Behind a New Musical Theater Premiere with Nico Juber & Kristin Hanggi
- 3 days ago
- 32 min read
Sisters Amy and Nancy Harrington of The Passionistas Project interview Nico Juber and Kristin Hanggi about their Broadway-bound musical Millennials Are Killing Musicals, now premiering at The Colony Theatre, and its eight-year journey exploring identity, social media, and curated lives. They discuss their passions for storytelling, community, and women’s representation, including Kristin’s pathway as a female Broadway director and Nico’s creative background, family influences, and a detour into corporate work after non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Nico and Kristin describe how they met, their collaboration and leadership philosophy centered on safety, experimentation, and low ego, and a diverse women-led producing team including She Angels. They outline the show’s premise — three moms trailed by embodied social media “filters” and an algorithm villain — its Greek-chorus concept, pop-rock style, standout cast, and plans to move next to New York for an off-Broadway run.
LINKS
ON THIS EPISODE
[00:00] Welcome to Passionistas
[00:40] Meet Nico and Kristin
[01:21] What Drives Their Passion
[03:35] Origins and Early Life
[05:45] Choosing the Career Path
[09:14] Women Leading on Broadway
[12:06] How They Teamed Up
[16:15] Leadership in Rehearsal
[19:15] Producers and She Angels
[21:50] Inside the Musical Plot
[24:19] Filters as Greek Chorus
[25:51] Writing and Evolving the Show
[32:34] Cast and Musical Style
[38:31] The Colony Theatre Partnership
[41:23] What’s Next and Final Dreams
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Passionistas: Hi, we're sisters, Amy and Nancy Harrington, founders of The Passionistas Project, where we believe that every woman deserves to be seen, heard, and celebrated. Our mission is simple but powerful, to give women a platform to tell their unfiltered stories, the stories that inspire, challenge, and break the silence around what it really means to follow your passions.
On each episode, we have conversations about courage, authenticity, and the messy, beautiful journey of living life unapologetically. Today, we're going to try to answer the question, what's real in the world of curated lives? Our guests are Nico Juber and Kristin Hanggi, the creative team behind the bold new Broadway-bound musical, Millennials Are Killing Musicals, premiering at the Colony Theatre right now.
We'll go behind the eight-year journey of the show, talk about what it reveals about identity and social media, and how they're using musical theater to hold up a mirror to the lives we carefully curate and the truth underneath them. So please welcome Nico and Kristin. We are so excited to have this conversation.
It's been very long in the making. We heard about your show years ago, and we're really excited to have you here.
Nico: Thank you for having us. Excited to be here.
Passionistas: So we love to start off every interview by asking you both, what are you most passionate about?
Kristin: I'm really passionate about passion. Mm. I am passionate about us feeling- Mm
alive as, uh, human beings, and I love telling stories as a process of connecting, 'cause I feel like when we're connected, we feel more engaged with life. We for- feel more alive. We feel more like ourselves. So I think community is how we rise. I think community is what we need, and I am-- I gravitate to stories that are about, that are about community and that are also about, uh, female self-realization.
I think that is part of what I feel really passionate about, is women feeling fully alive and in their, um, authentic sovereignty. And so when I first got Nico's, uh, show, when she first sent it to me, the music struck such a deep chord inside of me, but also that she was telling this story about women and their creative expression, and I was like, "This is what I'm here for."
So I, I, I think all of those things are what make me feel passionate.
Nico: And I wanted Kristin to tee up my answer because I was gonna say, I knew it, I knew she would say, um, everything that she said. But I'm passionate about, uh, telling stories about women. I think I... And original stories, stories that we haven't seen before.
I, I wanna see myself at different life stages represented on a stage and, you know, in a commercial way even. Just that, um, we need to see big Broadway shows that are by a, you know, and about women. Um, and it's not, it's not just one of them every few years. It truly, women are the primary person who is buying tickets.
We're, we're going to see shows, and so why are we not the ones that are creating those shows and, you know, being in community with each other?
Passionistas: So I wanna take a step back and ask you both about where that passion for storytelling comes from. Was this something that was ingrained in you or that you were passionate about from a young age, and what were your childhoods like?
Kristin: Oh, Amy and Nancy, if you were my neighbors, I would've been like, "Come over, grab a cape and a crown. We're putting on a pageant." Like, little six and seven-year-old me was just so excited to play pretend. And, uh, and so that spark has never gone away. I think that's just been inside of me, and it's part of who I am.
N- Nico?
Nico: So I grew up in a family of, uh, storytellers and, uh, musicians. Uh, my- grandfather created the hit TV shows Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch. Um, my dad is a guitarist who played for Paul McCartney in Wings, and so I, this, you know, I had comedy, I had pop music, and I was always writing comedy, writing scripts, um, sitcom spec scripts.
