Conversation with Kira Stone, composer/writer of "Salem"

Broadway ReFocused is in conversation with Kira Stone, composer and writer of the new musical, Salem. Salem is a tale about a sisterhood of accused witches & their accusers from the 1692 Salem Witch Trials as they are held hostage in a modern courtroom. Stone asks the important questions: How did this happen? Why did it happen? And could this happen again? With the songs all set to dark pop melodies & 808 beats, Salem is telling the real story of Kira’s 6th great-grandmother. We learn all about this connection to family history, where Salem is at in its development process and Stone’s dreams for the piece in the future. We also listen to her pop anthem “I Believe”. You can learn more about Kira Stone and Salem on her website: www.kirabethstone.com and on IG: @kirabethstone.

Musicals with Impact, Season 1, Episode 4

Spencer Williams: Today we're really excited to have Kira Stone, composer and book writer of Salem, a new musical. So, welcome Kira.

Kira Stone: Hi Spencer. Thank you so much.

Spencer Williams: We're so excited to talk to you today about Salem. I have to be honest, I have listened to all of it on SoundCloud, like multiple times, which is pretty cool considering like I have a hard time listening to some Broadway cast albums. So, why don't we jump in? Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and then how Salem came about?

Kira Stone: Yeah, definitely. First of all, thank you so much. That's so kind of you. I really I didn't come from a musical theater background. I got a BFA in musical theater in college, and I auditioned for the musical theater program and I'd never done a musical. I had just loved singing, bad dancer, never acted. I was like, sweet, I got in. I love singing Wicked, I love In the Heights. I have so much to learn. But I got my BFA in musical theater and while I was there I really combined writing with singing and, creating the kinds of stories that I wanted to be able to see on stage. So, let me see, I'm a Bay Area native like you.

And we do have the same, alma mater, BYU. And I met my husband there and we got married when I was like, not even 21, so young. Thankfully I think it was the absolute right choice for us, which is great.

And then three months later, we got pregnant with our daughter unexpectedly. And let's go into full depth with this. We were totally like, Oh, we're going to wait a couple of years to have kids. I full transparency. I had an IUD, my husband is a testicular cancer survivor. We were like, okay, this is going to be probably a task when we want to have kids at some point and three months in and we were like, Oh my gosh, but she's the best. Her name's Scarlett she's two and a half. And back about two years ago when she was born, I really started honing in on the kinds of stories I wanted to tell. I was like, I have a daughter. And I want to give her the example that you can do what you feel called to do in your life as well as have a family.

And they edify each other and they uplift each other. And I especially found this new fire inside of me to create the kinds of stories that I wanted her to see on stage, reflective of strong female characters that are accessible to everybody. And people in circumstances that they find themselves that are difficult, that rise to the occasion even with flaws and struggles and imperfections, I think that's really important.

And so I started curating my list of topics that really excited me. And I kept coming back to Salem witch trials and I was like, okay, this is drawing me in, in such a way where I, don't even understand it. I poured so much time into research, like three or four months of reading thick biographies and documentaries.

I went to Salem. I walked on the grounds and I spent the day there just by myself and it was the most like electrifying experience physically and emotionally, then I didn't quite understand why I was so affected by it, but I just knew I have to tell this story. And so I came back and I had written just the opening number, which is still the opening number.

And then I was doing more research after I was back from Salem about two weeks after. And I weirdly decided to go on family history and just check some stuff out, which is not common for me. But prior to this, I was like, ugh, family history. That's the most boring thing on the planet. Like, and I love my ancestors, but I was like, that's just not, I'm not going to do that.

But I was just curious to see , just check on it. And I found out very quickly that my eighth great grandmother was one of the 14 women that was hung in the Salem witch trials. Direct descendant, isn't that crazy? I'm her eighth great granddaughter and her name's Susanna North Martin, she's in my show.

And I was like, okay, it all became very clear. And I wrote the rest of the show, the first draft in about three and a half, four months after that point. And it was like, all I could think about, I just ate slept and drank this show and these stories. And I was like obsessive about it because I was like, this is not only something I hugely care about, but it's, part of my ancestry.

