Original Song Featured In Lovett Or Leave It

I’m thrilled to share that my original theme song for Crooked Media’s Lovett or Leave It — one of my very favorite podcasts — was featured on the June 27, 2020 episode of the show: “K-Popping His Bubble.” I wrote and produced this song, which features the vocal talents of the incredible Rachel Guth. We had a blast putting this together, and were thrilled to hear that Jon Lovett himself was so pleased with the song, saying: “I loved it. Magnificent.”

Ladder Wins 6 Honors at CMTF Awards Ceremony

We closed our run at the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival with a bang! After receiving 15 nominations, we ultimately took home 6 top honors at the festival’s annual awards ceremony:

Best of the Festival

Best Book (Ryan Martin)

Best Music (Ryan Martin)

Best Director (Elliott Hartman)

Best Actor in a Leading Role (Rachel Guth)

Best Music Director (Annabelle Revak)

We are so, so grateful to Underscore Theatre Company for producing this festival, which has helped us bring this show to hundreds of new audience members. A huge thank you and special shout out as well to our entire cast and crew who all share in these honors. Next step: recording a new demo album for release in Summer 2019!

Something In the Game Opens at AMPT

It was a real joy to work on Something in the Game, a new musical 10 years in the making about the life of Knute Rockne. I joined the team working once again as David H. Bell's assistant director. This opportunity afforded me a front row seat to the process of developing a new musical with some of the top talent in Chicago (also truly wonderful people). We opened this past weekend and will run through August 5th. For more about the show, check out this awesome article in the Tribune! 

Tickets are available here at the Wirtz Center website. Check us out!

Southern Gothic Opens at WCP

We just opened Southern Gothic this past week! I first got involved with this project as the writing intern last fall, and ultimately worked alongside David H. Bell as an assistant director. The play is about four couples who attend a dinner party that gradually devolves into a nightmare in which secrets are exposed, marriages tested, and friendships alternatively lost and strengthened. The show runs at Windy City Playhouse at least through April with possible extensions, but tickets are going fast so wait at your own risk!

Windy City chose to stage the play as a piece of immersive theatre. The audience wanders through a realistic house built on the theatre's stage, following different characters through a series of overlapping scenes. The result is a choose-your-own-adventure night of theatre, which is a novel and exciting experience. And speaking of novel and exciting, this is my first Chicago theatre credit! For what's next, please be sure to check back soon.

Hadley Breaker is Going to PLAYground

I'm proud to announce that my first full length original musical, The Incredible Six Thousand Foot Ladder to Heaven, has been selected for a staged reading as a part of the Purple Crayon Players' 10th Annual PLAYground Festival of New Works! The festival will take place April 20th and 21st––more information on the time and place to come.

The play follows Hadley Breaker, a twelve year old girl whose grief over her father's death leads her into trouble at school and threatens to wreck her relationship with her mother. It's in the midst of all of this that Hadley befriends Spider, a girl her age who's just moved to the area from out of town. Upset to see her new friend beset by grief, Spider conceives a plan. Together, they resolve to build a six thousand foot ladder to Heaven, where they hope to visit Hadley's father. Then, of course, problems ensue.

I'm thrilled to get a chance to develop this piece with the Purple Crayon Players, and so many TBA rising stars at Northwestern. Please stay tuned for more!

Highlights of Senior Year: Waa-Mu

One of the best things I ever did at Northwestern was to get involved with Waa-Mu. Waa-Mu is a completely student-written musical developed through the course of the academic year under faculty direction and mentorship, co-produced by the university each spring. It purports to be the largest such show in America––and it probably is––but I doubt that anybody investigates each year to verify the claim. Regardless, if you want to learn about the process of writing or otherwise piecing together a new musical, I doubt there's a better place to do that anywhere in the world. 

Our story this year centered around a family. CJ, a rising senior in high school, has spent her summer writing superhero stories to entertain and uplift her younger sister, Skylar, who's spent the summer bedridden with a mysterious illness. The stories become only more impactful to the both of them as they try to navigate the too-often cruel and chaotic world of high school. When Skylar discovers that CJ's friends on the school newspaper staff are the real-life inspiration for CJ's superheroes, the powers from the stories begin to slip into their lives––alternatively empowering and befuddling them. Meanwhile, their brother, Mike, hopes to make his mark on the football team. Compared to the bullying he endures from the team's quarterback, however, being benched for the third year in a row is the least of his concerns. 

One particularly exciting element of the show was the soundtrack, which was easily Waa-Mu's most pop-influenced score in memory. This development owes to the contemporary subject matter, but more than that it's a clear indication of what we were listening to at the time. Almost every song in the score can be identified as either Hamilton-inspired or Dear Evan Hansen-inspired (with some Waitress thrown in for good measure). My own work is thoroughly in that vein. Over the course of the year, I deliberately experimented with mixing a contemporary pop idiom and conventional musical theatre songwriting. To judge whether I was remotely successful in achieving either, please find "Go It Alone" and "The Apology Song" on my YouTube page (linked above). These weren't my only contributions to the play, but they were my proudest. 

