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Notes From the Writer

It started with a dream about a pop star named "King Nigel". I'd seen Hamilton on Disney+ on the 4th of July, 2020, and everything had changed. I knew then that I had to create a musical, and that every twist and turn in my life had lead to that point. Five months of brainstorming went by before King Nigel visited my subconscious and danced for me. I scribbled her name on a post-it above my desk and began writing her story. Over time, it evolved into a tale about an abandoned girl who was "thrown to the wolves" of the concrete jungle. I set it during the best time to be alive in New York City: 1981, in the heat of the creative crucible that was the Bowery music scene: Talking Heads, Blondie, the Ramones, X-ray Spex... you know the rest. I based the character of King Nigel's grandma off of my maternal grandmother's experience in New York, where she studied cosmetology at Charles of the Ritz in the 1960s. The rest flourished.

The best tunes came to me when I was simply staring out the window at the blue summer sky, or the fluttering spring leaves. I come from a music background, but I'd never written a musical before. To prepare, I intensely studied my favorite post-punk bands, and the work and life of Stephen Sondheim. Just as I was getting started, he'd sadly passed. I kept working to understand the man and his musical genius. I've learned so much from his lyrics and music, and he left behind a legacy of information to help a musical writer forge a path towards the stage. 

I am eternally inspired by the audacious, unfiltered artists and musicians who made the New York, London, and worldwide post-punk, new wave, and industrial music scene happen. We may never see another time like it (although I am hoping to inspire something new here, for the next generation). 

This play is for the girls and boys who have been forgotten, lost, and are finding their way. May our stage light the path. —Satu

Notes From the Director

When COVID hit in 2020, Satu chose to use the period when the world was locked down and quiet to create some songs and a story around a dream she’d had about a rock star named King Nigel. Within 3 months, she had six songs completed, and asked if I’d listen to them. From the first chord of “What Does It Mean”, I was floored. This plaintive song so fully expressed the longing, the loneliness and the need of the abandoned little girl still residing deep within the bluster and bravado of King Nigel that my first question was, “Can I co-produce this with you?” 

Months of development led to the initial invite-only workshop at the Victory Theatre in Burbank. With the first round of COVID vaccines still a ways off, we limited attendance to 30 people (in a 98 seat theater) and required everyone to be masked and have a temperature check. It was exciting to have this initial performance… to see how the songs landed with the audience… to see what staging worked (and what needed adjustment). But let’s be truly honest here. Those workshop performances were (by necessity) not the in-your-face rock and roll experience that the story demanded.

So here we are, in 2024, bringing the Los Angeles premiere of King Nigel’s Nervous Breakdown to Hollywood Fringe. We’ve revisited the recordings of those initial performances and really interrogated the assumptions we had during the workshop, and the result is a very different show than the initial ones held in 2021 at the Victory Theatre. One thing that hasn’t changed, and that we feel is stronger than ever… that the beating heart of King Nigel, past the costumes and artifice and braggadocio, is her journey to love and cherish herself. We are so happy you can join us during this vital moment in King Nigel’s journey.

—Rantz A. Hoseley