2007 NEW PLAY COMMISSION ANNOUNCED
SOUL ON VINYL
BOOK AND LYRICS BY MARY FENGAR GAIL
& MUSIC BY DENNIS MCCARTHY

NNPN, through member theatre New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, NJ, has announced that Mary Fengar Gail is the recipient of NNPN's 2007 New Play Commission. Ms. Gail is writing the book and lyrics to SOUL ON VINYL, with music by Dennis McCarthy. SOUL ON VINYL marks the 11th recipient, as well as the first musical, to receive NNPN's commission since the program's inception.

SOUL ON VINYL begins in 1982 in a dilapidated studio in New Orleans where Roger Billy Starks and his backup singers, the Angelicals, are recording gospel songs. In the middle of a song, Roger Billy sneezes, then collapses from a hemorrhagic stroke, and is subsequently institutionalized for 25 years. When he finally recovers in the year 2007, he is middle-aged, still devoutly religious, and utterly convinced that when he sneezed, his soul departed, escaping from his lips into the microphone. From there it slipped onto the master tape, and during mass production flew into the groove of a single vinyl record. Roger Billy decides that in order to recapture his spirit and his voice, he must find the album, so he arranges a reunion with his backup singers and asks them to join in his search. The three women’s lives have not gone as planned, so to humor Roger Billy’s delusion and with high hopes of resurrecting their careers, they meet him in New York City where they intend to explore second hand record shops selling old LPs. When their cab breaks down in the ghetto, Roger Billy begins to spin in circles like a whirling dervish. He believes this means his soul is beckoning from a turntable somewhere nearby, and henceforth the journey takes Roger Billy and the Angelicals on many adventures -- from a jail cell to Wall Street -- as they seek and find the exact location of the record where his spirit abides.

Mary Fengar Gail's plays include CARNIVALS OF DESIRE, FUCHSIA, JAMBULU, DRINK ME, THE GARDEN ON F STREET, THE BREASTS OF FORTUNA, and DEVIL DOG SIX. She has had readings, workshops and productions at various theatres including the Sundance Institute, the New York Stage and Film Company, the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Collaborative Arts Project 21 and Lark Theatres of New York, the InterAct Theatre of Philadelphia, the Attic and Moving Arts Theatres of Los Angeles, the Fritz Theatre of San Diego, and the Kitchen Dog Theatre of Dallas. She is a recipient of the Arnold Weissberger Award administered by New Dramatists, the Stanley Drama Award sponsored by Wagner College, the TheatreFest Playwriting Competition in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, the National Children's Theatre Festival Award and the Santa Fe Performing Arts Company's Playwriting Competition. Ms. Gail recently received commissions from South Coast Repertory of Costa Mesa and the National New Play Network, as well as a playwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council.

Ms. Gail previously received NNPN's New Play Commission for her play DEVIL DOG SIX, through NNPN member theatre InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, PA. DEVIL DOG SIX received its World Premiere production by MOXIE Theatre in San Diego, CA in June 2007.