Project Inception                       

In December 2024, Jodi Walder trained a group of seven volunteers to conduct and record interviews at GG’s House. We interviewed 50 people and recorded over 70 hours of stories. Jodi then worked with a volunteer team consisting of Violeta Basenko, Alyssa Hicks, and Jessie Walder-Biesanz to turn the stories into a series of themed monologues and dialogues. Renowned off-Broadway composer Noel Katz joined the project in January 2025 to write the melodies and lyrics for the show.

Gg's House
​​
Gg’s House is a Forest Grove-based 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a simple yet profound mission: to extend a helping hand to those facing tough times in our community. We provide a variety of essential services, from clothing and meals to hygiene items, medical equipment, and school supplies. We believe in inclusivity, offering our assistance to anyone in need, irrespective of their backgrounds, circumstances, race, or religion. Our beneficiaries include schools, nursing homes, home health agencies, individuals without homes, families, veterans, hospitals, and many others. Each week, we assist between 200-450 individuals and donate 2000 pounds of food to local food banks and families. https://www.ggshousegivinggrace.org/
​

Interviews

Alyssa Hicks, Jessie Walder-Biesanz, Violeta Basenko, Caralynn West, Bruce Collins, Shriya Marla and Jodi Walder audio recorded over 70 hours of interviews with Gg's House clients and volunteers.

Script and Songs

.The interviews were transcripted and then changed to monolgue format. The monolgues were organized thematically. The distinct voices of the clients were retained. Songs were written to capture the  personalities and diversity of the clients and to shed light on the history of the social safety net.

Workshops

Volunteer actors attended a 4-day workshop in July 2025 to read the script, learn three production numbers and perform some monolgues. Particpant and audience feedback was taken into account to revise the script and songs. Additional table reads ocurred in September and November 2025. The story was re-imagined as a docudrama with a story arc, rather than a series of monologues.

---

Creative Team

​Noel Katz, Music and Lyrics, has been writing musicals for more than a half-century. Noel’s career began in his teens, playing with the Hollywood improv troupe, Off the Wall, where he worked with the then-undiscovered Robin Williams. He returned to his native New York as the youngest member of the BMI Musical Theatre Writing Workshop under Lehman Engel. He’s had twenty musicals produced, including Such Good Friends, which premiered in 2007’s New York Musical Theater Festival, winning three NYMF Awards and two Talkin' Broadway Citations, including Best Musical. He wrote a musical comedy in which he actually married casting director Joy Dewing at the Soho Playhouse, with singing bridesmaids, preacher, parents, and four-year-old flower girl. His Gilbert and Sullivan-esque backstage mystery, Murder at the Savoy, sold out at the 50th Edinburgh Festival, got five stars from The Scotsman, and has since been produced four more times in Great Britain.  He taught musical theatre performance for twenty years at the Circle in the Square Theatre School on Broadway, and for thirteen years at Fairleigh-Dickinson University. More recently, he devised a musical comedy that incorporated a twenty-minute improv set called Rehearsing For Life at the Wallis-Annenberg in Beverly Hills. His other musicals include Area 51, The Christmas Bride, Camp Ginger, The Pirate Captains, On the Brink, and five revues for Second City.

Jodi Walder, Writer and Director, first collaborated with Noel in 1987 on the new fairy tale Not A Lion (originally Popsicle Palace, but who knew Popsicle is a registered trademark?) After a sold-out 16-week run in Los Angeles, the show had successful productions in New York and London. In Portland, Oregon (her home since 1990), Jodi wrote and directed musical revues including From Borscht Belt to Broadway illuminating the historical influence of Jewish compsoers and lyricists on Broadway, Singing For Our Lives tracing the history of protest music , and Makin' Whoopee, featuring a hundred years of love songs from 1900-2000. Her passion is creating devised theatrical pieces based on interviews. She collaborated with Lee Rooklin on In Santa's Suit, based on the life and stories of a real-life Santa, Glen Kummerow. Jodi has created and directed productions with school children, gang members, and terminally ill patients. It has been rewarding for her to lead a team of interviewers at Gg's House, and to turn these clients' stories into the social justice docudrama Catch Me When I Fall.

This World Premiere is made possible by our producing organization: