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[0:00] Background music playing.

[0:22] Teresa Attridge: Ever wonder what it takes to make a new musical sing?

[0:25] Pauls Macs: Our mission is to give you an inclusive look behind the scenes.

[0:28] Teresa Attridge: We are interviewing the creatives who are changing musical theater one 11 o'clock number at a time.

[0:33] Pauls Macs: This is your Backstage Pass.

[0:35] Background music playing.

[0:43] Pauls Macs: Hello everyone. Hello Barnacles.

[0:45] Teresa Attridge: Hi Barnacles.

[0:46] Pauls Macs: Welcome, welcome, welcome to a very special episode of Backstage Pass.

[0:51] Teresa Attridge: We're doing something a little different today.

[0:53] Pauls Macs: Ooh.

[0:54] Teresa Attridge: Different?

[0:56] Pauls Macs: This is our first time interviewing someone who's the head of an academic program.

[1:00] Teresa Attridge: This is really exciting.

[1:01] Pauls Macs: I mean, listen, everyone just iron your Oxford shirts.

[1:04] Teresa Attridge: Get ready to put your uniform on. It's going down today.

[1:08] Pauls Macs: This is part two of our two-part series.

[1:10] Teresa Attridge: The first, we interviewed the writing team of Magia.

[1:13] Pauls Macs: Shout out.

[1:14] Teresa Attridge: Shout out. We had so much fun with them.

[1:15] Pauls Macs: But so we talked about in the last episode that their piece is going to be developed, the New Works New Voices program at Syracuse University.

[1:22] Teresa Attridge: Now we have a very talented multi-hyphenate artist, Kathleen Wrinn, with us to tell us more about New Works New Voices.

[1:27] Pauls Macs: And we're going to learn so much more about that program and why it's a great alternative to developing musicals in an academic setting as opposed to, say, a commercial setting.

[1:36] Teresa Attridge: Yes.

[1:37] Pauls Macs: Kathleen, say hello.

[1:38] Kathleen Wrinn: Hi.

[1:39] Pauls Macs: Hello.

[1:40] Kathleen Wrinn: It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here to get to talk about this today.

[1:43] Teresa Attridge: Oh my gosh. For those of you at home who can't see, Kathleen and I accidentally matched color palettes today in our outfits.

[1:49] Pauls Macs: We are, in fact, like light mob.

[1:51] Teresa Attridge: Light mob and black. I don't know what exactly we would call that.

[1:54] Pauls Macs: They're such specific colors that the fact that this happened.

[1:57] Kathleen Wrinn: Destiny.

[1:58] Teresa Attridge: You know what I mean? Kathleen, thank you so much for coming today.

[2:01] Kathleen Wrinn: You're so welcome.

[2:02] Teresa Attridge: Well, it really is fantastic because part of the mission of this podcast, it's Backstage Pass after all, is to provide listeners with an opportunity to look behind the scenes as to how musicals are developed. Very often, and I became aware of this actually at the NAMM conference, where I believe is the first time we met in person.

[2:18] Kathleen Wrinn: Yes, yes.

[2:19] Teresa Attridge: There's a whole educational opportunity to develop musicals that's not necessarily on people's radar. People often think, oh, I need to find a commercial producer. I'm going to get to Broadway. That's how I do it. But I remember from conversations with not just you, but also different professors around the country, that there are opportunities to develop musicals in educational institutions that are really, really great. I'm really excited to give the listeners that view of how musicals can be developed.

[2:40] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely.

[2:45] Teresa Attridge: Yeah, I'm sure we're going to get more into this, but I'm all about how I think it's a bit untapped. So I'm thrilled to be able to be here to talk about it.

[2:51] Pauls Macs: Absolutely. Well, I think the first thing I'm going to do, and this is uncomfortable for people sometimes, is I'm going to read your bio so people can plug my ears.

[2:59] Kathleen Wrinn: No, no. You have to let your accomplishments wash over you.

[3:03] Pauls Macs: This is a self-love opportunity.

[3:05] Kathleen Wrinn: Wonderful.

[3:06] Pauls Macs: Right? We don't let anybody walk away without knowing how great they are.

[3:10] Kathleen Wrinn: I love it.

[3:11] Teresa Attridge: My morning affirmations are coming from you.

[3:13] Pauls Macs: That's what's happening. Whenever I'm feeling down, Teresa helps build me up.

[3:17] Kathleen Wrinn: It's true.

[3:18] Pauls Macs: And you know what, Kathleen? I think that when this episode airs, you need to listen to it looking in the mirror while Pauls reads this as your affirmation.

[3:26] Kathleen Wrinn: That's what we're going to do.

[3:27] Pauls Macs: Exactly. And I'm going to read it nice and slow. So this is going to be part of your morning routine. Okay, so everyone, deep breath in. Okay, here we go. Kathleen Wrinn is a musical theater lyricist, book writer, composer, performer, and educator, serving on the faculty at the Syracuse University Department of Drama. She earned her MFA at NYU's Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program and has written books and lyrics for multiple full-length musicals, as well as performed on stages throughout the country. Her new musical, The Bridge, was recently showcased at Yale University as a 2025 New York State Council on the Arts grantee. Wrinn is the founder and artistic director of Syracuse's New Works, New Voices initiative, which supports the development of new musicals by underrepresented writers and composers.

She currently serves in leadership roles with Maestro Music, the Musical Theater Educators Alliance, the National Alliance for Musical Theater, where she's the new co-chair of the NAD Festival Committee.

[4:32] Kathleen Wrinn: I didn't know that.

[4:33] Pauls Macs: That's fantastic.

[4:34] Kathleen Wrinn: Cool. In addition to her theatrical writing, Wrinn is co-author of the upcoming book, Developing New Musicals and University Theater Programs, A Practical Guide, which is currently under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing, with an anticipated release date of 2026. Kathleen, welcome to the show. We are so excited to have you.

[4:45] Kathleen Wrinn: I survived that experience.

[4:46] Pauls Macs: You did.

[4:47] Kathleen Wrinn: You were like looking down. I was like, look up, look up.

[4:51] Pauls Macs: And you will in the mirror later.

[4:53] Kathleen Wrinn: It's going to be great.

[4:55] Pauls Macs: I got to tell you, that bio went well for me. That bio, I knew a lot of those words.

[4:59] Kathleen Wrinn: Honestly, that was a five out of five star bio from you.

[5:02] Pauls Macs: Okay, well, Kathleen, thank you so much again for being here. So let's dive in. So why don't you tell us a little more about the mission of this initiative and also how it came to be, what inspired you to start doing this?

[5:05] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely. So you said a little bit of this in my bio, but New Works, New Voices was created to support the development of new musicals by writers and composers whose perspectives have been historically underrepresented in the musical theater canon. So I launched the initiative back in 2021 when I began my full-time job, my tenure track position here at Syracuse. And because at that time I was getting more involved with season selection, I knew I was going to be directing works at the department. And I was really, really interested in bringing new musicals here for us to produce, not just musicals that were contemporary, things that had been written in recent years, but actually works that were in progress.

I wanted us to really get to invest in new works and for our students to get that experience of what it's like to be an actor in a room where a new musical is being developed. And kind of first and foremost, I really wanted us to shake up and find a sort of a more vibrant, more diverse series of voices that we were putting on our stages. When, though, I started to look for, OK, which shows are we going to produce here? It was a little tricky because I was no longer living in New York City. And so I was no longer kind of making the circuit and going to 54 Below and like and seeing what's out there and what's being written. And oh, this one's kind of coming up through the pipeline. Maybe we could do that.

And so it occurred to me pretty early on that if we were going to look to produce new musicals here, we were going to have to try to find a way for them to come to us. So then I applied for and I was lucky enough to get awarded a grant that founded the initiative in the first year and we put out a worldwide call for submissions. And we are now in our fourth year and every year we get around 150 new musicals that come to us, which is a pretty good number for an academic program. But that was the impetus to found it. And it was, you know, it was a combination of wanting to be able to utilize the resources that we have here at Syracuse to help support these new writers and these new pieces to kind of take that next step forward.

