This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Music

[0:22] Teresa Attridge: Ever wonder what it takes to make a new musical sing? Our mission is to give you an inclusive look behind the scenes. We're interviewing the creatives who are changing musical theater one 11 o'clock number at a time. This is your Backstage Pass.

[0:43] Teresa Attridge: Welcome back to Part 2 of our conversation with Kathleen Wrinn, founding artistic director of the New Works New Voices initiative at Syracuse University. This week, you'll learn more about the development process and hear two more songs from the musical Lighthouse with book, lyrics, and story by Abs Wilson, and music and story by Veronica Mansour. Lighthouse is a six-woman, fourth-wall-breaking pop country musical following unreliable narrator Bus, an 18-year-old girl who wants nothing more than to escape her small Minnesota town. But what does Bus really want to escape? Herself and everything she fears she could become. With a cast ranging from ages 18 to 73, Lighthouse explores anxiety and OCD, the lives of women in rural conservative communities, and what it means to be yourself for the rest of your life. Ultimately, Lighthouse celebrates the idea that maybe, just maybe, every version of yourself is worth being. Listen all the way to the end for a game we call Musical Theater University.

[1:41] Kathleen Wrinn: When the writers for Lighthouse were here, they did a lot of experimenting with scene work, especially. They brought in a ton of new pages. And even when they first came, I'm trying to remember right now if it was Act 1 or Act 2 that they took such a different big swing at. But they had a lot of new material that they showed up at in the room for the first day. They also made quite a few changes even after the first week of table work and things that they had heard when we were discussing the piece and kind of when questions would come up or some desire for clarification or just certain discussions that were happening in the room. And so that was great when they showed up. They already had new scenes as well.

It was a really dynamic process. And I know that they also had a number of different sort of one-on-one meetings with all six of the young women who were playing the characters and just got into these quite detailed discussions and backstories and took all their questions. And so even just that experience of the actors getting to say, well, my understanding of her is this, but I'm wondering about this. And then they were just very, very open with the students. And I know that that was a really meaningful part of the process for them.

[2:42] Kathleen Wrinn: A one-on-one with the creative team, like when they're like, we're going to do like little interviews with each actor individually, literally a drug. I like whenever that happens, I'm just like, I'm going to ride this high for the rest of the time. Because I think it's becoming more rare, but the ability to really sit and get into the nitty gritty of it and to not only for the actors get to ask the writers questions, but for the writers to hear how the work is coming off and to be able to spark back and forth.

[3:12] Teresa Attridge: Well, and going back to what you said earlier about writers being at the stage where they're asking questions, Lighthouse features an unreliable narrator, Bus is unreliable. That's very, very difficult to make it work. I mean, we look at things like the movie Fight Club and it seems so effortless, right? But in actuality, what you give away, what we can know is true or what is not true, or how you reveal the narration is unreliable. I'm sure they are asking a lot of questions and I'm sure having people tell them, oh, yeah, I got that, or I had no idea that was supposed to be happening. That I'm sure was an invaluable resource to them to have people to bounce that off of.

[3:46] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely. I certainly hope so. And I know, too, from their process, they went through Syracuse's program. Then they did the O'Neill over the summer before NAMT. And by the time I saw it at NAMT, they had made so many changes as well. And so just one of the things that I think is important, too, to just say around any new musical developmental process, whether it's in the industry or it's in a university, even though I say, like, I'm so thrilled when writers make changes, but writers are under no obligation to make changes. Right. And also they're under no obligation to make changes at that time and right in front of you. I think sometimes what happens, too, in these processes is that you perhaps do end up leaving with some more questions, but you don't yet know exactly how you want to begin to answer them yet. The or means more than it did before. You know. A well-placed reference. And then you get crushed by a giant and none of it matters. You're crushed by the theater industry.

[4:36] Teresa Attridge: You're right. But anyways, so that, too, I hope that some of those discoveries that they made and changes they made, one of the characters ended up becoming Buss's sister and she was not her sister here. Right. And so I like to think that some of that, too, was sparked by the experience in our program. And there's always something so special about a choice that sticks, like for a student to see a show and like, you know, shows take years to develop, but to know to be like, oh, like when they did this reading at this place, someone made this choice and it was so funny or it was so poignant that it's in the script seven years later when that person sees it again or does it again. It's like, yeah, I'm in the fabric of this. It becomes sort of like a mosaic of every single person who's touched it as much as it's the people who originally conceived it.

