A New Chapter for Viewmark

For years, I’ve produced my theatrical work under April Alsup Productions. It made sense when these projects were largely personal creative endeavors, but over time they’ve grown into something bigger, original music, theatrical productions, recordings, video, publishing, and an expanding body of work that deserves a home of its own. So going forward, I’m bringing it all under Viewmark®, the media production company I founded in 1992. Viewmark has evolved many times over the years, and this feels like a natural next chapter: a media production company focused on creating, producing, and publishing work for the performing arts.

Broadside Reviews from Edinburgh

Here's what the critics, reviewers and audience members are saying about the new musical Broadside at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe:

Broadside cast prepares to perform in Edinburgh Scotland

SPEAK THE SPEECH
(Professional Critic)
Review by Rebecca Mahar

⭐ “The company provide excellent performances that lift the whole piece, fully committed, comically cheeky, and holding beautifully to their harmonies even while dancing and dodging each other…”

⭐ “Live music…is simply arranged and refreshing, recalling the kind of tavern rooms and meeting halls parts of the show take place in.”

And perhaps our favorite thought for the future:

⭐ “With further development, and a longer running time, it has the potential to be the next fascinating musical about early American history.”

AUDIENCE MEMBERS (edfringe):

John (Audience member) 16 Aug 2026
⭐ "We really enjoyed this musical. We’ve been attending the fringe for a long time and this production had some of the most lovely harmonies and singing we’ve heard in recent memory. The group seemed to also really enjoy working with each other. Thank you!"

Declan Farrell (Audience member) 16 Aug 2026
⭐ "This was an excellent show. The performance was full of energy. The songs were really enjoyable and the acting made me feel that i was a witness to the revolution, really great show. I would go see it again. I would give it 5 stars, well done."

Danny Wright (Audience member) 14 Aug 2026
⭐ “Brilliant storytelling! There’s a real heart to this show. The music is cracking, and the harmonies are absolutely gorgeous. You can feel how much the company are enjoying singing together, and it gives the whole thing such warmth and energy.”

Matt (Audience member) 13 Aug 2026
⭐ "Very impressed with the performers and the storytelling!"

Mike (Audience member) 11 Aug 2026
⭐ "A wonderful show with great songs and harmonies, and a large talented cast. They have traveled a long way to tell their story and it's only on for a few more days, so don't miss out."

Marjorie (Audience member) 9 Aug 2026
⭐ "Impressive ensemble of actors (we were shocked how they all fit in the space)! Fantastic singing, amazingly beautiful harmonies and an interesting story I didn’t know much about. Totally worth the affordable ticket. "

Matthijs (Audience member) 8 Aug 2026
⭐ "Great show! Definitely recommend seeing this is if you are looking for a musical with catchy tunes and a powerful message."

Still in the Press: Broadside Before Edinburgh

One unexpected perk of our preview run at Vintage was discovering we could use the theater's spotlight location to record our final performance. As it turns out, it offers the perfect vantage point, capturing the stage from exactly the right perspective. Sometimes the best seat in the house isn't in the audience at all. If you watch the video, you're seeing the final stop on a journey that changed a little every single night. That's the nature of developing a brand-new musical. After each performance, we'd gather with the cast, compare notes, listen to audience reactions, and make adjustments. A line would get tightened. A transition would become cleaner. A joke would land a little better. A musical moment would breathe just a little longer. Then we'd do it all again the next night.

Broadside cast discusses production choices with moderator Shannon McCarthy

One thing we really appreciated was how invested our audiences became in the process. We invited everyone to scan a QR code after the performance and leave their thoughts, and they did. Those comments, combined with conversations in the lobby and insights from the cast, became an important part of our nightly discussions. That's one of my favorite parts of creating original theatre. The script isn't frozen in time, it's still finding itself.

Every audience teaches us something, and every actor brings an insight that helps shape the show into something stronger. We're still very much in the development phase, but it's exciting to say that so much of Broadside is landing exactly as we'd hoped. The feedback has been tremendous, and audiences have embraced the story, the music, and the characters in ways that have been incredibly rewarding. We're leaving Vintage with a show that's stronger, sharper, and more confident than the one that opened just a few weeks ago.

Now it's time for the next chapter. Before Broadside heads across the Atlantic to the Edinburgh Fringe, we're excited to share this performance with you. We hope you enjoy watching it and maybe you'll spot a moment or two that helped shape where the show is headed next.

A Quiet Moment Before the House Opens

There's always a few quiet minutes before we open the house, so it's nice to wander into the theatre and take a few pictures. It's one of my favorite moments of any production. The lights are on, the audience hasn't arrived yet, and for just a little while you get the stage all to yourself. It's the calm before the wonderful chaos.