And at the same time, give our students the benefit of everything that they get to learn through those processes. So it's such a win-win. And it was not something that we were doing regularly here at Syracuse. And it is something that I came in very passionately about and is really the center of my research.

[7:19] Pauls Macs: Incredible. I absolutely love that. Also, four years. Your program could have a BFA this year. That's incredible.

[7:23] Kathleen Wrinn: It could. It could.

[7:25] Pauls Macs: There's something very serendipitous.

[7:27] Kathleen Wrinn: It is senioritis right now. No, it's not.

[7:29] Pauls Macs: It's eager to jump the world.

[7:31] Teresa Attridge: One thing that I think is really exciting about that idea is a theme of the podcast is a lot of writers that we talk to in the form of musicals are creating space for voices that haven't been heard yet. The one that's coming right to my head right now is Justin Huerta's talking about Lizard Boy that he'd never seen a young gay Filipino man represented on stage. So he wrote that part. And so, you know, in academia, which is its own weird, strange world, there are plenty of theaters who are doing Hello, Dolly! There are plenty of colleges who are doing West Side Story. But the fact that you can use that space to amplify the voices of those who haven't been given that platform in academia and use that platform for good is really exciting.

[8:11] Kathleen Wrinn: Thank you. And also, I think and just to say, too, like I have nothing against Hello, Dolly! But I think also to realize that I think that academia should be able to hold both. Right. Particularly if we're looking at what does it mean to educate students both about the history of musical theater, the future of musical theater, the canon of musical theater, and also I teach in a musical theater BFA program. Right. And so when we're thinking about what a performance degree means, if you're going to go and have a career in musical theater, you're going to be doing both kind of classic works and you're often going to be doing new works. So I think it's a responsibility on our end to make that a part of the curriculum here so that they get that learning experience when they're in school.

[8:45] Pauls Macs: That's very cool. I love that. Do you find that with students and new work, is there more of a level of like really excited, like ready to get in the nitty gritty of it? Or is there some trepidation at first for students to be like, oh, like I thought I was going to learn where to go and how to do it and how to do it the way I'm supposed to do it. And you're telling me that I am an integral part of this process, me?

[9:06] Kathleen Wrinn: It's almost like, have you been in one of these processes?

[9:09] Pauls Macs: Oh, for sure.

[9:10] Kathleen Wrinn: It's almost like you know both.

[9:11] Pauls Macs: You should know that Carissa is a champion of new work.

[9:13] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh yeah.

[9:14] Pauls Macs: And she frequently-

[9:15] Kathleen Wrinn: I know you are. I was like, you speak like someone who-

[9:17] Pauls Macs: Let me tell you, it's my bread and butter, babe.

[9:18] Kathleen Wrinn: Absolutely. I know you do.

[9:19] Kathleen Wrinn: Yeah, so it's both, right? I feel like my answer to most things is going to be it's both. So like I said, this is the fourth year of the initiative. I have directed three out of the four workshops that we have done. And so I've gotten to helm many of these processes. And I would say the students are, I mean, just getting to be in the room with living writers, with material that is ever evolving, where artistic discoveries are being made, where new songs are being written and character arcs are shifting. I mean, it's a very, very exciting place to be. And so the students kind of en masse have been really hungry for it and really just jumped in with both feet to these processes. And at the same time, getting to create a character or being asked to create a character from scratch, being asked to sing songs for which you maybe don't have any example demos, right?

It is a little bit like an infinite world of possibilities for them at first, which I think sometimes can be a little paralyzing, like, oh, my God, where do I begin? But that's kind of the wonder of it, too, right? And the magic of it is like they get to find their own voice through that and to realize just how collaborative the role of an actor is in these processes.

[10:25] Pauls Macs: Absolutely.

[10:26] Teresa Attridge: Yes, I love seeing them both, both the yin and the yang of that. I feel like you say like a lot of your answers are going to be both. And one of the things I really love about that is that innately for art to continue, it's very much a one leg in legacy and one leg in the future. Knowing that you're providing this to students who otherwise, you know, might not know what to do in a room, having it be in an academic setting where they can like kind of ask the funkier questions and figure out how to be in a space like, yes, they can. They're like, I'm sorry. Like, so, like, if I'm doing this, what am I supposed to say so that, you know, when they end up auditioning or they get cast in these works, they have some comfort with being like, OK, I can be in the driver's seat. I trust my education. I trust what I have. I'm not going to be the person in the room who doesn't know what's going on.