[5:20] Kathleen Wrinn: And that really speaks to how intentional these kind of processes can be.

[5:24] Teresa Attridge: I so agree. Absolutely. We were talking with Michael R. Jackson and N.I.K. Jacobs about, you know, the difference between A Strange Loop. It feels so, so personal to Michael. And when you watch Teeth, when you're watching Anna and Michael's collaboration on Teeth, you can see not only that there's a collaboration there, but then when you go and watch the production, it's like a tapestry where you see so many creative voices. And how cool would it be for a student to see their contribution represented on stage? And I mean, literally the actor from New Works, New Voices was on stage at NAMMD. So that's really fantastic.

[5:53] Kathleen Wrinn: That must have been a really exciting experience.

[5:53] Teresa Attridge: She was a little stoked.

[5:54] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh, I mean, I can only imagine.

[5:58] Teresa Attridge: This piece was really fantastic to see at NAMMD. I think we should play another song from it.

[6:02] Kathleen Wrinn: Yeah, absolutely.

[6:03] Teresa Attridge: All right, let's play Runaway Girl.

[6:04] Kathleen Wrinn: Can we please? I love this one.

[6:06] Teresa Attridge: The single.

[6:08] Kathleen Wrinn: The single. Oh, this is the one on Spotify?

[6:10] Teresa Attridge: This is the one on Spotify, and they won the Write Out Loud contest, and Jessica Vosk recorded this one.

[6:16] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh, I think we're going to hear the demo with Ronnie, whose voice is also lovely. But check it out on Spotify. Look at that. So you can listen to this one, Musical Theatre Nerds, and then listen to that one, and then you can listen again and listen again. And then you can tell pals which choice you liked and why. Please email me. This is what I do on my Friday nights.

[6:31] Teresa Attridge: Who is Christopher Columbus was best. Who won the Christopher Columbus Award?

[6:36] Kathleen Wrinn: Could you kind of set this up for us since the writers are not with us? Abs and Ronnie, send me an email if I'm wrong. But this song is sung by the character of Church, who actually was the character who was not Buss's sister when it happened at Syracuse, but was Buss's sister when I saw it at NAMT. We find out that a lot of Church's life and her backstory has also been a lie. You're talking about an unreliable narrator, but some of the other characters have secrets as well. This is the moment where Church is sort of bearing her soul to Buss and explaining why it is that she does what she does. That's great. And this is, again, performed by Veronica Mansour. But you can go on Spotify and hear the other version. But here is Runaway Girl performed by Veronica Mansour.

[7:37] ♪ Musical number: "Runaway Girl" — performed by Veronica Mansour ♪

[10:06] ♪ Musical number: "Runaway Girl" — performed by Veronica Mansour ♪

[12:16] Kathleen Wrinn: I would just say there's so much raw heart in all of Lighthouse, but I think that there's so much of it in that song in particular.

[12:22] Teresa Attridge: Yeah, and I feel like it's like, when we talk about raw heart, one of the really cool things about development is that you have the time to really talk through and strip away and get to that. It's not like a regular song study per se, right? Where it's like where you're just, you're learning and they're like, you know, going through everything. The infusion of other people's sort of circumstance and being able to work with people and hear all the different ways that that could be true. When you're working with someone that you can't, like unreliable, right? Like a narrator you can't trust. The music is what reestablishes trust in a musical, you know? What I mean? And I feel like that's so present in this in a way that's really rad.

[12:58] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely. Why don't you talk a little bit more about the role of academia in musical theater development versus the typical kind of industry model and the advantages of academia versus industry. I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

[13:11] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely. So I would just say every year when we receive those 150 musicals through New Bricks, New Voices, and now working with NAMMT and NAMMT receives essentially over 500 shows every year, right? There's so much work out there that is being created. And one of the things that I feel very passionately about because this work is so beneficial for our students as well, I just want this to be happening in every theater program. There are hundreds of theater degree granting programs in the United States. And if you think about what it would be like if even half of those or 20% of those were able to do a new musical every year or every other year, even, there would just be so many more writers that could have opportunities to learn to all these points you've been making, Teresa, about how much having other people in the room brings to the piece, right?

How they're all sort of woven into the fabric of the show and how you learn so much just by putting your work in a room with other artists. If more universities could give that opportunity to more writers, I just feel like we could allow pieces to mature at a faster rate that would set them up for more, honestly, more commercial success eventually. And so that writers could make more of a living off of their work.