I wrote an album, you know, my s- was my senior project in high school, and then in college I used to play shows around, uh, in coffee shops, singer-songwriter style. But it didn't occur to me, even though I was a theater kid, I was, you know, in The Music Man and as you do when you're in high school, it didn't occur to me to put it all together, um, even as a lover of musical theater.
And then I really got derailed from my creative expression and journey, um, with a health experience when I was 19. In college I went through, uh, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and I had chemo and radiation, and at that point I would not have been able to get health insurance had I not gotten a corporate job out of school.
So that put me on a path of I need to, you know, I worked in high tech marketing for over a decade, um, because I needed the stability and the benefits, and, um, I couldn't be an artist. I was the only person in my family that wasn't. They didn't know what I did for, for a living. So, um, this has been really, this whole experience has been coming back to, you know, younger Nico and, um, you know, having my millennial existential crisis and starting to write musicals.
Passionistas: Was there a moment where that clicked for either both of you? Like, "This is what I need to be doing. This is- I'm- I'm gonna pursue this as a career."
Kristin: You can go, Christine. We both, we both paused for each other. Yeah. I think I just always knew that I was going to go into the arts. I think that I just felt it as a young child, "This is what I'm here to do." I didn't know I was a director until later. I actually feel like I never really saw women be directors, and so I didn't know that's what I was.
Uh, but I'd always been putting on shows, and it probably wasn't till I was in college where all of, where I just kept putting on shows and all of my professors were like, "You're a director." And then I was like, "I am. I am a director." So I think that's how it happened for me, but when I look back I was like, oh, I just didn't have models.
I just didn't see that. Um, and so it was, it took me a minute to be able, took me- it took me all of till 19 to really be able to declare that I was a director
Nico: I'm very lucky that I did have role models in my own family. I mean, my mom is an amazing, uh, comedy writer. She has written musicals with my dad.
So I grew up kind of around it and saw that it was a possible thing, but didn't know it was a possible thing for me. Um, but I was always very good at, like, lots of things, and so it wasn't as clear. My sister is a pop songwriter, and it was just abundantly clear it was the only thing she could do. Like, not...
I don't mean that in a bad way. It's like she's just so good at it, and it was just like lightning strikes. And with me, I did the business stuff and I did marketing and, you know, I, and the writing. And I didn't understand how that was all gonna come together in writing and producing musical theater because it is the one thing that exists that u- utilizes every single one of my skill sets that in a way that I didn't know was possible, which is a very strange set of skills to intersect in one person.
Um, so I think it was probably, you know, it was around when I started really writing musical theater 20- probably in like 2018, 2019, where I was like, "Oh, this is, this is it. This is the thing I wanna do," which was a terrible time in history to have that realization. So, um, going into 2020, but it's, you know, I have had some time to be able to learn and, and grow and, you know, figure out this industry, um, and to get to this point now.
Kristin: I also wanna say I'm so grateful that Nico does know everything she knows about business and about marketing. So the time that she spent in these other arenas, I feel like as a partnership, I get to benefit from the fruits of her experience and her know-how. And from the very beginning of our collaboration, um, she has modeled this fearlessness of whatever it is that we need to figure out to get the musical up, to get it financed, to get it out into the world.
She is very assertive and, and tenacious. And I, I can see how all of those years really benefits what we're creating together right now.
Passionistas: And Kristin, talk about, you know, tenacity and, and focus. Um, you know, you have risen all the way up to being a, a Tony nominee in, uh, you know, working on Broadway, and I would imagine the, the women role models you didn't see when you were growing up, once you got to Broadway, there probably weren't that many more, um, in that world.
So what was that experience? What has that experience and what was your pathway, um, to where you are now? What's that experience been like?
Kristin: Well, I think I was very naive in that I really didn't realize- Even as I got there, I mean, I did look around and was like, "Oh, there's like four Broadway directors that are female," when I, you know, when I got there in 2009.
Um, and there are more now, and continue to be, and that is exciting. But I didn't realize how rare it was, I think, until I was there. And I didn't realize, uh, what being a woman in leadership meant. And so I kind of, I feel like I learned on the job, and I learned about the importance of women encouraging other women, and I learned also about the importance of women telling stories.
And as I learned, I started to realize that for a very long time w- women have not been the ones who've gotten the opportunity and have p- been positioned to tell the stories. And then I realized that why that's really important for us to, to recognize is because stories nourish us, and stories help provide our values as a society.
The stories we tell in film, in theater, um, in books, in all media, they go out and they nourish the world. And so whoever's telling those stories are establishing the values of our culture. And so we need women, people from marginalized communities to be positioned so that they can tell other stories.
