If you could get in touch with your younger self,
would it be a dream come true or a nightmare?
SYNOPSIS
SAM, a dancer living in New York, escapes death after a big stroke following his 70th birthday.
This prompts him to focus on his current life and to sincerely admit that it sucks.
He’s separated from the only great love of his life, MIA (60). He has no contact anymore with his daughter (MELODY, 30) since she was a child. He’s old. His bones and his joints hurt when he’s dancing. He’s broke. In other words he’s finished !
MELODY, who’s struggling, trying to make her living in Los Angeles as a journalist, surprisingly doesn’t think twice and comes over to see her sick dad as soon as she receives the news.
But MIA seems anxious to see the two of them reunited. She strongly warns her daughter up about Sam’s notorious bad character.
Actually, she droped her career as a dancer and left New York many years ago because of Sam. Thank god ! She’s now married to the perfect husband, Mr CLEAN, CEO of a very famous Los Angeles based cleaning company.
Despite the advice of her mother, Melody believes she’s definitely doing the right move. And she’s right ! As soon as she arrives in New York, she discovers something about her parents she was not aware of : while they were living together, they had a secret project: an amazing stage musical comedy they never get the chance to achieve.
Why was she not aware of this? Why keep it a secret anyway? Melody is convinced this musical has to be staged !
But Sam feels he’s too weak and too old now to fulfil this new mission.
One night, while Sam is doing his usual routine, his « own self » at 30 appears to him out of the blue, telling him he definitely can’t miss this wonderful opportunity!
So, it’s the first step for Sam to jump into this journey, with the help of his new alter ego (himself at 30), who’s going to become his best « buddy » but also his worse enemy !
Through this unusal experience, Sam gets in touch with himself from another perspective and figures out why giving up on his dream of becoming a famous dancer-choreographer on Broadway was a huge mistake.
And it’s time for him to open a new chapter in his life, regain the energy of his youth, face the challenges which lie ahead, fight the bad guys, rekindle the romance with his ex wife and tells his daughter she means the world to him.
But most importantly : escape from the clutches of the young version of himself !
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” – C.S. Lewis
Since childhood, musicals have always been part of my life. I started taking dance classes at 5 and my parents used to take me to the theater each week-end to watch classic musicals.
Then, the Musical shows that inspired me a lot were the stories of the students and faculty of the New York City High School for the Performing Arts (FAME), and about a group of ambitious misfits who try to escape the harsh realities of high school by joining a glee club (‘GLEE’).
With this show, I want to talk about age through the story of a Classic Jazz dancer who turns 70, realizing he’s too old to achieve his dream, and who, by coincidence, meets face to face with his own self at 30.
What would you do in this situation? Do you think it would be a dream come true or a nightmare?
Maybe both !
As human being, we are all terrified about getting old because we think we’ll never get the chance to do all what we wanted, all what we’ve planned. So we are pressed to do anything we can, at specific time with a specific age because after that age we feel we’ll become obsolete.
Age is a prison created by our society, which has deprived us the freedom to do whatever we want whenever we want.
Someone told me one day ‘I don't care about getting old. I just care about losing my youth.’
Age doesn’t mean anything. It’s just an illusion, because in reality we are free to do whatever we love to do whenever we want to.
Today, middle-aged women are very comfortable in their own skin.They’re dating young guys, start to take Hip-Hop classes and look like they are 30.
Young women want to get married, look like ladies and start to do surgery.
Older people are dating by social medias and young people prefer to meet by friends.
Age is just a number. A way to put people into different boxes. Age sucks!
This show is not about aging people V.S young people. It’s not about trying to look young or avoid getting old.
It’s more about: even if growing old is unavoidable, at any given moment we have the power to decide what we want to become and do whatever we can to become the person we always wanted to be.
Following the story of Sam in parallel with stories of different characters from diverse ages, cultures, backgrounds and life experiences, I want to confront the new to the old. Classic Jazz dance from the eighties to today’s Hip Hop dance. Classical music to Pop music.
I want to show that all this can live together.
This show is a Fantasy Musical Comedy-Drama about old people meeting young people, about a father and a daughter relationship, about love and about the power of being a family. About dancing singing and acting. About Broadway’s backstages.
The tone is off-beat humor surrounded with drama and energetic musical comedy.
It’s a ‘13 GOING 30’ in reverse mixed with ‘ALL THAT JAZZ’.
It's not about ‘being young again is wonderful’ but more about ‘no matter how old we are, we can allow ourself to be the person we’re truly meant to be’.
It’s about colorful characters you could probably meet in real life but it’ll be the first time you’ll see them in a show.
TEAM
After earning a degree from the Sorbonne Film School in Paris, attending acting classes with John Strasberg, Jack Waltzer and Susan Batson (Actor's Studio), Crystel made her initial steps in the film industry at the University of California, Santa Barbara (U.C.S.B), where she attended writing/directing classes, acting and dancing classes, and directed her first short film “Another Girl”.
Afterward, she worked as an actress on several French and English language fictions for television (Highlander), and feature films then she soon moved on to writing, producing and directing short films, music videos in New York.
Crystel first feature film, “QUAND LES ANGES S’EN MELENT…” won the Award for Best Actor at the Paris Film Festival and was also nominated in several festivals in New York, Boston, Melbourne, Palm Beach, Washington...
Patrick LEVY, started his film career at the Ecole Florent Director’s Class in Paris, and The Lee Strasberg’s Institute in Los Angeles. He produced a number of plays and directed short films, music videos, commercials and two feature films : "COUP DE VICE" (Dirty Tricks) with Samy Naceri & "GAMER" starring Saïd Tagmaoui. Then he produced Crystel AMSALEM’s first feature film ”QUAND LES ANGES S'EN MELENT... As a director & producer, his third feature film « KINGS OF THE NIGHT », won the award Of "BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE" at The LOS ANGELES FILM & SCRIPT FESTIVAL.