Characters

Jade Wants to Blow Things Up

Jade

Having an eleven-year-old eccentric child with a disability, a fifteen-year-old daughter on the verge of womanhood, and a bi-racial teen son who messes with boundaries, JADE’s family life is full. She grew up in a privileged musical household but a lack of confidence steered her into an early pregnancy and brief marriage with her father’s protégé BENJAMIN. Now, remarried to EDWARD, her latent creative energy is bubbling up in the oddest ways. JADE’S need to hold her old and newly found families together make for a woman who appears stable, but her creative spirit incites a secret desire to blow things up, or literally to burn down the house. 

Edward Wants To Be God

EDWARD

EDWARD, a charismatic mixture of complications, half messiah, half scammer, grew up in a working-class Midwestern Catholic family and was expected to be pursue a sensible career. During his junior year playing varsity baseball, a stray line-drive to his head results in an awakening and suddenly he becomes a music prodigy. His high-school sweetheart and future wife JADE helps him sort through his new-found talents. As an adult, he needs to find his true calling while attempting to remain a present father. Unresolved burdens lead him to great artistic success but also feed his unformed ego.

Toni Doesn’t Want To Be Contained

Toni

TONI is an NYC creator and choreographer who purposely defies expectations with how she moves through the world. While her husband BENJAMIN was traveling the globe and her daughter ZORA was being well-cared for by their nanny, it was easy to ride her own wavelength. But now, it seems like everyone is trying to ground her because she’s expected to settle down in a small Ohio town to play wife and mother. She’s always been an outlier; in her large Nigerian family full of doctors and academics, she went to Princeton but to pursue dance. In this midwestern locale where she feels disconnected with the culture, TONI can act like the Maestro’s supportive mate, but her mind and heart are elsewhere.

Benjamin Wants Certainty

Benjamin

World-class touring conductor BENJAMIN gets a chance to call the Cleveland Orchestra his home where he can finally settle into one place with his wife TONI and nine-year-old daughter ZORA. And, perhaps, he can reconnect with his son ISSAC, from a youthful marriage with JADE. Orphaned as a young child and raised by a stern but supportive Aunt, BENJAMIN developed his great talent as a musician thanks to the guidance of an orchestral youth program and a famous mentor MICHEL, who happens to be JADE’S father. BENJAMIN tries to conduct his family and co-workers like he conducts his musicians - not everyone is prepared to play.

Callie wants Connection

Callie

CALLIE, sister to JADE, always seemed to have it easy as a child. She was the one with perfect pitch, the musical wonder whose talents seemed to flow effortlessly. After being awarded a full scholarship to Julliard along with a promise of a world-class career, CALLIE dropped out of the classical music world. Always searching for something intangible, never willing to settle down with anything or anyone yet loving everything and everyone, CALLIE rejected her prescribed role as the golden child. Instead, she chose to explore her mother’s Latina roots by traveling through South America with a large, international band of misfits who have barely scraped together a living. Recently returning from Chile, CALLIE and the band are just crashing right now, waiting for the world to open, revealing their next path.

The Offspring…..

Issac, Anna-Sophia, Lalou, Zora

Issac Wants Definition

ISSAC — son from a youthful marriage between JADE and BENJAMIN — is a seventeen-year-old stuck between two households and two racial identities. He is a loving son and sweet big brother to his younger half sisters from both his families. Yet, his lack of concrete identity finds him always searching for connection, sometimes in the arms of strong young women, sometimes in the halls of abandoned houses. He feels more vulnerable in this small Ohio town which leads him down a path of new discovery, whether it be through re-connecting with his once-estranged biological father BENJAMIN, or pushing boundaries against the world that is trying to hold him.

Anna-Sophia Wants to be Perfect

Daughter to JADE and EDWARD, ANNA-SOPHIA is an awkward fifteen-year-old who tries her best to be a good daughter, given that her younger sister is a great handful for her parents. Her angel-act only goes so far as she starts to emerge as a talented woman who needs to explore life on her own. As she’s drawn into CALLIE’S circle of bandmates, she begins to form a unique sound and stage presence while, at the same time, her youth keeps getting in the way. She’s the family intellect and word-smith with a killer wit; eventually turning into the family emotional center. But first, she must screw up a bit.

Lalou Wants To Control The World

The youngest sibling in the JADE/EDWARD household, LALOU is the attentional center. Born with a rare but functional medical disorder, she is the alternate-universe truth-seer who can disarm everyone with her outsized charm, humor, and idiosyncratic perspective on the world. Her disability, anxiety and quirks have everyone at constant attention, but her philosopher’s observations flatten the room. Once generally healthy, a bad school field trip —  where the teacher thought JADE’S dictates were merely those of a helicopter mom — leads to her life in a wheelchair. Eventually aspiring for independence while being disabled and completely ADD, she will have a storyline showing a truthful and specific perspective on coming-of-age as a disabled youth. 

Zora Wants to Be Heard

ZORA is the nine-year-old daughter from BENJAMIN’S second marriage to TONI. She’s a single-child wanting a big-family household. A move from Manhattan to the Cleveland area means she gets to see her half brother ISSAC more, but she’s more sophisticated and a whole foot taller than most of the kids at her new school. Independent, precocious, and perhaps a multi-hyphenate artistic genius, she’s getting to the age where she she’s starting to see her parents foibles more clearly, and she isn’t afraid to point them out.