[14:22] Kathleen Wrinn: Academia is the research and innovation center in so many other fields. We do it in vaccine development. We do it in medicine. We do it in science, right? The idea that perhaps in the arts, we could also be, right, the sector that invests in the new idea early on so that it can then go on to really impact society and have that life. I just think that we could do more of that. I think that we could carry the torch on that. And frankly, it's hard out there right now for nonprofit theaters. It's hard for commercial producers. It's hard for everybody in this industry right now. And I really think that academia could step in and could help to bolster or to fill in some of these gaps or to make partnerships with professional theaters. If a theater is interested in producing a show, but it needs to have more early development first, like why not partner with the university and have some of that happen there? So I feel that way, as you can tell.

[15:13] Kathleen Wrinn: And so just to perhaps naturally segue, but that is what led me to want to write the book that I'm writing, which I'm co-authoring with Alisa Hauser, who is a professor of music theater at Florida State University. And Alisa is also a lyricist. She is a performer and she has run a couple of new musicals initiatives at different universities, including the initiative that she founded at Florida State University, which is called Preview at FSU. Yeah, it was a great name, right? Alisa and I first connected through the Musical Theater Educators Alliance. And through that organization, we were members of the subgroup called a New Works subgroup, but we were co-creators of the New Works Collaboration Catalog.

What that is, is it's a database essentially of unpublished works through Musical Theater Educators Alliance. And so that universities who are looking to produce new musicals, they can go into this catalog and see, I think we've got over 400 shows in there right now, and they can filter by cast size and filter by genre and style, et cetera.

[16:11] Kathleen Wrinn: So she and I first met through that and started to do a couple other projects together, and then realized that the project that we were both most passionate about was the idea of creating a book, creating a resource for other musical theater educators who were interested in embarking on new musical development in their own programs, but perhaps had never done it before, right? We had both founded our own programs. There are a lot of like learning on the job or building the plane when you're flying it moments that come from that. And our goal with writing, developing new musicals and university theater programs is to create a practical guide that sort of can act like that colleague or that friend that you call up when you're asking, okay, I'm going to look to select a work.

What's the best way that I should go about doing this? I'm going to be running a rehearsal process coming up soon. How do I facilitate the collaboration between students and writers, right? Because I can feel very strongly that I want more programs to be doing this, but it's also true that this is a highly collaborative endeavor. And whenever that's the case, it can be easy for toes to get stepped on, right? And you've got these writers who are in early stages with their work and you've got students who are eager to contribute to it, but you also have to make sure to create an environment where the writers are the only ones writing their piece, right? But that the students also have the ability to learn and the ability to have their voice heard, but that there's a clarity around what the roles are. There's certain channels of communication. So all sorts of best practices. And so that's what Elisa and I have set out to write.

[17:46] Kathleen Wrinn: We also feel very strongly that we did not want the only voices in the book to be our own. And so we have undertaken an extensive interview process with faculty, both in the United States and abroad, who run new musicals programs with writers and composers who have participated in them with their works and with students who have participated in them as well. And so we have all of these perspectives embedded in the book for anyone who chooses to pick it up and hopefully use it as a guide as they look to go on this exciting adventure.

[18:16] Teresa Attridge: I absolutely love that. I'm sure there are people out there who are interested in doing this work, but might be thinking, I'm not sure how to begin.

[18:22] Kathleen Wrinn: Right. I met Elisa because I cold emailed her one day and asked her if I could direct a show at Florida State University. I was doing that director cold email thing like it's going to work. One of these is going to pan out. But I was able to meet her at NAMM. She's really fantastic. And then through us chatting, actually the show Winner that's been featured on our podcast, it was written by New York Theater Barn's artistic director, Joe Barros and front of the show, singer of our theme song, Nico Juber was featured at Florida State University. And now that show is actually a good speed musical is being developed at Johnny Mercer right now.

[19:03] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely. What if we closed out with another song?

[19:11] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely. Well, let's play bus stop. This is the 11 o'clock. This is buses, big kind of soul bearing figuring it all out number. Oh my gosh. I loved getting to hear Sydney. Our students sing this. She just fell in love with this song too. This is something that she's talked about in public and in classes before. So I feel good saying it, but she said how much, how much of herself she really saw in this character. And in particularly in this moment, I'm in how she had never encountered a character in musical theater, whose experience felt so relatable to her until she played this role in Lighthouse. And that this song was kind of the pinnacle of that.