Because if we're gonna birth a new world, we have to tell new stories, and they need to come from new voices. So Biko and I have very much aligned that that is a passion of ours, um, that we want all different voices in positions of leadership and on the creative and artistic team, that it's important for us, um, for what it is we wanna create.
Passionistas: You pretty much just summed up The Passionistas Project, so because we believe all of that too. It's really what gets us out of bed every day. That was beautifully stated. Um, so talk about your collaboration. How, how did you guys meet, and when did you decide that you wanted to work together?
Nico: We started working t- uh, together a little over a year ago.
Um, I had been, you know, around seven years into this journey and, um, there was a workshop that we did at I Am A Theater Company, which is another woman-led nonprofit theater here in Los Angeles, um, as is The Colony, which is amazing. Um, we love women-led theater companies. And so it had been a two-week workshop, and it was one of the most kind of- Uh, you know, in the weeds drama- you know, I had a dramaturg there.
It was, like, very structural, uh, that had happened since the off-Broadway developmental production, uh, two, you know, or I guess at, at that point it had been two years before. And so, um, the director that I had been working with, who's a mutual friend of, of, you know, Kristin's and, um, and now mine. I mean, she's wonderful.
Marlo Hunter, she has another show opening right now in Arizona. But because the- she had already a prior commitment, it just couldn't work out to continue working together. And so, um, Kristin, she, you know, Kristin's came na- name came up from her. I was like, "Who is another, you know, incredible woman that can help step in and take this to the next level?"
So I did inter- you know, when you're hiring someone and working with somebody, you're like, "Is this someone I'm gonna kinda be married to for the next like maybe my whole life?" You know, if you... You know, I, I'm not gonna say if, but when you have a hit show, and, and Kristin knows this deeply, you are working with these people.
You're stuck in airports together. Like, it is... You are, you're really working together for a long time. So, um, I talked to a lot of people, and I just remember getting on a Zoom with Kristin, and it was like, "Oh, okay, wait a minute." Just talking about, you know, creative flow and energy and, you know, her passions and what draws her to a story, and I could just see her ethos was so kind of in line with where, where I was.
Um, and obviously there are just not that many women who have done comedy and the kind of, you know, fun, irreverent, silly comedy that, that I, you know, want to be doing, and, you know, with social purpose behind it. The, you know, Kristin's kind of the she's the big game in town for, for that. So it w- she was... I probably have told you this, but she was definitely, like, my top, top dream director for this.
But I thought, "There's no way she's gonna do it." And then it was just, I don't know. We, you know, since then lots of things have happened and, you know, we multiple workshop steps in this time. Uh, but we've, I think, really grown close and, you know, we've got matching necklaces now. It's, it's a whole thing.
Kristin: Yeah, it's absolutely a marriage. There's, you're, uh, I always say when you do a musical with someone, they're gonna see you on your very best day and on your very worst day. And so that alignment of, like, purpose is so important, and the communication skills to be able to be honest with each other and navigate conflict, all of that, it's so important.
And I think as I started working with Nico, even in our beginning conversations when, you know, we had like a dating period. We're like, "Let's, let's just try this on and see what it feels like." We both were like, "This feels really good, doesn't it? This is really easy, isn't it? There's lots of flow." And I think we were both like, "Whoa, something's happening here, and it's nice."
And the more we got to know each other, the more we realized, oh, wow, we resonate on lots of different, uh, frequencies here, and that felt great. And then, and I was just really impressed by the person that Nico is. What draw me-- what drew me in was the music, but w- what made me go, "Oh, put a ring on it," was the kind of person that Nico is.
And I'm constantly impressed by the beauty of her heart, to be really honest.
Passionistas: You can feel the energy between the two of you. It's, it's really beautiful. Um, you know, you talked earlier, Kristin, about leadership and, and kind of getting to Broadway and learning about leadership. As women, and as this partnership that you guys have created, what's your philosophy on leading your cast and your crew through this production?
Kristin: I'm a big believer in that we're making it together. Um, I am a believer in
C- I wanna say getting rid of hierarchy, but what I mean by that is I feel like every voice is important, every voice is valid, and that we need each other to figure out what this is, right? Because it's a brand-new musical, it has not been on the planet before, there is no set path. Um, but all together, we are feeling into the creation of this piece, and it needs all of us, um, speaking up, experimenting, and we have to be safe to try things.
It's only through experimentation that we're gonna figure things out, and a willingness to experiment requires safety. So part of it, I think, has been Nico and I making an environment where people feel valued, and they feel like their ideas are wanted, that they truly are an artist who is creating this with us, no matter what their role is.
And I think that is part of our ethos.
