Well, here's something I found intruiging...I was online the other day google-ing "American Blue Jeans" to see if this website came up...which, saddly enough, it didn't...but, what I did find, was a facinating little history on blue jeans that included...
In 1872 a poor tailor from RENO, Nevada named Jacob (JAKE) Davis shared an idea with Levi Strauss to improve the strength of the work pants he made for his customers by adding metal rivets. In 1873 the two men patented the improvement in "Fastening Pocket Openings." Levi brought Davis to S(E)AN Francisco to oversee the first manufacture of their copper riveted "waist overalls" made from brown cotton DUCK and blue denim. Knowing that the riveted pants were going to be perfect for work wear, Levi and Jacob decided to make them out of denim rather than jean because denim seemed the sturdiest fabric of the two. This decision would forever rock the textile world.
Now, if you didn't recognize the capitalized words...THOSE ARE THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN OUR MUSICAL!!!! Isn't that crazy! Now, granted I had to stretch and add an E in order to claim Sean. But, come one! Even still. craziness. And I learned that Duck is a fabric.:) -alaina.

When Gillian and I decided that we were going to write an original fringe show, we started with a couple basic ideas, and kept scratching them out and trying new ones--until they evolved into their own basic story shell. The one thing we were sold on--Gillian wanted a female character named Reno, and I wanted one named Duck. We knew the story was going to evolve around 4 characters, but the individual storylines have changed so much you wouldn't even recognize them now. I wrote down a random title on the Fringe form--American Blue Jeans, and we crossed our fingers and hoped we got chosen in the lottery...and we did! Seventh! We couldn't believe our luck!
A couple months prior, on two seperate occasions, I had bumped into two very talented guys that I had gone to college with. They both had expressed their discontent at not being able to let loose their creativity like they had in college through writing and performing etc. Both encounters struck me as...important. So, once we were in the fringe, I gave a couple calls. Dan joined our writing team, and Nate signed up to write the songs we needed to make this baby a musical.
Our first Balls to the Wall Productions meeting was...awkward. First, we had to explain that Balls to the Wall was a way of saying "go for a homerun", aim big. Second, Gillian and I had to sell an idea that was basically, "Well, It's called American Blue Jeans, and there are these two best friends named Reno and Duck and it's the summer after college, and we think there are two guys...and...did we mention it's called American Blue jeans?" I'm sure it was hard to see a homerun on a pitch like that! But, they climbed on board.
Thursdays became "writing night", and by the end of April we had a script that we really enjoyed. We knew those characters as if we had gone to school with them. Nate then went to work filling in the blanks with some pretty great songs.
Now, we begin rehearsals! Yeah! I'm excited to watch it take on it's own life in the very capable hands of Comedy Sportz' Artistic Director, Doug Neithercott. We have a pretty fabulous cast, and I'm on the edge of my seat to see where they take these characters!! --alaina.