Broadside set before the chaos begins

I'm especially proud of how the set for Broadside came together at Vintage Theatre. One of the smartest decisions we made was building on what was already there. We were able to reuse the previous show's flats and risers, which saved a tremendous amount of time, money, and effort. As soon as that production closed, the incredible Vintage staff struck the scenery almost immediately so we could move in the pieces that mattered to our story: the colonial common press, hand-built tea crates, and all the little details that slowly transformed the theatre into revolutionary Boston. The beautiful whiskey barrels, generously provided by Stranahan's, added just the right touch of authenticity.

Close up of the common press

The fun was in the scavenger hunt. Years ago I bought a beautiful clavichord simply because I couldn't resist it, never imagining it would one day become part of a musical set. Then I stumbled across a real K–12 classroom curriculum featuring reproductions of Revolutionary-era broadsides. Of course I printed them and plastered them across the walls. If you're telling a story about the power of the printed word, why not surround the audience with the very thing that changed history?

Broadsides, everywhere broadsides!

Standing in the empty theatre, I couldn't help but smile. The common press sat ready to spread tomorrow's news. The crates looked as though they'd just come off the docks. The barrels, the broadsides, the weathered wood, and even that old clavichord all found their place. It didn't feel like scenery anymore, it felt like a place with a history.

The colonial flag of Massachusetts in 1770

That's one of the joys of spending a summer making theatre. One week you're hauling lumber and hunting for eighteenth-century props, and the next you're standing in an empty theatre before the doors open, realizing you've somehow built Boston in 1770. I'd call that a pretty good summer vacation.

The Home Stretch: Broadside Takes Shape

This will be my fourth production at the Edinburgh Fringe, so by now I know what the final few weeks before opening night feel like. There comes a point when the planning stops, the excuses run out, and the show simply has to become itself. We're right at that point with Broadside.

Broadside costumes by Kathy Page

Right now, actors are getting off book, scenes are finding their rhythm, and we're starting to run the show from beginning to end. For months I've been staring at scripts, scores, spreadsheets, and historical documents. Suddenly those pages are turning into people, voices, and moments that actually exist in front of an audience.

Cooper Kaminsky as General Thomas Gage

Around the edges, the physical world of the show is taking shape too. Costumes are coming together, set pieces are appearing in rehearsal, props are migrating from garages and workshops into the theatre, and Revolutionary Boston is slowly emerging from a collection of sketches and conversations. Every rehearsal seems to add another piece of the puzzle.

Sonsharae Tull as Phillis Wheatley - Heather Westenskow as Abigail Adams

What makes this one feel especially meaningful is where we're headed. In a few short weeks we'll share Broadside with audiences at Vintage Theatre as part of the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding. We've been living with these people, these events, and these ideas. Soon we'll finally get to invite an audience into that conversation and celebrate the stories, debates, triumphs, and contradictions that helped shape America. That's a pretty special way to spend a summer.

From Songs to Fishing Nets: Building Revolutionary Boston One Prop at a Time

I’ve always said my favorite part of theatre is “yes.” Yes to writing the music. Yes to rehearsals. Yes to opening night chaos. But somehow every show eventually pulls me into props, sets, costumes, rope, paint, and whatever strange object I found at midnight online. I simply cannot stay away from it.

Heavy Duty Natural Fiber Rope Thick Twisted

Right now Broadside has me imagining Griffin’s Wharf in 1770 Boston. Salt air, wet rope, tavern noise, politics, and fishing nets drying along the harbor. The funny thing is people today picture lobster traps with bright plastic buoys, but back then lobsters were so abundant they practically washed ashore. Still, fishermen used cork floats for their nets, just as sailors had since Roman times. Tiny details like that completely fascinate me.

Authentic Fishing Floats on Rope

The old rope nets and cork floats feel alive somehow. Worn, tangled, weathered by years of Atlantic storms. A good prop tells the audience the world before a single actor speaks. Hang a fishing net in warm light and suddenly the stage smells like the harbor.

Real Fish Netting Cut From Commercial Nets

And then there are barrels. Revolutionary Boston ran on barrels. Rum, tea, molasses, fish, cider, everything moved through the colonies inside them. I recently picked up several old whiskey barrels and now I catch myself standing in the garage admiring them like sculpture. This is what happens when you spend your summer building a musical about colonial Boston. One minute you are writing songs about revolution and the next you are emotionally invested in antique fishing gear.

Authentic Stranahan Whiskey Barrel

Celebrate the birth of the USA at Vintage Theatre on July 4th weekend

There’s no better weekend to tell a story about America finding its voice than Independence Day weekend itself. Celebrate July 4th weekend with Broadside the Musical at Vintage Theatre as this small Denver-based theatre troupe prepares to head to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. Before the fireworks fade, step into Revolutionary Boston, where taverns buzz, broadsides fly, and a nation argues itself into existence.

