In a first of its kind partnership, a group of MSU Department of Theatre students and alums recently participated in a reading of a new musical with the Flint Repertory Theatre. The collaboration provided students a unique opportunity to work with theatre professionals from New York City and the Flint Rep as they gained firsthand experience working on a new musical project.
“To be able to see the writer’s and composer’s faces as we brought their work to life was such a cool experience,” said Chloe Kirchmeier, who graduated from Michigan State University in Spring 2024 with a major in Anthropology and a minor in Musical Theatre. “I didn’t know I was going to be paid when I agreed to do it. I was just doing it for fun. Just the chance to work at the Flint Repertory is an insane opportunity and then to be involved with writers from New York who have already made a name for themselves. I definitely would have done it for free.”
The show, "These Familiar Spirits" by Gordon Leary and Julia Meinwald, imagines a reunion of the Salem Witch Trial accusers 23 years after the end of the trials. The pair also wrote "The Magnificent Seven," a musical about the 1996 Olympic Games that premiered at Flint Repertory Theatre in 2023. In addition to the playwrights, the New York-based director, Colette Robert, who is resident director for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" currently on tour in Chicago, was on hand for the reading, as well as equity actors and the entire artistic team at Flint Rep.
“Our students and alums had a tremendous opportunity to work with these other performers, these New York-based writers, this accredited working director, and also professional theatre in our area that they could potentially use as a starting point for their own career trajectories,” said Adam Yankowy, Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre at MSU. “The experience was similar to our New Musical Laboratory, but at a much faster pace.”
Yankowy also is the Program Director of the New Musical Laboratory, an educational partnership between MSU’s Department of Theatre and the Wharton Center. The New Musical Laboratory selects one new musical to be in residence at MSU each year that is workshopped under the guidance of a Broadway-caliber director, professional actors in leading roles, the creative team of the chosen musical, Wharton Center leadership, and the MSU Department of Theatre. The program provides a professional learning experience for both college actors and backstage creatives.
31 Songs and Carpool Karaoke
Yankowy, who served as music director for the recent three-day project done in partnership with Flint Rep, and a select group of MSU students had just four rehearsals, or about seven hours, to cover as much material as they could before heading to Flint. Meanwhile, the composers also were writing new music the weekend before the reading began so there was even more music to learn. In total, they had to learn about 20 out of 31 new tunes.
“I won’t lie, it was the hardest music I’ve ever had to learn,” said Audrey Allen, a senior majoring in Interdisciplinary Humanities and minoring in Musical Theatre. “I consider myself very good at learning music, but it was very challenging.”
Olivia Bath, a senior with a double major in Acting and Communication and a minor in Musical Theatre, wholeheartedly agrees. What made it even more difficult for her was the timing. It was shortly before the busy Thanksgiving break, and she also was working backstage on another show for the MSU Theatre Department at the time.
Leslie Hull, who graduated from Michigan State University with an MFA in Acting in 2012, also took part in the reading of the new musical at Flint Rep. Hull, who teaches theatre and communications at Northeastern Illinois University, said that theatre work involves constant networking.
“The biggest challenge was just finding the time to work on these songs that I couldn’t listen to on Spotify or YouTube. We were just figuring it out on our own. We would sing while going through the Starbucks drive-through and then kept singing on the drive to Flint each morning.” - Olivia Bath, acting and communication double major
“This was incredibly difficult music for all involved,” she admitted. “It’s wonderful to have music that is so challenging and unique, but we also had such a limited time. We all really put both feet in.”
Yankowy admits he doesn’t give out complements easily but, to him, the students “represented MSU beautifully with beautiful signing and strong storytelling.”
As a student, Allen has worked on new musicals with the New Musical Laboratory on campus but said this experience was different.
“I’m used to working with my friends or other students,” Allen said. “It was a little scary at first to see that I didn’t know anybody there except the two people I came with. But it was way more exciting and collaborative than I thought it would be and not intimidating. It got me excited to know that it is something I can do again if the opportunity ever arises.”
Salem Witch Trial Accusers: The Original Mean Girls
These Familiar Spirits focuses on the accusers, not the accused. The story centers on four women who return to Salem Village as adults for the funeral of one of their own. Most are back for the first time since they were children. They are watched over by the spirits of three of their fellow accusers who have passed on. When an act of magic connects the women with the spirits, they all must confront the harms they’ve caused, the harms that were done to them, and find a way forward.
Now that the quick, three-day initial reading of Spirits is over, the writers are taking what they learned from hearing all the potential songs and dialogue performed and start editing and re-working. According to Yankowy, it can take years to finesse a new musical before the curtain finally rises, so this is just the beginning phase of what might result in an actual show.
“What we did was to get it in a place where the writers could hear some sort of something. What is the overall shape of the story? How does this sound? How is this working? How are these songs working with the story? They have a lot of editing and work to do, which they know,” Yankowy said. “It’s always exciting if things lead to the next thing, but sometimes they don’t. Either way, it’s still an amazing learning experience and networking for all involved.
“I’m interested in new works because you can have a direct effect on how they’re crafted. There are many iterations as they’re growing and evolving, and I really love that process.” - Leslie Hull, MFA in Acting 2012
“That’s the trajectory of musicals, there’s no set path. And these days it’s so expensive to do commercial theatre, especially in New York. So, the opportunity for these creatives to interact with university students and more regional spaces really is advantageous for them, too, because it’s more cost-effective. And they still get great talent to get a sense of what their material is doing. Doing it in New York costs so much money.”
Even experienced performers and creatives enjoy investing their time and talent into the process of molding a brand-new play, no matter the eventual outcome.
“I’m interested in new works because you can have a direct effect on how they’re crafted,” Hull said. “There are many iterations as they’re growing and evolving, and I really love that process. While you can affect the production of something that’s established and done, it’s not necessarily an effect on the origin story of the play itself. I really enjoy seeing how things manifest, the many generations a piece goes through.”
Continuing to Develop Partnerships
While the MSU Department of Theatre enjoys a working relationship with Williamston Theatre, a nearby equity space, it typically showcases smaller plays, not musicals, and opportunities tend to be limited to graduate students. That’s why potential future partnerships with other regional theatres in the state would be beneficial.
“What helps us students in future careers is getting to work in professional spaces, being on contract, knowing what is expected of you in a rehearsal space that you’re getting paid for,” Bath said. “Also, we don’t have a musical theatre major at MSU so getting to work with theatres that do musicals more frequently is really valuable.”
Yankowy is in discussion for future collaborations with including music directing the Flint Rep’s upcoming production of Carrie: The Musical in Summer 2025. He said he hopes to continue to develop opportunities for MSU students with Flint Rep as well as form relationships with other regional theatres in Michigan.
“We can make a contributing effort to the field of musical theatre in Michigan,” Yankowy said. “This first-ever collaboration is one of the ways we’ll do that, which is really exciting.”
This story first appeared on the College of Arts and Letters website.