It's in my blood. I feel such a visceral connection to it and I didn't understand why and it makes a lot of sense now. So , this is kind of the origin story of my beginning, working on these kinds of projects that just light my soul on fire and make me so excited and passionate to continue and to multiply and make these kinds of stories the forefront of my work.

Spencer Williams: Oh, I love that. I'm like trying to process all of that. I mean first, I love that your daughter inspired this because I do think, you know, this is one of the reasons why I've created this podcast is I have a son who's six and a half, and I want him to know that there's other stories out there and in different ways and being told in different ways. So, I totally get that. Then the second part, what I was thinking is that, so I wrote a show. It's based off my ancestry and I wasn't really into it prior. And then I had the chance to go to Northern Wales and go to the hometown and like go into the church that three greats, grandfather built. And Oh, the cemetery where his parents were buried from a cholera epidemic, anyway.

So, all of that was like, that day was life changing for me to be in that space. And then I also lived in Boston and Salem is like one of my favorite places. I think that place is magical.

Kira Stone: It is It really is like electric feeling.

Spencer Williams: Yes.

Kira Stone: It's amazing.

Spencer Williams: Yeah. As a listener, if you have not been to Salem, I highly recommend it.

It's not only like this really cute town now, but it's just, there's so much history. And I think that history is so important today. I mean, seeing so much bias, so much misunderstanding, so just. I don't know, just that...

Kira Stone: Mass hysteria.

Spencer Williams: Yes. And it's obviously we're not burning anyone at the stake, but we're kind of doing it in different ways.

Cancel culture and other ways of not understanding each other. It's very cool. So, tell us a little bit about your eighth great grandma and how that plays into the story. And, this story has been told in multiple different ways. So, like what's unique about your version and how you're telling this story.

Kira Stone: So, with Salem, with my piece I have constructed it in a way that it takes a group of women that were accused as witches. And it kind of transplants them into a modern day courtroom with a judge and then a jury. And our jury is our audience. And we put them through the court process that we see today, but by 1692 rules and regulations of how they actually did it. Which is crazy the differences that there are already, they would do strip searches in court, in front of everybody, unbelievable things. It's wild. But we take us as a jury and an audience through that journey and we see the accompanying accusers that accuse these women as well. So, we have like girl group on girl group and we have our male reigning judge who really represents so much of the patriarchal time, that was, rampant in the Puritan community and in just America back in the late 1600's and some of what we still see today. And it's important to me though that we make all these characters human and that we empathize with them and that we try to love all of them, even though we see the faults and the, hard things and decisions they had to make. So, my eighth grade grandma is one of these women in the group, and I have kind of posited it as because I sing all of my work. I want to play her and she's one of the women that goes through this trial process, along with a community of some of the other women that were accused and they all through this process realized that even though they're given this trial altogether, they are not given any sort of voice. Their story has already been told. Their fate has already been sealed. And about a third of the way through they're like. That's bullshit. We gotta, we gotta like turn that on its head. And so we kind of go haywire a little bit and everything starts to unravel.

And the accused witches end up turning the court on its head and holding the jury and the judge hostage and it goes rollercoaster from there. And I don't want to give away endings and stuff like that, but it kind of takes us for a ride and I'm really excited about the prospect of this structure for this kind of a show. The concept musical and kind of putting things into a specific setting and fitting them in so that there are rules of a world that we live by is so exciting to me.

I think telling narrative form storytelling that is more start to finish and straightforward. That is such a beautiful form. That's one that is, I don't think I'm drawn to as much as, creating a specific circumstance and world for this, for these characters to live in and the show to be in and the stakes to be high enough in.

And so creating kind of the concept of it was one of the funnest parts of just being able to make the rules of this world and how it will operate.

Spencer Williams: Awesome. Now that you're talking about it, I just want to make sure I understand. So, is the audience on stage, are they a part of the jury, or is it just that the audience is still kind of watching it through the jury's eyes?

Like how does that play out?

