NEW YORK – Manuel “Manny” Hagopian and Bryan Blaskie have written the book, lyrics and music to a one-act musical comedy called “Assistants,” which previewed on June 20 and is running from June 22 to July 21 at the Players Theater in Greenwich Village.
The show originally premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2015, where it won Best Full-Length Musical of the Fringe from StageSceneLA.com, while being listed by Time Out Los Angeles as the Number One Can’t-Miss Show at the Fringe and named as one of the top five musicals at the Fringe by the LA Music Blog. However, Hagopian said, it has been reworked over the past few years and workshopped in Los Angeles and Philadelphia before its Off Broadway debut.
Hagopian said the show, looking at the lives of Hollywood assistants, was basically about “that balance between trying to do something for yourself while doing everything for someone else and the sacrifices you make to accomplish those goals.” It is not primarily based on his own experiences because he became friends with his boss, Jesse Stern, while an assistant, and that boss now is the executive producer of this show. However, many of his friends had grueling jobs while assistants trying to manage their bosses’ lives.
Hagopian and his cowriter are also both producers and wear a lot of different hats. Hagopian also deals with some of the marketing, video editing and raising money for the show. He pointed out that “doing these shows is not an easy task.”
(Perfect, a song from “Assistants” composed by Hagopian)
Hagopian is well known as a writer for an award-winning series of video games from Respawn Entertainment and EA, including Titanfall, Titanfall 2, Battle Royale Apex Legends and soon a Star Wars game called Jedi: The Fallen Order. He writes the story, characters and dialogue.