[11:04] Kathleen Wrinn: Right. And I think that that's really powerful that you can provide that in your program.

[11:08] Kathleen Wrinn: Thank you for that. And I also think the beauty of when you were saying earlier about developing new works in academia and how not everybody thinks about it as such kind of a wonderful incubator that can be utilized, kind of building on what you were saying there, Teresa. It's low stakes on both ends. Right. It's low stakes for the students who get to say, like, OK, am I allowed to talk to the composer? How does this work? How do I approach new pages? They get to ask all of those questions. And I love this aspect of it, especially as a writer myself. And the writers get to take really big risks. Right. And they get to try very new things. They get to throw something at the page. They get to throw a new song in before we open.

Right. They can do these things and do it in an environment where there aren't the commercial pressures. You know, you don't have the producers kind of or the investors sort of showing up on opening night. And so everyone gets to be learning when writers are in a room.

[12:00] Kathleen Wrinn: With students who are so actively learning, I think that idea of, I can make mistakes, I can try things even if I'm not sure, I think that that sort of philosophy starts to just permeate the room. And that's when really exciting art starts getting made. I think that's really fantastic. I'm not going to name any names, but I've worked with students before. You know, as I've been developing a character with some, this really crazy thing happened to me on a recent rehearsal process. Some of the students would say, well, you know, I watched 20 YouTube videos of this performance and this was the choice I really liked. And I was like, whoa, what? They did their research, to be fair. They did their research, no, and they're invested in the process.

You know, it's giving those YouTube videos where girls are like, it's like the video of like the Christopher Columbuses, where they're like, it's just like three minutes of girls going, Christopher Columbus! It's giving that.

[12:49] Pauls Macs: Exactly. Or it justifies the memes.

[12:54] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh yeah, that was a big one. It's so good. Courtney, take your break. Like, love it. How exciting that there's no YouTube video for them to watch.

[13:01] Pauls Macs: Yes, how exciting. They fully have to create this role. And then I would say to them, but what would you do? What is your choice? I want you to make your own choice because that's authentic to you. And here they have no choice. It's a really exciting opportunity for them. You know, it is a privilege to go to school and have this opportunity. It's great that they're having this experience versus a lot of experiences I've heard about. I would love it if you could start talking a bit just about the format, like how do pieces get collected? How do you choose someone to come to Syracuse University?

[13:31] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh, it's so hard. I will say it's so hard. I think that just before going into the format, I will say, I think being on the other side of this process, having been a writer for so many years now, and now being on the other side of New York City Voices, being on the other side of NAMM as well, co-chairing that festival committee, I think one of the things that I'm so struck by is just how much good work there is out there and how much of it that I hope it finds its home. And I think later on, we'll talk a bit about the book that I'm writing. And part of the driving force behind that is actually this idea of trying to encourage other people to take up the mantle and produce more shows. But going back to New York City Voices for a moment.

So let's start with the selection process. So we put out a call for submissions in the late spring. Usually our deadline is by July 1st in the summer. And we ask for sample materials like many developmental opportunities do. And so then we get a little bit of a sample of the libretto, some demos, we get creator bios, character breakdowns. We also importantly ask for the writers who are submitting to write a brief statement as to why they feel their work should be featured in an initiative whose mission is to uplift underrepresented voices. Because one of the things when starting this initiative that I felt very strongly about is that that should always be a self-selecting decision. It's not for me or for anyone else on the committee to say what that exactly means.

So that's a really, really important part of our initial evaluation process too, is that statement. I then work every summer with a team of student readers. So I actually lead a team of six student readers. And occasionally there have been other faculty on it as well, but it's always me and a group of students. Honestly, it follows a very similar process as I'm sure a lot of different new musical development submission opportunities do, which is we narrow down, there are rubrics, we go round by round. And eventually at the end, we select one work to come here and receive a three-week workshop. And this year, actually very excitingly, we're actually doing two pieces. Yeah, we're doing the three-week workshop of Magia, which I'm so happy you were able to feature last week.