[19:45] Teresa Attridge: Absolutely. Well, here is bus stop performed once again by Veronica Mansour.

[19:54] Teresa Attridge: So yeah, shout out Johnny Mercer. Loved it there. That rules. We have actually have a lot of friends of the podcast have come through that program. Let's play one more song from my house.

[20:42] ♪ Musical number: "Bus Stop" — performed by Veronica Mansour ♪

[25:02] Kathleen Wrinn: That song, the slow, plodding piano line that just keeps building and building and building.

[25:03] Pauls Macs: It absolutely is. And oh my god, that bridge section is so good.

[25:07] Kathleen Wrinn: I almost can't stand it, to be honest. I love it so much. I'm furious by how much I love it.

[25:12] Pauls Macs: It's one of those ones where I'm immediately like, how do I get this in my book? Who do I have to call?

[25:17] Kathleen Wrinn: The question, I keep driving and driving. Where am I driving to? Again, what an evocative question.

[25:23] Pauls Macs: It's like driving through those cornfields, but I don't even know where I'm going. I'm just trying to escape.

[25:27] Kathleen Wrinn: But I'm just trapped, trapped in this town. That piece is so effective. It's communicating that feeling.

[25:33] Pauls Macs: When you have a character that's constantly roaming and then it's called bus stop, you have to really stop and reflect on what's going on, even when you're in the middle of running away.

[25:41] Kathleen Wrinn: Yes. Wait, you can't.

[25:42] Pauls Macs: Finally have to reckon with the thing you've been running from.

[25:45] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh no!

[25:46] Pauls Macs: Well, you know, as Stephen Sondheim says, God is in the details, less is more, to just say bus stop.

[25:51] Kathleen Wrinn: What an effective name for an 11 o'clock number for someone named bus.

[25:54] Pauls Macs: Yeah, right? You throw a comma in there, whole different meaning. And that's dramaturgy.

[26:00] Pauls Macs: Okay, well, we've had so much fun today, but I think it's time to close it out with a game.

[26:05] Kathleen Wrinn: And I'm going to say it. I came up with this game this week.

[26:07] Pauls Macs: Hal came up with the game Barnacles. It's incredible.

[26:11] Kathleen Wrinn: I've done it before. It's not like it never happens. And we came up with, this is Musical Theatre University. Is that correct?

[26:16] Pauls Macs: MTU, Musical Theatre University.

[26:18] Kathleen Wrinn: It sounds like my life.

[26:21] Pauls Macs: But more fun, I hope. All right, so the game this episode is Musical Theatre University.

[26:27] Kathleen Wrinn: And the question we're going to ask is, if you went to university, which musical theatre character would you like to be your professor?

[26:31] Pauls Macs: Oh no.

[26:35] Kathleen Wrinn: If you could have one person or maybe two people from the musical theatre canon who are going to teach you something, and you can even pick the subject matter. So for example, my answer, I am a Stephen Sondheim fanatic, as the listeners know by this point.

[26:47] Pauls Macs: So my mind went to George Seurat in Sunday in the Park with George, and I'd like for him to teach me how to paint because I cannot paint at all.

[26:54] Kathleen Wrinn: And then, and keeping with the Sunday in the Park with George theme, I was also thinking of that song, Everybody Loves Louie, because he can bake, and I can't bake either. So I would like them to teach me to bake and paint at university, because those are two things that I went to college for that I still don't know how to do.

[27:10] Pauls Macs: There we go. Great.

[27:12] Kathleen Wrinn: I love.

[27:13] Pauls Macs: Okay, I think that if I went to musical theatre university, I would like to take a class taught by Gavroche from Les Mis.

[27:21] Kathleen Wrinn: Yes.

[27:22] Pauls Macs: And I think that it would be a class in just developing innate confidence.

[27:28] Kathleen Wrinn: That's true.

[27:29] Pauls Macs: Just completely thick skin, just fearless kid. What a fearless kid.

[27:34] Kathleen Wrinn: I would like to learn from that child.

[27:36] Pauls Macs: Little people know when little people fight.

[27:38] Kathleen Wrinn: Little people know.

[27:40] Pauls Macs: Incredible. I love.

[27:41] Kathleen Wrinn: Teresa, what did you select?

[27:42] Teresa Attridge: Oh, my God. So I had two, which might be three.

[27:46] Kathleen Wrinn: But my first one was I want Miss Honey from Matilda, because I just want someone who's nice to me.

