Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Amy Whitcomb and Garrett Sherwood in Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera.

Well, that duo — Ryan Hayes and Jon Peter Lewis — is in New York this summer, preparing for five performances of a play they helped create called “Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera.”

It was one of 22 musicals selected from about 245 applicants for spots in the 2015 New York Musical Theatre Festival.

The festival runs is already underway and runs through July 27. “Deep Love” will premiere on Friday, with four more showings planned before the festival ends.

Jon Peter Lewis, also a former contestant on American Idol, told The Associated Press that Garrett Sherwood and Hayes wrote the music in 2009, after both had gone through bad breakups.

“Rather than going out and getting wasted, they wrote a rock opera about it,” said Lewis.

Then Jon Peter helped write the story, about love and loss set in an 1880s graveyard. According to the play’s website, the audience is encouraged to attend wearing funeral attire.

Jon Peter has a part in the play as Old Bones. So does another former Voice contestant, Amy Whitcomb; she plays the role of Florence.

Tickets for the New York shows are $29.50. You can check out the schedule and more about the New York Theatre Festival here.

As for Deep Love, here’s a link to the website. You can listen to and purchase all the music here.

Jon Peter says the play was first performed in his living room in Idaho in 2010 and that it’s since gained an enthusiastic following in that region.

“We wanted to get on the radar of people who are in the business,” Lewis told AP about “Deep Love’s” New York debut. “We have something that’s working elsewhere but no one really knows about us outside our little region.”

Here’s a trailer for the show.