Yeah. And we're also doing a 29-hour reading of a show called Bend Toward the Light, which has book and lyrics by Bryce Palmer and music by Sarah Slip. And I think one of the things that I just want to say about this, again, just from the academic angle, having the students be so intimately involved in the selection and decision-making and the many, many collaborative conversations that go on in and around that has also become such an important beating heart of the initiative because, you know, they stay eternally the same age and I and all the other faculty members get older, right? But they are eternally kind of moving through and they're always 18 to 22, right? And so they are always kind of on the forefront of what it means to be a young artist in this industry, what kind of stories they're hungry for, what something new that they're looking for.

And so having them so involved in that selection, that curation process, I feel like I learn something every year. And so that has been really meaningful. So we pick a work or we pick, in this case, we pick two works. And then in the spring semester, we do the workshop. And so that is a three-week workshop. The end result of that is a staged reading at music stands. The reason why we keep it really bare-bones simple is for what I was talking about earlier, which is we really like to give the writers an opportunity to play with material as much as possible. And that's one of the things that we're really looking for when we're looking for what kind of a team and a show at what stage in development would be a good fit for New Works, New Voices.

Because of our format, we really like to bring in writers and pieces who are still finding it, right? Who are like, we feel the heart of this, we know what we're trying to do, but we're not sure about Act Two, or we're working on this opening, or gosh, this character, we don't even know what she's up to yet, right? So we kind of love those questions. And I think that the format really supports being able to at least start to find, if not answers to those questions, at least maybe questions that more point toward an answer eventually. And most excitingly, of those three weeks, the writers are in residence with us here in Syracuse for two weeks. So they were right in the room with the students.

They're working together. They stay just down the block from the Department of Drama. And during the first week, even when they're not here, we have them participate virtually as well. We often do a lot of table work in that first week. So there's still discussions of the material and the writers can weigh in. So they're very intimately involved in the process. And then they are right in the room with us. There's really no way of saying that. That's just the priceless element of New Musical Development. Table work is, I think, the best and most important part of the New Work process. I truly do. I know everyone's really eager to get to the music stand, or they're really eager to get on their feet.

And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no. You don't know how many hours I'm going to make you sit and read this passage to me over and over and over again. But I feel like when you were talking about having a team where you all sit and read the scripts, Pauls, you were mentioning this as well, actually. It all ties together. But so many young actors are watching clips on YouTube, or they're watching recordings, or they're going and they're doing that. But so few of them can actually pick up a libretto and just read it. Not that they can't, as in they physically can't. But in the idea that it's very rare for that to happen. I've actually noticed a difference in actors who are mostly in their libretto versus mostly in their music.

It's not a difference as in one is better than the other. But there is a clear grounding that happens from being text-oriented that is really fascinating to me. And I love that your students are getting that opportunity. And so I'm really excited that that's a huge part of the engagement that you're having with your students. And can I just say too, I think part of why we might be moving farther and farther from that is because of the time crunch and the money crunch in and around new musical development in the industry, right? And again, that's another, like if I can bang the drum even louder, I think one of the biggest gifts that academia can give to the new musical development process is the luxury of time. And I'm not going to say that we have infinite time here, of course. We are on schedules too. We have resource limitations. Like I'm not trying to paint it like, you know, some-

[19:28] Pauls Macs: Why not?

[19:28] Kathleen Wrinn: You know, infinite possibility. But we do have the ability, in addition to New Works, New Voices right now, I'm teaching a course this semester. It's 15 weeks long. And in that course, we're developing two other musicals, right? So there's an incubator that is a 15-week incubator, right? How often do you get that out in the industry? So that idea of getting to really engage with the text, getting to ask questions of it, getting to let something marinate a bit, we can do that in universities in a way that it often can't happen in the commercial fields for theater.

[19:56] Pauls Macs: I think that Magia is a great candidate for this program because we had such a great time talking with Letitia and Antoine.

[20:02] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh my god, they are so fun.

[20:03] Pauls Macs: And they're still asking questions.

