Christopher Muther, The Boston Globe

March 21, 2014

One morning Colin Thurmond had a revelation. It included Joey Fatone as a spectral Duke Orsino, Jordan Knight doing the New Kids dance in an ancient region of the western Balkans after a shipwreck, and Justin Timberlake in yellow stockings. Thurmond, who is working on his doctorate in classical guitar at the New England Conservatory, was so passionate about marrying 1990s boy band music with Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” that he sat at his computer first thing that morning and didn’t stop writing until 11 that night. He was so entranced by the project he didn’t change out of his pajamas.

“The story really wrote itself,” he said of “Sexyback: or what you will.”

Q. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a hard time connecting Justin Timberlake and Shakespeare.

A. I had a moment when those things just really clicked because I was thinking a lot about my favorite Shakespeare plays, and I was batting around this idea of how to tell a really complex narrative story through song. I was the music director for the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company this past summer on their “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” production. [CSC artistic director] Steve Maler said he really wanted to be able to turn the show into a Rat Pack, Vegas thing that could also propel the narrative forward. He wanted the music to add an emotional depth to the characters and make it feel really contemporary and fun. […continued]

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