How Audra Sergel and Trent Rash cultivated the musical 'Now is the Time' over a decade
Few of life's most elemental forces — the likes of love and grief— arrive in neat, linear fashion. Even something as purposeful as a melody curves and carries across time and place, taking on new shape, deeper meaning.
When these realities do align, the moment becomes all the more special. Actively listening to the duet between life and art, Audra Sergel and Trent Rash realize this truth. Two of Columbia's leading musicians will witness their co-creation, a musical with roots reaching back a decade, find its first true fulfillment this week.
A show with a serendipitous title, "Now is the Time" is set to debut at Talking Horse Productions.
How a musical lives up to its name
Columbia audiences know Sergel and Rash by sight and sound and name. Sergel is a pop and jazz luminary, music educator and the driving force behind Columbia's "LGBTQAA-Z community choir," The Quorus. Rash is a gifted singer, educator and now shapes the Missouri Symphony's present and future as its executive director.
The pair own long histories in the theater, where they've often collaborated. Sergel and Rash began working on what's now called "Now is the Time" back in 2013, staging a 50-minute version in 2014, she said in an email. The show picked up its feet, traveling across the Midwest and changing by degrees.
"Since (2015), it has been a 'drawer musical' in the sense that we haven't gone any further with it," Sergel said.
But life kept working on these friends, eventually revealing the musical wasn't done — or done with them.
"So much has happened in both Audra and I's life since the first version of this show in 2014," Rash said in an email. "I think that has only served to further bring a richness and authenticity to the evolving script and score, as we continue to refine and complete our original story."
Talking Horse leader Rochara Knight performed in an early iteration of the show and, in late 2022, approached Sergel and Rash with an age-old conviction, but one no less resonant: the show must go on.
Sergel and Rash put "Now is the Time" through new paces, with solos becoming duets "to allow more interaction amongst the characters," Sergel said, characters coming into their clearings, and other changes freeing the creators to "best tell the story we are trying to tell."
Portraying the process of 'arriving'
The story Sergel and Rash are trying to tell revolves around a group of friends in their mid-thirties. Tragedy touches their circle and, over a year's time, they grapple with grief's implications, with the changes it provokes.
With trademark generosity, Sergel discussed the way love is portrayed in the musical, as an unsettling and ultimately refining force.
"The main theme of the show, for me, is that while we don't get to choose who we love in this life, we do get to decide how we love them and how to show up for them authentically," she said. "We might talk a good game about 'choosing love,' but there's no handbook on what those choices look like when things get messy, painful, or confusing, as they inevitably do, for us as humans."
Sergel tried to show up for herself as she scored the show — Rash wrote the book — in the form of "real, honest questions of myself about what I was experiencing, at the time, as a human."
These questions transfer from the show's creators to its characters, who recognize answers in both the expected and unexpected places, Sergel said.
This sense of seeking and finding is crucial to the story. Sergel and Rash envisioned and enfleshed these characters at a life stage which often goes unseen in the theater, they said.
"For some reason, the young adult has always been the sought-after time period for storytelling both on the theater stage and in Hollywood," Rash said. "I think that is fundamentally missing out of 75% of the normal life experience."
The act of figuring life out is one audiences will recognize like a mirror image, he said.
"That is so true for all of us who have been there. We don't just suddenly 'arrive,' " Rash said. "We are always growing and learning and having to make choices that align with who we are and what we value. That is what we are trying to show here."
More than a little help from their friends
Beyond Knight's crucial spurring, the show gains energy from its cast and from new, key collaborators. Juliana Frey-Mendez directs the show, while Jeremy Wagner oversees the music. Sergel and Rash see their initial vision, both sure and evolving, in the creative labor of these partners.
"Juliana's experience with new works has been invaluable: I feel like she's given a masterclass in fostering creativity and collaboration at every turn, while also being an incredible problem-solver," Sergel said. "She cares so deeply about telling the story with compassion and a detailed eye: it's truly been amazing to see her in action."
Wagner's skill as a forward-thinking editor and shaper of songs impresses Sergel.
"He's an amazing vocalist and able to lead the singers through this uncharted territory with great ease and effective rehearsals," she added.
Showing up again and again
As a less-than-linear path brings "Now is the Time" to fruition, Sergel and Rash just keep seeing — and hearing — the show's themes reinforced. There is no one right way to move into the theater or through your emotions.
"It was important to let people know it is OK for your journey to take its own course over its own timeline," Rash said. "Each of the characters shows this as they each go on their own unique journey with a shared grief."
Sergel called grief a "powerful, gut-wrenching, and beautiful teacher," and said the show finds the "humor in the drama" in a way that's lived-through and lived-in.
The story of the show and the story within the show have become collaborators, forming a reminder that slow, faithful steps matter — even as the world changes around you.
"This is just what really happens in life — we do not all experience, feel, or show up in the world in the same way. We wanted to make sure to show that emotional diversity was shown throughout the story," Rash said.
"Now is the Time" runs this Friday through Sunday, April 25-28 and May 2-5 at Talking Horse Productions. Sergel and Rash will lead talk-back sessions April 19 and May 3. For tickets and showtimes, visit https://www.talkinghorseproductions.org/now-is-the-time.
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. He's on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Musical 'Now is the Time' reflects love, grief on Columbia stage