Broadside is a messy breakup story set to music: Britain and America, once in harmony, fall out of sync in a war of words before the first musket is fired. In pre-Revolutionary Boston, broadsides were everywhere, sharp and fast, working like the first social memes, shaping public opinion overnight in taverns, streets, and meeting halls across the colonies.

Broadsides and Colonial Life in Boston

It’s the 1770's in Boston and you’re not watching history, you’re living it. The streets are alive with movement: merchants calling out prices, carriages rolling past, neighbors stopping mid-errand to talk. Everywhere you turn, broadsides are posted, tacked to tavern walls, nailed to posts, passed hand to hand, it's the original social media feed, spreading news, satire, and argument faster than any rider. Around you, colonists go about their daily lives; working, trading, debating, yet beneath it all runs a current of change, as ordinary moments quietly carry the weight of something much larger.

Broadside pinned at a colonial wash area

Before washing machines… before laundry rooms… there was the riverbank.

In Colonial America, washing clothes was often a communal task, with women gathering at local water sources like streams, rivers, or shared wells. They used flat stones and hard rock surfaces became the original washboards. Garments were soaked, scrubbed, beaten clean against the rocks, then rinsed in the flowing water.

You might find these gatherings near everyday community spaces, not far from places like Old South Meeting House, where practical work and social life overlapped. What could have been an isolating chore instead became something shared, stories exchanged, broadsides passed along, and friendships strengthened between the rhythm of scrubbing and rinsing. Hard work, certainly, but also a moment of connection.

Broadside tacked to a door of a local spinning bee

Before there were rallies in the streets, there were Spinning Bees.

In the 1760s and 1770s, as tensions with Britain grew, colonial communities gathered for these lively spinning competitions. They were part social event, part political statement with a broadside hung on the door. Women would bring their spinning wheels and raw flax or wool, competing to see who could spin the finest thread, the fastest skein, or the greatest quantity in a set time. Some events even recognized different categories: speed, strength of yarn, and overall quality. This wasn’t just craft, it was skill.

You might find a spinning bee on a village green, in a meeting house yard, or outside places like Old South Meeting House, where community and cause intertwined. These gatherings became popular for a simple, but powerful reason: they turned everyday work into collective action. By producing homespun cloth, colonists reduced reliance on British imports making spinning both a necessity and a quiet act of resistance. Add in a little friendly competition, a lot of conversation, and a shared purpose that turned into a movement.

Broadside near men playing the popular board game Nine Men’s Morris .

Before smartphones… there were boards, benches, and a handful of corn kernels.

In 1770, one of the most popular games you might stumble across in Colonial America was Nine Men’s Morris, a strategy game older than chess, simple to set up, but surprisingly cutthroat once play begins. No fancy pieces required: players often used whatever was on hand; corn kernels, pebbles, or carved scraps of wood placed carefully along the lines of a hand-drawn or carved board.

You could find a game unfolding almost anywhere: on a tavern table at the Green Dragon Tavern, scratched into a bench near Faneuil Hall, or even chalked onto a crate along the busy docks at Griffin’s Wharf. Between tankards and trade, neighbors and sometimes rivals would lean in, plotting moves, forming “mills,” and quietly competing for bragging rights.

It’s easy to imagine: the murmur of debate about liberty in the air… a broadside at the entrance and just below it, the quiet click of corn kernels sliding into place, strategy, rivalry, and community all playing out on a simple wooden board.

Broadside mounted on a horse drawn carriage

Before taxis… there were carriages.

In Colonial Boston, horse-drawn carriages served as a kind of early taxi system, but mostly for the wealthy. Known as chaises, coaches, or curricles, these rides offered speed, status, and a bit of comfort above the muddy, crowded streets. Hiring one wasn’t cheap, so most people walked, but for merchants, officials, or visiting elites, a carriage was the way to move through the city with purpose (and a little flair).

You might spot one rolling past Faneuil Hall or pulling up near Old South Meeting House with a broadside on back, wheels creaking, hooves striking the packed earth, as drivers navigated tight streets and busy markets. Not quite a taxi line, but close enough: if you had the means, you could hail a ride, sit back, and let someone else do the work; Colonial Boston style.

Broadside nailed to a pole on Griffin's Warf

Before the first shot… there was the dock.

Walk along Griffin’s Wharf in 1773 and you’d feel it. The tension, the anticipation, the low hum of something about to change. Moored nearby is the Dartmouth, heavy with East India Company tea, bound for London but caught in something far more complicated: a relationship between Britain and the colonies beginning to fracture.

