Oxford songwriter takes show off-Broadway
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Oxford singer/songwriter Lisa Biales is taking her children’s show “Yellow Shoes” to New York City for her off-Broadway debut, but not before giving local fans a sneak peek on Sunday.
“It’s basically a collection of songs with a story about how I got interested in singing by singing for my mom,” Biales said. “All of the questions people ask me when I get off stage, I put into the show.”
Although it’s geared toward children with sing-alongs and audience interactions, it will also have some grown-up appeal, she said.
The title comes from a song she wrote about a boy who puts on a colorful costume — yellow shoes, purple suit, red hat — to catch a certain girl’s eye.
“When you’re in love, you let your defenses down,” Biales said.
The off-Broadway version will be staged at the Barrow Street Theatre in Greenwich Village, where she and her husband went to see the musical “Gone Missing” last summer.
“I’ve known the producer there for about five years and we started talking after the show,” she said. “He said he was looking for new shows to get people, especially families, into the theater on dark days.”
When she got home and sat down to write a proposal, she said she was thinking she wasn’t worthy to do an off-Broadway show.
“But then I put on a wacky hat to write and all of a sudden I saw the whole show in my mind,” she said. “I wrote an eight-page proposal and put together a CD of songs and put it in the mail.”