[20:05] Kathleen Wrinn: I know. Oh, they are just both the most joyous human beings. It's been so good working with them already, and I just can't wait to have them here with us. The students are going to love them. But my impression was that they were still asking fundamental questions of the piece. For example, how does Magia work? How does the magic system work?

[20:20] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh my gosh, yes. We were just talking about that the other day on our dramaturgical call. You never know when a student might give an idea that unlocks it or just having multiple perspectives on a piece and giving time. That's really, really valuable. Kathleen, I'm wondering, is there anything that you want to say about why Magia was selected specifically?

[20:38] Kathleen Wrinn: I would love to say first why Magia was selected specifically. First of all, I think that the score is so exciting. I think the textures that they're playing with, they both are writing musical influences that come from their cultures and just kind of the fusion of those. It sings so beautifully. The score was the first thing that I know so many members of the committee were talking about was just how impactful the music was. And so that's one reason. But another reason, even though the writers still have some questions, like you said, they still have some questions about the mechanics of the story or how's the magic going to work. But the thing that they are so clear on, and they're clear both in the script itself, and also whenever I hear them talk about the piece, and they were clear when I interviewed them, because whenever we get down to the finalists, I do an interview with all of the finalists teams, and we talk a bit more about the shows.

They're so clear on the heart of the story and what they're looking to say with it. And so even though the sort of what, who, how of the story might be shifting, they're very in touch with their why. I think that when you have that foundation of we know what we're trying to do here as artists, and we're both in alignment as collaborators, and this piece has a soul, and it sort of has a mission, or it has like a central question that it's wrestling with. I just think that that's the perfect stage to come into a room with other collaborators because you've got your compass, right? You've got your north star as a writing team, which is critical, right? Because if you come in and you really aren't quite sure where you're at yet, I think it can be really overwhelming to have a lot of other people in the process.

But they just, to me, seemed so, so clear on their purpose behind the piece. It's such a moving story and a beautiful story, and the music was so evocative. And they had a lot of work that they wanted to do on it, right? Which honestly, again, is something that we're very excited by, because we want that experimentation to be able to happen in this creative laboratory here. So for all of those reasons, and also they were just so lovely to talk to. And I got to tell you, you're going to be spending a lot of time with people when you work with them, and it matters, right? And they just, gosh, their enthusiasm about the work and about just musical theater creation in general is so infectious. And so yeah, for all of those reasons, we're so thrilled to have them coming this year.

[22:55] Pauls Macs: Gorgeous. Step one to be a successful musical theater writer, be lovely, be lovely, just be lovely. One thing I was struck by as I was reviewing the piece was I've been thinking so much about the government gutting USAID, and how for someone to have something, we have to take it away from somebody else, and how Magia is directly in opposition to that.

[23:10] Kathleen Wrinn: Yes, it is. We can all be okay. We can all share our resources. There is enough, right? That was one of the things that they said to me at the beginning, that they're such firm believers in what they want the piece to carry. And I just think that idea in the world in which we're currently living in is actually a radical idea, and I think an important idea.

[23:29] Pauls Macs: Absolutely. And I saw a meme today that was just like, billionaires, what are you saving for? Hell, you have billions of dollars. Do you remember when rich people used to just pay a painter for three years to live in their house? And be like, play the piano for me. Contribute to culture.

[23:47] Kathleen Wrinn: Why can't billionaires be like that? The whole renaissance happened because of that. I'm like, come on, please. I need just one billionaire to be like, I love musical theater more than anything. Where are you?

[24:01] Kathleen Wrinn: Keep things in tension. Answering with both things. Looking at the past and also the future. As many regional theatres are trying to deal with the economic challenges after the pandemic, they are almost always cutting their education programs first. When you're talking about how the students are reading the pieces and getting invested in them, I don't think there's any replacement for that. Getting young people invested in theatre is the most important thing we can do right now, in my opinion. Especially as the platforms that we have start to evolve, like we have TikTok, how can we marry TikTok and theatre together? But getting them invested in theatre as something that's worth it and something worth saving, I think is really important.