Nico: Just to kind of add on to everything that Kristin's saying, I mean, uh, Kristin, you know, uh, from a, as, as a director does set the t- I mean, the director really does set the tone in the rehearsal room. And, um, there was, you know, in- infusing of like, "What do, what do we wanna do in this finale scene?
What do we want the audience to leave with?" Like, what are, let's infuse that intention in. There's a lot of very thoughtful and, you know, I, you could just tell that the actors really appreciated, felt safe, felt valued, felt like if something was making them uncomfortable, they could say something. Um, and we heard from consistently what a great time they've had in this process and continue to have in the process, which, you know, means that we did something, we did something right in, in this, that nobody felt like their voices weren't heard or, you know, that they weren't...
'Cause I think that is something that happens to creatives a lot, um, at any level, right? And especially for actors feeling like, "Can I say something? This line feels weird for me to say." Um, and I think there was just not a lot of e- I, I would say there was no ego. There was, it was a room without ego, and so, uh, that, that helped a lot, 'cause nobody was kind of like trying not to s- you know, walk, or trying to walk on eggshells all the time.
Passionistas: That's beautiful and, and, and very, very rare in theater. It's nice to hear and, and again, a feminine energy that you're bringing to it that I think is really beautiful. And speaking of other feminine energy that's involved, we wanted to talk a little bit about your producing team, which includes some of our amazing mutual friends at the She Angels.
So tell us a little bit about who's involved and what their support has meant to you.
Nico: Yeah. Oh, I mean, from She Angels, uh, you know, Julie, Diana, Kathryn, you know, we, we've got, we've got a big producing team of, a co-producing team of women. Uh, Kelly, uh, I mean, this is, I, I don't know h- how many of the folks that you guys know, but it's, the thing that's really wonderful about our producing team is that we have a very diverse, you know, producing team.
Um, Ananth, who is one of our lead producing partners, um, is from the AAPI community. We have first time Black women producers. We have one of the, you know, uh, I think only, um, Indigenous producers on Broadway, um, woman that's part of the team. So we've been very intentional about putting a team together that feels diverse, reflective of the world around us and, you know, representing voices that we haven't necessarily heard before, which is really exciting.
And, um, I think, uh, you guys obviously know Kathryn and Deborah, Kathryn Gray and Deborah Smalley pretty well, that they are just conduits to so many incredible women around them. Um, and- I think that's been one of the joys on the producing side, is to look out into, you know, our audience on opening night and have just a room full of these incredible women who understand why it's important to tell women's stories and why, you know, and that, that women are gonna be the ones that support it and uplift it.
Um, and I just, I love, I love our team. We, we got- we're very lucky.
Passionistas: There has been a steady stream of text messages.
Nico: Yeah. Within the group.
Passionistas: Good. "Have you seen it yet? I'm going tonight. Can anybody go with me?" "Have you seen it? It's really good. Make sure you're telling everybody."
Nico: You've got it.
Passionistas: Well,
Nico: and I think there were some folks, um, you know, from this She Angels community that I think had been hearing about it for a while, were kinda like, "Okay, well, I'll go," and didn't sort of know what they were- like, they didn't know.
And that's been really fun to kind of see them go, "Oh, wait. Wait a minute. This is, like, really a real thing." So
Passionistas: yeah. Yeah, they're blown away. The, the women we've heard from are like, "It's so good. Oh my God." So, um, so- Amazing ... let's, let's actually talk about the musical itself. What is the musical about, and where did the idea come from?
Nico: So the musical, uh, it's called Millennials Are Killing Musicals, and, um, it is about, uh, really reclaiming authentic happiness in a social media filtered world. And we, you know, that's kind of the nutshell pitch of it. You know, where identity meets the algorithm. Um, we center on Brenda, who's a single millennial mom set in 2019, and she's, you know, got a six-year-old daughter just starting school, ready to get her life back, um, and she gets targeted basically by social media.
Um, and at this, you know, to be their test case and get her addicted to this app called InstaCam. Um, and so it's a little bit like our re- reality, but bent. Her sister shows up, who's an influencer, um, eight months pregnant, totally unprepared for motherhood, and they've got this rival mom at the kid's school that we only know as Jake's mom, who seems like she's got it all together.
And these three women are trailed by real-life, you know, embodied, uh, filters, social media filters, who are keeping them from really being themselves and forcing them to curate their lives, um, under the control of the algorithm. So, um, it is, it's a comedy. And, you know, as far as, I mean, it, I don't know, I don't know what people would expect it not to be a comedy, but you never know.