Highlights of Senior Year: Michael Collins

This past winter I was fortunate enough to be cast in a staged reading of Michael Collins, a new musical by Ryan Cunningham and Joshua Salzman produced by the American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern. I've been a huge fan of theirs since high school when a friend of mine got me hooked on the I Love You Because album––so working on their newest project was a dream come true. 

The play follows the story of, you guessed it, Michael Collins, an Irish revolutionary who helped lead a rebellion against British occupation in the early 20th Century. What's most interesting about the story though, is what happens next. After an especially bloody campaign, the Irish succeed in compelling the British to negotiate a peace settlement. The treaty, which Collins helps to negotiate, would infamously separate Northern Ireland from the greater Republic of Ireland. Whether the realization of freedom merits compromising the rebels' dream of a united and independent Ireland becomes the major question of the piece. It's a question that would go on to divide Ireland against itself, dividing even Collins and many of his closest friends. 

This ambitious story calls for a sizable ensemble of actors, representing various historical figures over almost a dozen years. I had a blast playing Lloyd George, the English Prime Minister determined to quell the rebellion with his formidable forces and dry wit. The question of when it's worthwhile to give a little in order to get a little will always be relevant in a republic of over 300 million people––particularly when unyielding adherence to one's own ideals dissuades a number of people from political participation altogether. I believe this complete aversion to compromise contributes to the routinely low voter turnout in modern American elections, not to mention congressional gridlock. I'm excited to see where this thrilling new show goes next, and remain grateful to have played a role in its own history. 

Highlights of Senior Year: Sweet Charity

It's graduation, so I get to be sentimental.

My year began with Sweet Charity, a silly and surprisingly profound musical. The story, which follows the romantic aspirations of a perpetually down-on-her-luck dance hall hostess (Charity), is always just a moment away from a happy ending. Indeed, the play's very opening scene reads more like a conventional ending: Charity sings about how much she loves her boyfriend, whom she believes is planning on proposing to her. Rather than propose to her, however, he steals her purse and pushes her into a pond. Then the play goes on. This scene is emblematic of the whole show. Every so often Charity falls for a new guy, somebody who seems finally to be different than all the rest, only to have her hopes defeated in some kind of humiliation. Then the play goes on. In this way, the play reminds us that life, unlike theatre, keeps going and that our problems are guaranteed to persist with it. It suggests that happy endings are not just elusive, but misnomers––there is no end but the very end (and happiness is the least we have to worry about there). My own conclusion reading the piece is that Charity is to be admired rather than pitied for her disappointments because she bounces back from every one of them with renewed hope, resourcefulness, and love for life. We should all be so lucky.

I played Herman, the dance hall's proprietor––a man as crass as his profession would suggest, but not without some of Charity's sentimentalism. He's featured in one of the last numbers of the show "I Love to Cry at Weddings." The song ultimately suggests that we get caught up in weddings the same way we get caught up in silly romantic musicals––because it's so lovely to imagine the couple riding off into the happy, untroubled sunset of their lives. But as we learn in the next scene, this is seldom the case. And when that happens it's up to us, like Charity, to keep going and to choose to concentrate on what beauty we can still find in the world.

One of the unique joys in this production was watching so many of my classmates come into their own. Jessie Jennison was absolutely spectacular in the titular role: she brought dignity and joy to the character and made the role her own despite her iconic predecessors. Eric Peters, who played Oscar, was a revelation as well. His Oscar, one of Charity's suitors, was so delightfully inept and uncomfortable with everything from romance to his own skin that he'd fit right into a reboot of The Office. Adhana Reid and Rosie Jo Neddy were spectacular too as Charity's friends and co-workers Nickie and Helene. I thought they were thrilling in "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" (truthfully, I'm not sure there is anything better than that, though if there were it just might be their gorgeous rendition of "Baby Dream Your Dream"). The rest of the cast was great to be sure, but I don't think I have the time (or you, the patience) for me to continue at length.

All in all what a lovely way to spend the fall.

Welcome to my site!

Hello! Welcome to my website. I've had a blast putting it together and I hope that you find it useful and perhaps even enjoyable! Here, on this website broadly, you'll find highlights and records of my work to date. Here, on this blog specifically, you'll find information about upcoming events of mine as well as updates about what my amazing friends and peers are doing.

Why a website? Well, if you're an artist friend then you don't need an explanation. But in the event that you're my sweet grandmother or somebody who just really enjoys digging into the far reaches of the web for its own sake, then let me explain myself. Basically, I need something to point to: a digital portfolio. Owing to its flexibility, a website is the ideal conduit for this. This website is also my personal cheerleader, my spokesperson, and my receptionist. While this website doesn't contain the entire body of my work, it points to places where you can find more, should you desire to do so. And if, after exhausting all of the other sites linked through this one, you find yourself still hungry for more, I encourage you to contact me directly (which you can do quite conveniently on this very site!). 

I wish you smooth sailing! Thank you for your visit.