On Oct. 4 at 8 p.m., Victor Vegas and Fatima Zahara’s musical, “An Untitled Project,” debuts in the Umble Center. The idea was born when Zahara was sketching in her notebook instead of doing music theory.
“I was totally messing around two years ago in Dr. Hill’s music theory class drawing my musical instead of doing my homework,” Zahara said.“I’ve kinda always wanted to write a musical, she said. “When I was in high school I was doing musicals. I was like man, I’d like, love to write one of these.” Zahara, a senior music and theatre double major, is a co-writer, co-creator and actor along with Vegas, a senior music major.
The inspiration came from a drawing of five people in a city, to which Zahara said, “This is so my life you know.” She wanted to put pieces of herself in the show.
Zahara did a monologue last year in the spring musical, “Resistance! Revolution! Reconciliation!” a cabaret, with the message, “There are no roles for Arab people in theatre,” which she thought was “cringe” at the time. Zahara said, “I think that sucks because I love to be myself and authentically who I am on the stage.”
She started writing the characters in the show which were reflections of herself, her friends and her experiences, emulating her passions and things she wanted to see in musical theatre.
She was also exploring the idea of being a true artist while finding out what that means; to become, like her character in the musical says, “a person in process.”
Vegas’ role in this has not been small, writing the music for this big project. Every note heard in this musical has been thoughtfully placed by him, only to be expressed for the audience. Their project came to fruition when Vegas and Zahara went to Amy Budd, associate professor of theater, who is producing their show.
They started discussing this show last winter, saying that they had an idea for their senior project and asked to write a musical, which, though untraditional, ended up being approved.
Although there was some initial doubt and skepticism, Budd ultimately agreed to let them do the project and offered them the spot at homecoming.
Budd said, “Fatima and Victor have appeared reliable through their time at Goshen so I offered them the position to perform at homecoming.”
The project hasn’t required a lot from Budd, just to set guidelines for Vegas and Zahara and offer resources, such as consultations throughout the summer.
With such an ambitious project, it would be expected that they hit their fair share of struggles along the way –— luckily they didn’t. The biggest struggle they faced was letting Budd convince them to use a smaller array of instruments for the homecoming performance.
Producing student-driven work has been a big goal of Budd’s since she started at GC. She is very excited for the alumni and audience to see this captivating experience. Budd said, “They were ready to step up to this challenge.”
