The Making of Different the Musical

Tyler Daynes was given an autism diagnosis, among other things, at an early age. He, his parents, and family had several years of struggles as they attempted to manage behaviors, schools, and everything surrounding Tyler. He is actually the main subject in his dad’s book, Keep It Together Man For Dad’s With A Special Kid http://tinyurl.com/3v4jy6h9. 

As Tyler grew, he worked on his weaknesses and discovered his strengths. His autism class became a mainstream class with an aid. He embraced Autism and became a spokesman for Autism and an advocate for special needs. He made videos, speeches, an anti-bully rap, and anything he could to support the cause.

While Ty was In middle school the Daynes family set off to the mountains of southern Utah for a vacation. It was there that he said to his dad, “Dad, I know what I want to do!” His dad replied, “What Ty? What do you want to do?” “I want to write a musical,” came his reply. Caught off guard, but ever supportive, his dad said, “That’s great Ty, you go do that.” Ty expressed his desire, but asked for his dad’s help on the project. 

Ty had many ideas that were here today and gone tomorrow and Rick, Tyler’s dad, knew this would be one of those situations. However, after a full year of bugging his dad, and on the same family vacation one year later, in the same place, Rick knew this was different. Young Tyler was not going to let go. So, Rick pulled out a notebook and started asking questions.

What’s the story? Characters? Theme? What do we hope to accomplish? It did not take long for Rick to discover that his son was on to something special, With Tyler taking the lead, the two of them began to create.  When Ty was promoted from Middle to High School, so did the settings, plot, and blocking. This was his story and every character represented a family member, peer, or a combination.

It took a few years from that first outline, but the father and son team had put together a solid story line with great character development and message. Nine songs were in the script and neither Ty nor Rick had any background writing music. Funny thing about writing a musical. You need someone to write the music. So, they asked Jefferson, Ty’s older brother, to help out. He declined, as did a handful of others.

Enter Larry Farnes, a talented musician and friend. He agreed to take a stab at two songs and they were rolling. Enter Scott Sprugiesz, owner of Music Pillars, a local music and theater company. In October of 2019, Scott and his wife Melissa along with Rick and Robin Daynes were on a POG (Parents Only Getaway), when Rick pitched “Different the Musical” to Scott. He expressed a desire to be part of the team. Funny how projects originate on vacation.

Five months later, schools, businesses, and the world shut down with the COVID 19 pandemic. Rick’s wife Robin, a registered nurse, called home one night to say she was taking care of COVID patients and would not be coming home. Rick and Robin had five kids, two were considered high risk as was Rick who had recently donated a kidney http://tinyurl.com/j347mpnp. Robin would spend four of the next nine months living in hotels while Rick kept the house running in isolation. He kept telling the kids, “Never let a worldwide pandemic go to waste. Now is the time to accomplish something!” And the work on Different the Musical increased.

Scott Spurgiesz called and said Music Pillars would like to hire Tyler, Rick, and Jefferson to complete the musical. Rick diverted his portion to a future team member, but nothing like a financial incentive to accelerate a project and pull Jefferson onto the team. An electric piano was borrowed from Music Pillars and they now had another song writer creating music. Jefferson began each song by sitting down with his dad and talking about the tone, rhythm, message and feeling of the piece. Then he would sit at the piano, half naked, with nothing but his phone, and compose. It was inspiring to watch! It Isn't Real.

The silver linings from COVID 19 brought time, money, and Jefferson home from his freshman year in college. It also brought home another college student and vital member to the team. Enter Sammy Daynes, cousin/niece to the team, and more importantly, a theater major. She joined the team just in time as they had less than five weeks left to complete the entire project. They bought proper script software and Sammy began putting the story on the page.  She gave dialog to the characters and voice to the stage. 

With Jefferson busy writing the music, Ty, Sammy, and Rick would social distance themselves in a church gym and work on the project. Three desks, each with a laptop, faced two large chalkboards they wheeled in. The chalk boards contained the timeline, characters, acts, and scenes they would hash out. The three would brainstorm, dissect, and create. Then Sammy would write into the night and then share the progress. 

Later, the team would meet again and discuss, scrap, and manufacture more show. Sammy would again write all night and the process would repeat. They worked with urgency because Scott had given them deadlines and held their feet to the fire. When Larry Farnes completed his two songs, one was scrapped while the other, BMOC, was given to Jefferson. He then tweaked and added and It was then inserted as the beginning and closing number. 

The looming threat of the final deadline approached and Jefferson completed the rest of the songs. Two readings were held using extended family, which resulted in more input, more scrapping and editing. Ty, Sammy, and Rick continued their ritual of three stations facing two chalkboards in the church gym, followed by Sammy writing all night, then sharing. Then of course, the process would repeat and repeat, until the June deadline appeared and Different the Musical was handed over to Music Pillars.

One year later, the Daynes family was able to purchase the show from Music Pillars and continue their mission. All the songs were written on the piano and needed to be fully orchestrated. Enter composer Josh Sohn, who took every song and tweaked, added all the bells and whistles, and wrote out the complete musical score. He then recorded all the music. A group of amazing singers were recruited and in late spring of 2022 an album was created. You can listen to Different the Musical on your favorite music platform https://open.spotify.com/album/6YsKFgjoqxeVschJnQImk2.

Later that summer, under the direction of Sammy Daynes, now a new graduate of Brigham Young University, plans were made to put the show on stage. Sammy put a team together, a casting call was made, and rehearsals commenced. In late August 2022, the world premier of Different the Musical performed on stage at The Hive Collaborative, in Provo, Utah. The cast performed for five sold-out shows and received great reviews and amazing feedback from everyone who saw it live Different the Musical.