The songs may be someone else’s but the stories they tell, at least for a few minutes, belong to the karaoke singers.
“Watching people sing a song they love, it’s clear that it means something to them,” said Blake McCarty, executive artistic director of San Diego’s Blindspot Collective and creator/director of the new world-premiere musical “Karaoke Dreams.”
For this show, which has been in development for almost a year, The Loft at UCSD’s Price Center is being transformed into a karaoke bar where a cast of 14 will re-create the vibe of a communal space where, McCarty said, “everyone feels like it’s where they’re exactly supposed to be.”
“Karaoke Dreams” is a product of UCSD’s Depot Residency Program, a goal of which is to ultimately provide a performance space for artists and nonprofit art organizations in the onetime baggage building of the Santa Fe Train Depot downtown that is currently undergoing structural upgrades. Eight-year-old Blindspot Collective and the dance programming organization Disco Riot, founded in 2018 by Zaquia Mahler Salinas, are the first arts organizations using the depot space for rehearsals and development.
“This is a test case,” said McCarty, “for that vision that the university has: to be able to extend new partnerships into the region with an eye toward new-work development and really supporting and sustaining not only local artists but local organizations as well.”
The creative team for Blindspot Collective’s world premiere musical “Karaoke Dreams,” from left, director Blake McCarty, choreographer Micah Parra and music director Lyndon Pugeda. (Joe Kao)
The “Karaoke Dreams” production stems from a partnership between Blindspot Collective, ArtPower at UC San Diego and the university’s Campus Performances and Events Office led by Colleen Kollar Smith. All of these organizations, said McCarty, are “working to imagine the future of the depot downtown.”
The 120-seat Loft on the UCSD campus is getting some subtle transformative touches for “Karaoke Dreams” from a team that includes New York-based lighting designer Sierra Shreves and sound designer Cole Atencio. McCarty and Blindspot Collective colleague Shellina Hefner, who is also this show’s associate producer, are handling the video design.
Lyndon Pugeda is music director for “Karaoke Dreams” and Micah Parra is the show’s choreographer.
For “Karaoke Dreams” The Loft’s Zanzibar Café will be in operation, serving beer and wine.
As for the music, “The scale is gargantuan,” said McCarty.
“Structurally the show features moments from 65 songs, There are sections where for 10 minutes or so there’s actually no dialogue. All of the storytelling is told through music and through original arrangements of existing songs, custom tracks created for the show.
“Those stretches of music provide insight into individual characters. You get to understand them and know about their back stories.”
Though not a karaoke regular himself, McCarty said he was inspired by the “spontaneous community” that exists in such venues.
“That’s what we want to capture,” he said. “This cross-section of humanity that is in a shared space and has this shared experience that for us speaks to the power of theater as well.”
Though audience members won’t be getting up there and “karaoke-ing” themselves, they’ll hear stories in song and in words that they can relate to, McCarty said. “Though the characters are all fictional, we can see ourselves and our friends, our family members, reflected in those characters.”
‘Karaoke Dreams’
When: Opens July 10 and runs through Aug. 3. 7 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays
Where: The Loft, 3151 Matthews Lane, UCSD campus, La Jolla
Tickets: $35
Online: blindspotcollective.org