Um, and there's love, and there's dating, and there's all kinds of, you know, the millennial existential crisis of it. But these filters use, uh, this kind of idea of millennials killing things to keep the women insecure and addicted to the technology, and that kind of ramps through the course of the show, and I won't go into it anymore 'cause I don't wanna spoil it for anybody.
But, uh, it is very, you know, reflective of kind of, uh, influencer culture, how we curate our, curate our lives online and compare to each other, and why moms are actually such a susceptible demographic to this, and women in general, because, you know, we're, we're putting on filters every day. We're wearing makeup, we're doing our hair, we're putting a filter on Zoom.
You know, it's like we- we're constantly curating ourselves to what society expects us to be.
Passionistas: Yeah, I know, I did a, did a, a conference call the other day that wasn't on Zoom. I'm like, "Where's my filter? Wait a
Nico: minute." Yeah.
Passionistas: Oh, no.
Nico: Exactly.
Passionistas: Yeah. Um, I love the concept, too, that you have in the show about the Greek, of, you know, the social media being kind of a Greek chorus. Talk a little bit about that concept.
Nico: Yeah, so the three filters are, uh, Atlas, Pacifica, and Luna, and basically what they represent are sort of these three different types of women. You've got the one who makes everything look totally perfect and smoothed over all the time. You've got one that makes everything look bright and colorful and over the top, and then one that's black and white, and very kind of the classic, you know, the oldest filter.
And that's really reflected in the three women and how they portray themselves and who they wanna be online. Um, and then these filters are kind of, it, it is kind of Greek. I mean, we start, it, it feels a little bit classic in that they're starting at the top of Mount Olympus and targeting the, the mortal that they you know, wanna go after.
Um, but they, they have their own arc too, which I think is really fun in the show, um, 'cause they are under the control of this algorithm villain, um, that everyone has to contend with. And who, you know, again, without going too deep into it, it really is meant to represent this like, you know, tech giant overlord that, um, that, you know, they acquire everything.
Instacam acquires every single company like, in the show as you go along. So it, it, you know, it's just this kind of past dystopia that really is like us right now and what we're dealing with.
Passionistas: So what was going on in your life when this idea came to you? And, and Kristin, what is your experience with social media?
How does that inform your approach to the, the show?
Kristin: Oh, it's such a good question. I feel like with social media, it's such an interesting conversation because, you know, I'm right there on that Millennial, Gen X cusp, right? So it c- it c- it came along, I was a little bit later in my own personal development as an adult when it came along, and all of a sudden I was like, "Oh, this is making me really conscious of what are other people thinking about me?"
And then all of a sudden went, "Oh, I don't like spending time thinking about what other people think about me." I've always just been doing my own thing, and all of a sudden I'm like thinking about other people's feelings or reactions, and I was like, oh. It made me aware of that kind of conditioning inside of myself, right?
And so that I think is interesting, because I do think there's something gendered involved there.
Nico: Because I've been writing this for so long, the story has found new parts of itself as as it's gone along. Um, but you know, I'm a mom- My girls are now almost 11 and 13, and, you know, obviously much, much younger when I started eight years ago.
But I was, you know, in online mom groups. Um, like everyone's... You know, there was the mom who'd be posting these beautiful pictures, and it's like how, how are they doing that? And there was a mom at school who was, like, in heels every day with her hair done, and like how is this person functioning this way?
Like, I'm a hot mess mom, and everyone else seems to have it together. So I just started writing songs about it. Like, that was kind of the thing that came first. I just sat and started writing songs at the piano, and that... Again, this for me really came out of nowhere. It just, I had a... I stopped a job and I was about to start a new job, and I sat and it, like, exploded.
I just started writing songs, and I thought, "Okay, well maybe I'll make a web series or something, you know, funny, fun like that." And then I was like, "Oh, well what would happen if you followed that mom and you figured them out?" And you know, there was... And I think that every playwright does that I've come to learn, that you're like, "Oh, but then what?"
You know, you start asking questions. And then what would happen if this? So I thought, "Okay, well maybe it's more than a web series. Maybe I'm... You know, I don't know what I'm writing." And then I was like, "Oh, no, it's a musical. Okay, I guess I'm doing the family thing and I'm writing a musical." And the first draft we did a, a...
Well, the first table reading was in 2019, and I thought, "I did it, yay. I wrote a musical and I'm gonna, you know, maybe put it up down the street, and I don't know, that'll be the end of it." And I had some friends come over in my garage, and we, you know, ate pizza and read through the show, and everyone said, "Can't wait to see what happens with this" and, you know.
And I thought, "It's done. I did it." Like, what are you talking about? I wrote a whole show, not understanding the development process of a musical and how iterative it was. So that was kind of the beginning of that, like, journey and understanding. But it really started from that, um, core idea of, you know, moms being vulnerable to this, making, trying to make themselves be something that they're not, and reclaiming your authentic voice in that.