[27:50] Teresa Attridge: I want a nice, lovely teacher that I'm going to bond with.

[27:53] Kathleen Wrinn: I played Miss Honey.

[27:54] Teresa Attridge: You give Miss Honey energy.

[27:55] Kathleen Wrinn: A couple years ago at Jerky Stage, I played Miss Honey.

[27:58] Teresa Attridge: You give Miss Honey energy, for sure.

[28:00] Kathleen Wrinn: Am I nice to you?

[28:01] Teresa Attridge: Yes.

[28:01] Kathleen Wrinn: Well, it's also like, I feel like academic, you know, academia can sometimes be so intimidating and so scary.

[28:07] Teresa Attridge: And I feel like if my first class I ever took was with Miss Honey, I'd be like, I can learn anything.

[28:12] Kathleen Wrinn: Including, I also was thinking about learning how to bake.

[28:15] Teresa Attridge: And I was like, what if I had Jenna teach me how to bake?

[28:17] Kathleen Wrinn: Because then not only am I learning the technique, I'm learning how to infuse it.

[28:20] Teresa Attridge: Better than Mrs. Lovett teaching you how to bake.

[28:23] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh, you know what though? Almost, almost went there.

[28:25] Teresa Attridge: Almost went with Mrs. Lovett to teach me how to bake, because that is a resourceful woman.

[28:30] Kathleen Wrinn: Morality aside.

[28:31] Teresa Attridge: All I was going to say is I teach a cabaret class every fall with the seniors.

[28:34] Kathleen Wrinn: And one of the units we do is mashups.

[28:36] Teresa Attridge: And they put songs together.

[28:37] Kathleen Wrinn: And I just, I'm waiting for somebody to put together Worst Pies in London with what we're going to do.

[28:41] Teresa Attridge: So that's been done.

[28:42] Kathleen Wrinn: I was in a production last year of Jenna Todd, The Demon Waitress of Fleet Street, which was a mashup of Sweetie Todd and Waitress.

[28:49] Teresa Attridge: I was Mrs. Lovett.

[28:51] Kathleen Wrinn: Of course it's been done.

[28:52] Pauls Macs: I mean, it's right there.

[28:53] Kathleen Wrinn: Shout out to the musical Multiverse with Alex Parrish.

[28:56] Pauls Macs: See, I was so convinced that you were going to have Elle Woods be your law school professor, Teresa.

[29:01] Teresa Attridge: So I'm a little shooketh.

[29:02] Pauls Macs: I was raised by a lawyer. I don't want to touch that career with a 10 foot pole.

[29:05] Teresa Attridge: I went into theater for a reason.

[29:07] Pauls Macs: All right. Well, Kathleen, thank you so much for joining us today.

[29:10] Kathleen Wrinn: It's been a pleasure speaking to you.

[29:12] Pauls Macs: We've had so much fun.

[29:13] Teresa Attridge: Old friends and new friends, we often say on this podcast.

[29:17] Kathleen Wrinn: Thank you both.

[29:18] Pauls Macs: Everyone check out Kathleen's book.

[29:20] Teresa Attridge: Yes. Do you have a release date for the book?

[29:23] Kathleen Wrinn: 2026, hopefully early.

[29:25] Pauls Macs: Oh my gosh, gorgeous.

[29:26] Teresa Attridge: Everyone keep your eyes peeled and your heart open.

[29:29] Kathleen Wrinn: It's about to change the world.

[29:30] Pauls Macs: I hope so.

[29:31] Kathleen Wrinn: At least my little corner of it.

[29:32] Pauls Macs: I hope so.

[29:33] Teresa Attridge: Thank you Barnacles for listening.

[29:34] Pauls Macs: Kathleen, we haven't explained this on the show. Our fans are called Barnacles.

[29:37] Kathleen Wrinn: I picked up on that.

[29:39] Pauls Macs: They stick with us through thick and thin.

[29:42] Teresa Attridge: We're so grateful to all you listeners out there.

[29:44] Pauls Macs: Thanks for being with us. We'll see you next time.

[29:45] Teresa Attridge: Bye-bye.

[29:46] Pauls Macs: Bye-bye.

[29:51] Pauls Macs: Thanks for joining us on New York Theater Barn's Backstage Pass, hosted by Teresa Attridge and Pauls Macs.

[29:57] Pauls Macs: And if you believe in supporting original culture-shifting musicals, please like, subscribe, and share.

[30:05] Pauls Macs: Get your Backstage Pass.