Men gather in clusters, voices low but urgent; debating taxes, rights, and what “liberty” really means. The words travel fast here, from ship to shore, from whisper to argument, like the broadsides posted around town, the original social feed. Barrels, rope, salt air… and beneath it all, a sense that history is inching forward. Not with a bang just yet; but with conversation, conviction, and the quiet certainty that something has to give.

Broadside at Old South Meeting House

Before microphones… there was the meeting house.

Step inside Old South Meeting House in the early 1770s and you’d find it packed with merchants, laborers, artisans shoulder to shoulder in one of the largest indoor spaces in Boston. Originally a place of worship, it became something more: a civic gathering point where colonists came to debate, organize, and decide what came next.

They met there because they had to. The streets were too small, the moment too urgent. Notices spread by word of mouth and broadsides, calling people together to confront issues like taxation and trade. Inside, voices rose, arguments sharpened, and consensus, sometimes fragile, sometimes fierce began to form. It wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t orderly. But it was democracy in motion, built not in halls of power, but in a meeting house filled with people determined to be heard.

Broadside at Faneuil Hall open market

Before town squares… there was the market hall.

At Faneuil Hall in the 1770s, daily life unfolded in full view. The ground floor buzzed as an open-air market with vendors calling out prices, carts rolling in with goods, neighbors stopping to barter, gossip, and catch up. Above it, the meeting hall gathered the same community for speeches, debates, and decisions that would shape the future.

It was more than a building, it was the heartbeat of Boston. Commerce below, conversation above. You could buy your bread, hear the latest news, and stumble into a political debate all in the same visit. In a world before separation between public and private life, Faneuil Hall was both, where everyday routine and extraordinary moments met under one roof.

Method Composing: An approach to writing musicals

“Method Composing” is a process for writing musical theatre works, by stepping inside the world of the show before writing a single note. Inspired by Method Acting and its roots at the Actors’ Studio, the idea is simple: don’t compose about a world, compose from within it. The goal isn’t just authenticity in sound, but truth in experience. Music should feel like it belongs to the characters, the place, and the moment like it could exist even without the stage.

Eigg music ensemble with ceilidh band in Scotland

For Eigg the Musical, that meant building the score around the traditions of a ceilidh. The accordion became central, not as a stylistic choice, but as a cultural one. Writing in that style required learning how the music actually functions in a room full of dancers, how rhythm leads, how repetition invites participation, how community shapes sound. The result is a score that doesn’t imitate a ceilidh, it feels like one.

Organized Confusions performing for the New Horizons music festival

For BANNED, “Method Composing” meant stepping into the high-stakes, high-energy world of live pop performance. Learning to play in a pop band and competing in a music festival environment revealed a different musical language, one driven by immediacy, crowd response, and the pressure to win over an audience in real time. Arrangements had to hit fast, hooks had to land instantly, and performance carried as much weight as composition. That experience informed a score built on momentum, contrast, and the electric push-and-pull between performer and crowd.

April playing piano for the Women's Homelessness Initiative

With Absurd Hero, the process moved into lived community experience. Time spent working alongside the Women's Homelessness Initiative, playing piano in the evenings, taking requests, and listening, offered a different kind of musical insight. The songs in those spaces are raw, familiar, and deeply human. That shaped a score built on responsiveness and emotional truth rather than theatrical polish.

April Alsup in a fifer uniform in Denver Colorado

And for Broadside, “Method Composing” meant full immersion in the sound of the Revolution. By joining a fife and drum corps, learning and performing on piccolo, and marching in public events, the music became physical. Breath control, finger work, and endurance all informed the writing. Tempo came from footsteps, phrasing from movement, and melody from the sharp, carrying voice of the fife. It’s not just researched, it’s lived.

Across each project, the process stays the same: immerse, listen, participate. “Method Composing” isn’t the fastest way to write a musical, but it’s how April Alsup builds scores that don’t just support the story. They come from it.

Before the Feed, There Was Ink… Now There’s a QR Code

There’s something fitting about using modern tools to support one of the oldest art forms. Musical theatre has long relied on paper, scripts, sheet music, schedules, but today much of that process can live digitally without losing any of the magic. Our workflow has shifted to shared scripts, digital music files, and real-time rehearsal coordination. Updates happen instantly, performers always have the latest materials, and we avoid printing stacks that quickly become outdated. It’s not just more sustainable, it’s smoother, clearer, and better suited to the pace of a live production.

Broadside Playbill QR Code

That same thinking extends to the audience. Instead of printed programs, we use QR codes that open a dynamic, up-to-date playbill. With a quick scan, audiences can explore cast bios, creative teams, and behind-the-scenes context, all without a single sheet of paper. Less waste, more connection. It’s a small shift, but one that keeps theatre both timeless and forward-thinking.