And then, um, so for example, the algorithm character only really fully came into the show a year ago. There was always an algorithm referenced, but he wasn't there. And now, now he's, he's a big, he's a big part of the show. So it's like stuff I, I always describe as like an excavation process, where it's like it's there, you just have to keep digging and digging and digging.
And then you're like, "It was always there. It's always been there." And you, when, when you have the perspective, you can go, "Okay, yeah, I see where it came from and I, I understand why it's taken this time to, to dig," 'cause it does take a while to dig and reflect and, um, every step, even though it is a really long time.
Passionistas: So what do you think is the biggest change from that first draft till now? I know you mentioned the algorithm character, but are there others? And was there something that you held onto for a long time that you finally had to let go of that's like, "No, this isn't working and I need to let it go"?
Nico: Oh, I'm-- I think I'm pretty funny.
Kristin can talk about this, but like, I, if I'm cutting a song, I'm like, "It's dead." I like, I don't-- It's gone. And if I need to, I can always like pull parts of song, dead songs, and put them into other songs. Like, there were some bridges I pulled from other songs in this latest, um, but I, I don't get very attached like that.
I think there was one song, I'm not gonna say what it was, that I kept trying to cut and Kristin was like, "You cannot cut that song." So I'm, I'm usually the one that is like trying to cut everything. Um, but I would say it's very different. I really did not know what I was doing in the beginning. I, you know, I didn't know I needed an opening song.
I didn't know I needed a I want song, an 11 o'clock number. Uh, like all of those structural things about how the an, an American musical is made, I really had to put myself on kind of a course of, you know, I bought all the books, I signed up for as many classes as I could because I wanted to understand the art form and like how do you-- Maybe, you know, maybe I'm doing something different and maybe it is, you know, the, the content is different, but the form is, you know...
We have-- It is a-- That's actually one of the things that I love about musical theater is that it is kind of traditional. Like, we, we invented it. Like, that's our, it's like our, one of our only art forms we made.
Kristin: I've been very impressed by Nikko's willingness to, to dive in and say, "Let's keep working. Let's keep shaping.
Let's keep figuring it out." And my experience with a musical is that it's constantly talking to you. It's constantly giving you feedback. At every version, you keep learning about it. Um, every, every time you put it in front of an audience, you're learning about it, what it is and what it wants to be. Um, and it is very normal for a show to run on Broadway and then change again before it goes on tour.
Um, and then change again when it goes into different languages. And then when you do another production again in the US, it changes from what you've learned from another country. Um, so that there's an aliveness to it. I remember Tennessee Williams said once, um, "You never finish on a play. You just stop working on it."
So as if it would always continue to give you feedback if you, if you continue to be in conversation with it.
Passionistas: Tell us about the cast in this production
Nico: Oh, I mean, the cast is unbelievable. So we, and, and Kristin's worked with, you know, some of the folks before, and she can talk a little bit about that. But, um, Emma Hunton, who is playing Brenda, she was the youngest, um, Elphaba ever in Wicked. She is... Her voice is just out of this world. I'm so excited for anyone who gets to see her sing this close to their face, 'cause it's just...
In the rehearsal room every day, we were like, "How, how does she do it?" She's unbelievable. Such an incredible... They're all incredible comedians, and they all are operating at the top of their game. Like, there's not a single person in there who's not operating at just absolute excellence. And, um, Diana Huey, who plays the younger sister, is, um, she's Katrina, the influencer, has been with the show the longest.
She's been here for, um, six years, and she is, uh, from our first, or maybe even close to seven, but from our first 29-hour virtual reading. And, um, her just humor and heart and to really, it's a tough character because you gotta walk a really fine line of being this influencer that, that you have to be lovable, too.
You have to be rooting for her. And, um, her physical comedy is just off the charts, uh, just the way she throws herself into the character. Um, I mean, I c- feel like I could rant about every single person in there for... I don't know, Kristin, if you want to jump in and
Kristin: talk about the- Yeah. I'll give a, I'll give a shout-out to Mykal-Thomas Grant, who was on Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist.
I, I directed him in Romy and Michele: The Musical we just did off-Broadway. So I have a longstanding relationship with him, as well as John Krause, who I directed years ago in Rock of Ages, and he was also in Hadestown on Broadway. Um, just incredible cast. I mean, I really do think we could go through everyone.
Jennifer Lee Warren from the original Little Shop, Mitchell, who is a social media influencer and a incredible comedian. I mean, we could go on and on about how marvelous this entire cast is. We've really been blessed and, and also blessed by their friendship. They really love each other and are having so much fun playing together.