And to help them see many sides of it too, right? So many of the students who serve on the committee, they come from all of our programs of study. So that means we'll have musical theatre students, we have acting students, theatre design and technology students, stage management and theatre management students. But they come in with those focuses, right? And also to allow them to have an opportunity where they think, oh my gosh, am I interested in working in a literary office? Or am I interested in dramaturgy? Or am I interested in directing? They start to think in these other ways too, when they get to approach something from another angle.

[25:14] Kathleen Wrinn: Well, we could keep talking about Magia all the time. But instead, again, we're going to talk about another piece that's very, very exciting. It's been part of the New York Theatre Barn New Work series. We saw the presentation at the NAMM Festival this year. Can you talk to us about Lighthouse, which is another piece that was developed at New Work's New Voices?

[25:32] Kathleen Wrinn: Yes, I can. Lighthouse was our New Work's New Voices workshop last year in 2024. So it was our third show that we did. And we were so thrilled to have Abs and Ronnie here with us. Again, a piece that just so music forward. I mean, the score is so exciting. A six-woman pop country. When we got to produce that last year, it was also so thrilling because we have so many young women in our program. It's, I think, our largest demographic in our program. And so getting to do a piece that was so focused on the experience of women in these communities, that was actually directed by one of my colleagues, Rebecca Karpov. And I was serving as sort of a facilitator and a story consultant at times on that one.

Just such a thrilling opportunity to have them here with us in residence. And then to go to NAMM. And the quick plug, just before I forget, our student, Sydney Carmona, who played Bus, who's the lead in Lighthouse. She played Bus at New Work's New Voices here at Syracuse. They brought her to NAMM. They brought her to NAMM and she played the lead there. With a star-studded Broadway cast around her. Look at that. Right? And so for them as writers too, and I don't know what their plans are going forward, but for them to be able to come here to this academic institution and sort of find their Bus and bring her with them was another just fantastic opportunity because they had a lead who's supposed to be 18.

Where are you going to find that? You're going to find that in a college. And if I could also just offer that that actor had an authenticity about them that was really, really fantastic, you know, because they were an 18-year-old. You know, they were an 18-year-old who was actually just encountering... They're like 20.

[27:03] Pauls Macs: Oh, they're 20.

[27:04] Kathleen Wrinn: Oh, fair enough, fair enough. They were stage 18. But they're still unauthentic. Early 20s. You know what I mean? Stage 18. I'm not going to make names, pointing at myself. They did a great job. I'm going to read a synopsis. So, Lighthouse, as we mentioned, is a six-woman, fourth-wall-breaking pop country musical following our 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. So we're going to play a song. We're going to play the title song from the show called Lighthouse.

[27:50] Pauls Macs: Wonderful. Usually in this situation, we have the writers set up their piece. And so, Kathleen, my recollection of this song is that it introduces all the characters and kind of introduces the stakes of living in a small town. Do you have anything you wanted to add to that?

[28:02] Kathleen Wrinn: This is their opening number, unless they've changed it since then. But when they did it here and when they did it at NAMM, it's their opening number. In the music, I think the ability that they had to sort of bring that world to life in a really sensory way was so thrilling for us when we first heard the song. I remember actually Rebecca, who I said ended up directing it, I remember her calling me when she first heard it. She was like, have you listened to that one yet? And it just... Anyway, I'm so glad you're going to share it.

[28:28] Pauls Macs: I agree. The first time I heard Lighthouse, it just grabbed me as, this sounds a little bit different than anything else I've heard in the musical theater canon. And just so people know, we did get permission to share these demos. And I asked the question that I often ask on the podcast, which is who is performing this demo. And just as happens very often on the podcast, one of the writers said, it was me. Doing all the voices.

[28:48] Kathleen Wrinn: Veronica. This is Veronica. Kira's Lighthouse performed by Veronica Mansour, one of the writers of the show.

[28:56] ♪ Musical number: "Lighthouse" — performed by Veronica Mansour ♪

[35:31] Pauls Macs: Thanks for joining us on New York Theatre Barn's Backstage Pass. Join us next time as we continue our conversation with Kathleen Wrinn about the New Works, New Voices initiative at Syracuse University.