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Writer Notes -

My freshman year of college I felt prompted to let those I lived with in dorms know I was gay. To my surprise A LOT came out to me in response. I started writing down ideas for a comedy about a bunch of queer roommates who all got randomly assigned to live with each other at a Christian school where being gay felt illegal.

I started writing the actual musical as I entered my sophomore year. The first idea for "The Plague" came to me in 2018 while I was studying acting. I thought it could be a funny satirical song my girlfriends and I could sing about the men in our life. I wrote down outlines and ideas of potential scripts, formulating symbolism behind characters and their names. At the beginning of 2019, tunes such as "I Wish I Could Sing," "Remind Me," "Align" and "Carousel" began to form in my mind and my voice memos. It was by this time a lot had changed in my life and the musical took a turn to become a lot deeper and dramatic than the original comedic idea. Before the end of Winter Semester 2019 I had written an early draft which was much darker than the current version. I knew it wasn't what I wanted the musical to be yet, but I needed to express what I had experienced in order to survive it. 

I served as a singer, actor and dancer in the Nauvoo Performing Mission of 2019, where I learned to forgive and find joy again. I wrote many of the spiritual songs such as "All You Ask of Me," "The Ultimate Hipster," "My Child," and even the main theme of "The Academy" while I was there. I was able to formulate lots of ideas to bring the script back to a hopeful place, while still addressing heavy material. 

I rewrote the script multiple times and added the final songs throughout the rest of 2019, finishing the first full dialogue and music draft on New Year's Eve. I had the first reading with friends and peers on Martin Luther King Day 2020. When the pandemic began I started to make demos of all the tracks, finishing again around New Year's Eve 2020. I finished what I nicknamed the 7th full draft around that time aswell. 

In February of 2021 I proposed my capstone project, a cast recording and supplementary material to my acadmic advisor and was approved and set to work with auditions for the cast album in March. I recorded the vocal cast from April to June in separate sessions to coach each individual performer as we went, as well as to keep us safe from Covid by recording one on one. I began planning this concert reading at that time and even had the Madsen Recital Hall reserved for a while before needing to switch to an auditorium style classroom in the HFAC. I began work on recording electric guitar while comping vocals during the summer, though I took many breaks to visit home in Massachusetts and focus on time with family and friends. 

When I returned Fall 2021, I recorded the remainder of the album including live acoustic guitar and piano. I finished comping and mixing the instrumental draft you will hear tonight. Following some unexpected drama associated with this concert, I switched to this beautiful off campus venue a little over a month before the show. Thank you to everyone who helped make that change possible.

I will finish the final mix by mid-December, and send it off for distribution for March 2022. I may attempt to master it myself but have not yet decided fully.