Today we’d like to introduce you to Chase Peacock, Jessica De Maria.
Chase , Jessica, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
CHASE: I started writing music for my rock band in the 8th grade and I loved it. I kept up performing with them until I found musical theatre in 11th grade and fell in love. I wrote a musical my senior year and performed it at the biggest auditorium in my home town. After I graduated, I went on to have a very solid career in musical theatre performance, but I was writing music the whole time. Then I met Jessica during a production of DAMN YANKEES at the Atlanta Lyric Theatre, and it just clicked. I had finally found someone who cared about writing as much as I did. We’ve been working ever since.
JESSICA: When Chase and I met, I had just come off of producing an original musical I co-wrote at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. I’d been working on it for about three years, and it was my first go at writing that kind of material. After that project, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to continue. I honestly had no idea if I was truly any good at it. But Chase was so persistent and insistent that we at least meet and chat about ideas. That enthusiasm and commitment won me over. Our first meeting, we closed down a bar and had the outline of a brand new musical.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
CHASE: Any struggle we have had has been about getting people to listen. There is no good or easy way into this business. Everyone’s road is so different. Which is why we let the shows speak for themselves. We are hardly shameless marketers, though sometimes it seems we should be. Writer’s block is never really an issue for us. Our trust in our process and each other allows us to move forward fairly quickly.
JESSICA: Yeah. I think right now it’s just about getting people to hear our material and putting it out to a wider audience. We have every bit of faith in its quality. We’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting ourselves in terms of setting up readings, making really high quality demos, building a website…but we’ve also been very fortunate to have so much support form this community. I really feel our colleagues believe in us and want us to succeed.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Chase & Jessica – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
CHASE: We write musicals. We are on our third show, which happens to be our largest undertaking to date. For myself, I can already say that this new project is what I’m most proud of. It’s a culmination of all that we’ve learned writing together so far. Our style is very accessible to every age, and I believe that’s what sets us apart. Our use of melody and orchestration has a very modern flare. While our subject matter, lyrics, and dialogue seem to make you dive way deeper into the characters than you thought you would after observing the shiny, very catchy shell.
How do you, personally, define success? What’s your criteria, the markers you’re looking out for, etc?
JESSICA: For us, we’ve always felt successful after any writing session. We’re successful because we accomplish so much and enjoy it so much-it’s hard not to feel that way. Before we got really nice speakers for our home studio, we would go out to Chase’s car to listen to a completed demo after we’d finished writing a song. Blasting it through the car speakers at 2 or 3 or 4AM and just taking that moment to say “wow…we made this.” And having made it just for the sake of doing so, for the intense joy and satisfaction that it brings us-I mean that feels like success. Ultimately for us of course, we want to see our work produced. We want to share it with broadway audiences, with regional audiences all over the country. Every step towards that-from readings at professional theatre companies here in ATL to a world premiere here in ATL in 2020 is pushing us in the right direction.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.chaseandjessica.com
- Email: chaseandjessica@gmail.com
- Instagram: @jessica.demaria @chasepeacock
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