I first wrote Equity in 1987. It was intended as the follow-up production to our modestly successful cable television version of Welcome Home Mr. Carlton, which we used to launch something known as Gem City Playhouse. Unlike Carlton, which was staged in front of a live audience and videotaped for broadcast, we decided to stage Equity like a play but shoot it more like a movie on a sound stage.
Since our object was to create a program for Community Access cable television there would be no hope of generating any revenues or recouping any of our considerable expenses, but we were committed to the idea of using this new medium as an alternative to live theatre and decided to forge ahead at our own personal expense. We had no idea how much of a drain on our limited resources this show was to become.
The video production of Equity was a strange mixture of joy and suffering. Sometimes things went extremely well and we were delighted with the results and other times it was simply dreadful. Still, the good experiences kept us pouring more and more money into the project until we finally decided that we could continue it no further and pulled the plug on Equity.
For the next 13 years the show pretty much vanished from my consciousness. I think I tried to forget about it and the thousands of dollars my partner Anthony Everitt and I had wasted on trying to bring it to life. Then in 2000 I was doing some “housecleaning” of my old Amiga computer files and ran across an unfinished musical I had started many years ago called George Washington Never Slept Here. In a manic period of creativity (the type of which I am famous for) I rewrote that show in a matter of weeks and was very pleased with the result. It made me start thinking about other older shows of mine which might be “spruced up” and brought back to life and it was then that I rediscovered Equity.
To my pleasant surprise Equity held up very well. There was far more of use in the libretto and the score than I had found in George Washington, and I set about the task of reworking the show.
Soon the bitter memories of the failed video began to dissipate and I remembered what it was about the show that kept us going even when it seemed like a foolish endeavor. When some of the original Equity cast members heard that I was giving it another go I was very encouraged by their enthusiasm for the project. Apparently Equity had left a good impression on them, despite the fact that we failed to complete it back in 1987, and they were anxious to reprise their roles in this new version.
As I write this, I am still in the process of completing this “revamped” Equity and hope that it will sometime find a home somewhere, even if its just here in Cyberspace.
Scott Freiheit
May 27, 2000
