
Korey Childs, artistic director of The Arts Asylum, said the theater company’s involvement began about a year ago when Feigenbaum dropped by with Mark Edelman, founder of Theater League and The Mark Edelman Theater Fund. Childs liked the pitch. And he liked the writing.
“It was the way he writes,” Childs said. “It’s almost a rock ‘n’ roll musical. The show takes place in Kansas City and so it’s a cool opportunity for people to maybe get a glimpse of what Kansas City was like. I think he’s got something good on his hands and we want to get it up on its feet to see what it looks like.”
And although the show is inspired by Rip Van Winkle, the original story is simply a point of departure for the show. Childs said the script felt a bit like classic Rogers and Hammerstein while the songs invite comparisons to the rock musical “Spring Awakening.”
“The music feels new and there’s a cool song in the middle where Wink gets reminded of all the things he’s missed,” Childs said.
Childs said the showcase would have a cast of 15 to 18. He added that he viewed Feigenbaum’s experience as a screenwriter as a benefit.
“Joel wrote this show kind of like a movie and seeing how it can be translated to the stage is kind of exciting,” he said.
Feigenbaum said one song, Time Capsule, depicts the central character’s amazement at all he had missed while sleeping — Nixon visiting China, the Watergate scandal, Carter defeating Ford and more.
“It’s mind-blowing for Rip,” he said. “Even though this is a comedy, there’s quite a bit of pathos that goes along with it.”
Wink runs at 7 p.m. July 10 and at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. July 11 at The Arts Asylum, 824 E. Meyer Blvd. For tickets, www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/the-arts-asylum-presents-wink.
