As previously reported, Amanda Palmer is hard at work preparing her own high-school musical...

I am going to be performing in an original play with music titled "WITH THE NEEDLE THAT SINGS IN HER HEART" at lexington high school. the show is inspired by the album "in the aeroplane over the sea" by neutral milk hotel and is being written (and we're almost done!) by me, the cast and my former drama director and mentor, steven bogart.

performances are May 7, 8 and 9 at the LHS theater. doors at 7:30. show at 8. $5 for students. $10 for the general public. come. come come come.

Tickets for With the Needle That Sings in her Heart are on sale now. Palmer has been posting frequent updates on her blog and Twitter account about the production of the show and other tidbits, such as this description:

using "in the aeroplane over the sea" by neutral milk hotel as an inspiration, the kids (a cast of 20) have been putting together a play through improvisation. the process started about a month ago and i've been in the last two weeks of rehearsals helping shape the plot and characters and create the musical accompaniment, mostly songs from the record played live. often with me playing the instruments, but the whole cast and some extra musicians will be presenting the music....

Palmer's next live show is at Coachella on April 18th. She also has a show scheduled at NYC's Highline Ballroom on Friday, June 5th (tickets on sale April 17th).

As Pitchfork recently reported. Amanda is also making a public effort to get dropped from her Roadrunner Records contract. She even sings a song about it to the tune of "Moon River". Check out the video below. In a letter to Bob Lefsetz she wrote:

my label-dropping game has become very fun. please pray for me.

it's a lesson in how the future of music is working - fans are literally (and i mean that....literally) lining up at the signing table after shows and HANDING me cash, saying "thank you".

i had to EXPLAIN to the so-called "head of digital media" of roadrunner australia WHAT TWITTER WAS. and his brush-off that "it hasn't caught on here yet" was ABSURD because the next day i twittered that i was doing an impromptu gathering in a public park and 12 hours later, 150 underage fans - who couldn't attend the show - showed up to get their records signed.

no manager knew! i didn't even warn or tell her! no agents! no security! no venue! we were in a fucking public park!
life is becoming awesome.

Cellist Zoe Keating, who toured Australia with Palmer in early March, will be performing with Palmer at Coachella. The pair recently covered Muse's "Time Is Running Out" live (video below).

Palmer is also releasing a Who Killed Amanda Palmer book -- "a fine art hardback book of "photographic evidence" with contributions from celebrated blogger and photographer Kyle Cassidy, Beth Hommel, Tegan Rain (of Tegan and Sara) and many others. Fictional stories to accompany the photographs have been penned by best-selling author Neil Gaiman." That book will be available for pre-order on Palmer's website starting Monday, April 20th at noon (cover art above).

Full With the Needle That Sings in her Heart press release, plus Palmer singing an impromptu song with John Wesley Harding at SXSW and other videos, and all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Amanda Palmer - wants out of Roadrunner, playing NYC, writing a play, releasing a book, likes Twitter & other news"