If/then: a new musical

What i did?

For my Senior year at the University of Northern Colorado, I self-produced and directed Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s If/THEN: A New Musical. I saw the show on Broadway in 2014 and instantly knew that I wanted to do something with it one day. I then saw the show again on tour in Denver in 2015 and that same feeling was there. Flash forward to the second semester of my Junior year of College, I decided to take the project on. I started planning, researching, and seeing if there was interest for the show at a college. To my luck, lots of students were interested in the possibility of this production getting put on its feet. I spent the next year building a proposal, pitching the show to student groups, fundraising, creating set concepts, casting, directing, and opening the show. It is a lot to self-produce and direct, but I learned things that I wouldn’t have been able to do outside of a college setting. I learned some hard lessons that allowed me to grow, I expanded upon some lessons, and I was allowed to celebrate the work my cast and team put into it. It was an extremely challenging and rewarding project.

Want to check out my proposal? Click here to download a PDF!

Want to talk about the budget? Head on over to the contact page and send me an email!

Show Concept

For the show, I wanted to direct it in the round. I thought that the two life paths that we go on with Elizabeth would be interesting to see from different angles from the audience perspective. Along with that, wherever you sat, you had a different show experience from the person sitting across from you or at the diagonal from you. In addition, my biggest thing that I kept telling my cast, “We do not go through life alone, we can feel alone, but we never are alone. There are people constantly surrounding us even if it is a stranger on the street.” I thought that fit with this show for many reasons from moving across the country to restart her life, living in New York City, and navigating life in general. For the set, I wanted to make sure it was light, movable, and simple. Being in the round, I did not want to block view points with big set pieces. Along with that, I wanted the set pieces to be dual purpose. For the benches that we had, we put them on wheels to allow them to move around easier as well as come together to form stadium seating, a bar, and a bed. I didn’t want to have to find additional materials to build those along with additional costs! We also hung multi-color changing LED patio lights to add to the two different life paths. We were able to give the Liz and Beth tracks their own lighting as we only had access to a general light plot without gels for the performance space.