Nico: I feel like we said everyone else, so we have to talk about, uh, Lana McKissack and, and Ainsley Bubbico, who are just, I th- like, again- There, Lana's physical comedy also is so great, and I think that, um, and Ainsley is just, like, vulnerable and real and funny, and the, all of their voices are incredible. Like, they just, everyone sings their faces off, and, um, really, like, not a weak link.
And, but I do wanna also shout out our understudies. We have, um, you know, Frankie, Casey, and Whitney in the room with us and jumping in when they needed to, and that, that is a hard job, too, being an understudy and a swing. And they are also professionals at the top of their game.
Passionistas: So talk a little bit about the music that they're singing their voices off to, and what's, what's the style of the musical style of the show, and Kristin, how do you bring that musical style to life?
Nico: It's a pop rock show. I mean, I, I think of myself as a pop songwriter. You know, maybe some, a little bit folk, a little pop, a little rock. Um, I, we kind of have country in there. I mean, we, we sort of go, go a little bit all over the place. But it's very contemporary pop musical theater. Um, and I'll, I'll let Kristin jump in in terms of the, the bringing to life.
Kristin: Well, one of the favor- my favorite things to do with staging a musical is to play the songs and to close my eyes and let the music tell me what to do so that it's informed by the energy that the music is bringing to it. So yeah, I do feel that if you listen, the music is always directive. You know? It'll tell you, you know, this is, this is moody.
This is romantic. This is scary. Um, and yeah, I f- I feel like what I'm trying to do is, is do justice to what the, the musical event that the songs are informing.
Nico: And I do wanna mention, um, our incredible music director, orchestrator, arranger, Anthony Luca, because- Marvelous ... he, so fr- if you listen to the off-Broadway cast recording, uh, which was great, I mean, it was a developmental production, Anthony's come in and totally rearranged, re-orchestrated and, um, one of the things that was so cool and when we all started working together, you know, he, he was like, "I wanna take a dramaturgical approach to the sound of the music."
I, e- everything he does is so intentional. I want when the characters are more filtered and less, I want it to sound more electronic versus, and I want that to clash with the more acoustic, authentic, and I wanna see them struggle, and I wanna hear it, or I guess hear it, you know, go from one end to the other.
So that's been a treat to have someone bring such like a, a keen dramaturgical sense to just the- Tonality and like how, how it all plays together. And same with, I mean, th- this is the first time we had a real, you know, like fully fleshed out choreography. Michelle Elkin did an incredible job. Um, and there are some scenes that, you know, are much heavier choreo scenes than other scenes, and I think it's the same thing.
It's like when we're in kind of different layering a virtual world on top of a, a real world and like how, how do those, uh, come into contact with each other. It was really, really cool to see the whole creative and design team, um, flesh out that vision from each of their perspectives.
Passionistas: You also mentioned briefly the, The Colony Theater where you're staging this production.Talk about the collaboration with the theater, 'cause I feel like the actual theaters don't often get the recognition they deserve.
Nico: Oh, yeah. Uh, so The Colony Theater, um, the producing artistic director is Hav- Heather Provost. Um, it is a woman-led, I mean, m- I think the entire leaders, for the most part, the entire leadership team are women.
And so that was one of the things in the kind of years leading up to this production, I had been talking to artistic directors, just creating relationships, getting to know spaces, trying to figure out, you know, where do we wanna be. Um, we were talking of places in New Jersey and like all, all over the country.
Um, and it was, "Okay, we wanna be somewhere where, you know, kind of in a 200 to 400 seat theater. We want, uh, kind of a metro area where we can really reach, you know, women, moms," like kind of our, our target. And I'm from LA, so this was exciting to kind of... I, I saw two years ago, I believe it was, um- Uh, they did a show called The Civility of Albert Cashier at The Colony, which was a new work, and that kind of pinged, like, oh, wait a minute, they're doing new work here right in the Valley where, where I live, um, at a really beautiful, wonderful space with a women-led team.
Let me just- let's, let's get in touch with them. Let's see if this is a fit. And, um, you know, with any of these things, similar to what Kristin was saying of, you know, you're dating a little bit, when, when you're talking to artistic directors, specifically producing artistic directors, you- there has to be an alignment of ethos.
It has to be a fit for their season. Um, we didn't come in and just rent the space. Like, this was, you know, we're, we're putting you into our season. We're taking a risk on this, um, with our audiences and with our community because we believe in it, and, and we wanna support the work, which has been such a lovely thing about developing this show in primarily nonprofit spaces up until, you know, through, through this point before we go on to, you know, have our commercial life.