Kira Stone:   Yeah, so, so we, at this point, I believe that we have our audience seated just in the normal realm of where audiences seat, whether that's orchestra, mezzanine, all of those places. I think it would be really fun to experiment with placement as well as something that's really exciting to me is before it would get to a place like Broadway, which is, would be years in the future.

Please, we hope. And I think doing something site specific would be so interesting. One of the crazy things is they would have their jury -- which was just people of the town that they would just pull off the street -- and they would have judges that were also clergy. So, they all, it was all connected.

There was no separation of church and state, which I think was a huge issue. Where so much of this stemmed and they would hold all of their trials in their church meeting house too. And so I really want to do a version of this, like in a church. I think that would have been so sick. That's in the coming years as part of our productions, that is like, I want to do that so bad.

And structuring the stage and wherever the theater, wherever we do it eventually long-term I would love for that to be a large influence on it. I want it to feel like you're going to church. And then it's not going to feel like church at all. But hopefully you still come away from it feeling uplifted and learning something about being better towards other people.

And, even if it's through learning the hard lessons of other people.

Spencer Williams: Yeah. So it's a female cast with the one judge?

Kira Stone: Mmhmm.

Spencer Williams:  Love that. Yeah. So, you've answered a couple of my questions just inherently as we go through this. And you know, you spoke to this in your original idea about creating shows for your daughter and speaking to different types of things that you want to see on the stage, but why do you feel like this story is so important to 2020 or 2021 or beyond?

Kira Stone: Yeah, I think the divide that we've seen happen and unravel continuously. And I, don't think unfortunately with the positive change of this new presidency, I don't think that's going to go away. I think that there's so much repair to be done. There's so much communal suffering that has happened.

And the only way to repair that is through community and coming together. And I think art and music specifically has the power to do that like almost nothing else. I think that it is unifying, I think, regardless of what people think in their minds, they feel similar things in their hearts. And I think that accessing that is really what is going to be a huge change. I think that's going to make a huge difference. I think that the similar themes of like mass hysteria going on with so many elements of what's going on in our life right now, whether it's pandemic related or race protest related or sexual assault related, everything like that.

I know that having a child, you want to raise the child that you love in the best world you possibly can make, you know? And so that is such a huge motivation as well, is to create the type of world that I want to raise my family in that I want to live in.   And that's what our responsibility is as artists I think, is to create the kind of world that we want to live in.

Spencer Williams: Awesome. Yes. And I think those stories can help with, you know, creating empathy on multiple different ways and understanding in new ways. Very cool.

Where are you at in the development process? Like I know you've been able to create a demo on SoundCloud and different ways, but it is a fairly new show so tell us a little bit of where you're at.

Kira Stone: Yeah. I really started diving into the research of it about a year and a half ago, about a year and two months ago. And then right now I'm on my like third or fourth draft of going through. I'm working with an amazing dramaturg, her name's Jessica Kalkaska.

She's fantastic. As well as my director, Sardella Pine, who I love she's the best. And she's got a really keen mind for this kind of storytelling. This is the first show where I have like specifically just made all the demos myself for in the way of like, I just got logic and all these mini keyboards and mikes a year ago.

And I was like, I'm going to learn how to pop produce and hip-hop produce because that's the kind of music I love. I've recorded in studios. I've done so much with music. It's weird that I don't already know how to do this and I'm going to learn. And so I just taught myself and I had wonderful friends who are fantastic producers, give me advice and help me along the way.

And so yeah, now that I'm able to like actually create demos, that sound in the direction of where I want the music to be, that has opened up a whole new world to me too. That's made it so like, okay-- I feel proud to show these demos in this music. And like, it is representative of the style that I want the show to be in which is been a shift from past shows I've worked on and it's made me all the more passionate about this one, I think.

Spencer Williams: Yeah, on a previous episode, I was talking to someone about how important it is on the demo side to really be able to share what's in your head. Like a lot of times demos come out with a piano and a singer, but like that's not a world necessarily that you have to bring. So, that was one of the things that I was excited about that I was listening to because I felt like I could see the world that you are, composing and bringing to life. And that was really exciting.

Kira Stone: That was one of the most exciting parts for me because I got to learn basically how to orchestrate simply, and basically, but I was able to orchestrate my own music more fully for the first time. And I-- it's so much fun. I just had a blast like going in and finding all these, sick bass sounds that you can just drop in and you're like, Oh, this is going to rattle the stage when it happens, finding the perfect, boombastic kick sound.

Oh my gosh. It feels so good. And even though like, I will pop out a demo and it's not a full version at the end I'm like, I like this a lot. Like, I feel actually genuinely so excited and really proud of what I'm making, even in it's like developmental stage, which was hard for me to say before, because I'm such a perfectionist and I really, which I don't think is a great thing. But I have been able to, I think take it to a further level through this. And so it's been a blast.

Spencer Williams: Cool. Well, I was going to say and speaking of let's listen to some, of your show, so why don't you introduce the song that we're going to listen to today?

Kira Stone: Okay, this song is called "I Believe". And it happens about halfway through the show where the women kind of come to the conclusion that the choice that they have is to I don't want to give to too. Okay. I'll just say it's not, it's not that much. It's not that much of a giveaway. The choice that they are given and the ultimatum they're given the judges that they can pick one of them that is going to be a sacrificial lamb for all of them, or they all can come together as a pact and sacrifice themselves together. And so we end up having three on three we're at a stalemate. And half of the women are like, we have to do this together. We can't just send one of us into the gallows literally. We can't do that and live with ourselves and live with our families after that.

And the other three are like, speak for yourself. I have kids at home, I understand, but this is a dire situation and you can't make rules for this type of thing. When it comes down to such a life changing/life altering decision. Why would we sacrifice six of us if only one is needed?

And so this is them kind of picking their sides in that debate.

Spencer Williams: So, here is, "I Believe" from Salem by Kira Stone.

So good.

Kira Stone: Thank you.

Spencer Williams: If you saw me like watching this, I'd just like bop in and everything. So cool. Thank you so much for sharing that. And you can listen to the entire demo on Soundcloud and you can follow Kira as Kira Stone on SoundCloud. Definitely check it out and you can also check out her other musicals as well. Before we go today, one of the questions that I love to ask is if there was a producer listening or an artistic director, right? What's that dream that you have, what is that dream that you have for the show of what that step is like that big step?

Kira Stone: The next one? Or like overall?

Spencer Williams: I'll take both, because usually they're a little different, but they're both interesting.

Kira Stone:   Overall, I think my personal little kid dream, that still is very much in the forefront of my mind, Broadway and then continuing on and having a life beyond that. I think creating a story that can exist on multiple platforms and art forms: TV, movie, musical stage, all of that different stuff is so exciting to me and really fully realizing it as a brand is exciting to me.

Next step: I am really specifically looking at with Sarna -- 29 hour reads that kind of thing. As well as in the next couple of years, I would love to do a fully realize concept album of the show specifically with some of my favorite performers and singers in the Broadway community. I think that would be awesome.

Shout out also, my dream for the judge is Brendon Urie. I'm putting that out into the universe who knows? Yeah. Who knows? Yeah. And this seems like it is at the beginning of, my most favorite project I've done and it feels so close to my heart from a familial standpoint, but also I just am really excited about it.

I know that sounds dorky, but I just love it. I love to meet and chat with anybody who wants to. It's so fun for me to talk with like minded theater people like you Spencer you're so awesome. Thank you.

Spencer Williams: It's been a privilege to talk about Salem, learn a little bit about its background connection to your family life. The music definitely has a very unique sound and I'm excited to hear more of that. So, last thing is how do our listeners find you on the internet?

Kira Stone: You can find me on Instagram @kirabethstone. K-I-R-A Beth Stone, and I also exist normally updating SoundCloud with demos, things like that, and YouTube as well.

I'm not on Twitter. I was, thank goodness that that is out of my life right now because there's some, that was a lot, it was a lot. And then on my website, www.kirabethstone.com. If you want to reach out to me I love chatting. I love meeting new people.

Spencer Williams: Awesome. Well, thank you again, Kira for being here and please check out Salem, the musical.