Um, we- same thing in New York with the off-Broadway developmental production, a company called Out of the Box run by a woman, Liz Fleming. Like, it really has been... And then Stephanie Black with I Am Ma. It- this is a story of women like, really supporting this show. And, um, obviously, lots of, you know, conversations happened in there, but the collaboration has been really wonderful working with Heather.
Her whole staff has just embraced us and been so welcoming and lovely. So, um, I, I feel so lucky that to get to do this in my hometown in such a beautiful space and to be able to share it with our community here.
Passionistas: So what's next? What's the next step?
Kristin: That's exactly what we're talking about. We're, we're g- we're getting everything ready and planning our move to New York and our off-Broadway run.
So, uh, you'll have to send us all the best energy as we take the steps to move forward to the launching of our baby there.
Passionistas: We are 100% sending you good vibes. We have no doubt that we're gonna get to fly to New York and see it on Broadway some point soon, some point very soon. Um, so what's the most important thing that you each have learned from the other one during this process?
Kristin: I met Nico exactly at the moment where I kept feeling like there were, there were all these kind of invitations to step more and more into producing, 'cause I've been, you know, an active director my whole life. And seeing Nico be just such a, a leader in that world and saying, "I am gonna get my musical up.
I'm gonna figure out whatever I need to do to make that happen. I'm not afraid of being the lead producer. I believe in my vision. I'll figure out what I, whatever I need to do," um, has been great modeling for me to go, "Yeah, that's right. That's what we do." And, um, I think sometimes women, uh, have a tendency to feel like we must be masters in order to do anything, as opposed to my whole lived experience has been teaching me and, and I definitely have had times in my life where, um, I'm like, no one-- "Is anyone gonna hear this?"
Where I feel like I, like, might be, I might know more than the producers, and I wonder why they're making mistakes 'cause I, I've, I've been, lived through that mistake before. And, and so it, it felt like this great invitation to say, "Hey, we can lead and we can do everything we need to do to, to, to take the show where we need to take it."
Nico: Biggest thing I probably learned from Kristin is really listening to your gut. Like, really, like, listening to it. I think that where we fit really well is I tend to be the kind of, you know, okay, risk and analytical, and, like, I'm very ... And Kristin l- leads with her heart. She's, you know, very energy, heart-cen- focused.
But I think, um, taking, having permission to play and to, you know, channel, uh, the fun in ... You know, there was one day I, there was an extra blonde wig, and I, like, just put it on and came out and just, you know. Kristin was like, "Who is blonde Nico? I'm obsessed with her." Um, but just, like, to let my guard down and have fun with it, but then also to really listen to, you know, my gut and my intuition because that's what she does.
You know, if I'm worried about something, she's like, "My gut, my gut never is wrong, and my gut is saying we move forward." So I think that instead of getting bogged down in the what-ifs or, you know, any, any of that, really, uh, channeling into what i- what is my gut telling me?
Passionistas: Before we ask our final question, I just wanna remind our listeners that the show is Millennials Are Killing Musicals.
It's at the Colony Theater in Burbank, so you can just go to the Colony Theater's website and get your tickets. You don't wanna miss it. Um, and for our final question, it's a two-part question for each of you, what is your dream for yourself, and what is your dream for women?
Nico: I mean, honestly, dream for myself is to keep doing what we've just been doing over, you know, do it more, 'cause it was, it felt so good.
I'm like, "Let's, let's do that again and again and again," whatever that looks like. Um, and you know, I feel like I've made some creative partners for life in this process, and, and new friends, so I'm... That, that is, you know, and to continue to show my kids also that I, I can, I set out to accomplish something and then I accomplish it, right?
Like, what a, what a gift for them to be able to, to see that consistently happening over eight years. Um, and then my dream for other women is to, uh, believe that it is possible, and that also for that it isn't so hard for some of them, you know, or, or all of them as, as it has been for Kristin, has, as some things have been for me.
I mean, I am, you know, just shocked all the time by kind of when I am like, "I'm just telling a story. It's just a fun story," but it, it's a story about women, and not everyone likes that. So I, I, that always is shocking to me, and I, I wanna change that so that it, I wanna normalize that women are people and we have stories, and that they're valuable.
Kristin: I'm really enjoying this question. I feel like personally I have so many visions in my heart, and my dream for myself is to walk with those visions until they come into the world. And my dream for all women is for all women to know the power that is inside of them to make their dreams and visions come forward into the world.
And I believe that modeling is really important, so I believe that as each one of us lives into our dreams, we show each other that it's possible.
Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project. Everything we do is rooted in one belief. Women's voices matter, and when we share our stories, we create real change. That's why we launched our anthology book series, Awakening Your Power: Real Stories of Women's Empowerment, a collection of raw, inspiring stories from women who are ready to be seen, heard, and make an impact.
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