I've always loved horror, and Dracula in particular. In 1995, I wrote my own gay vampire musical, In the Blood, and as I wrote, I read every vampire short story and novel I could find. Yeats later, during the Great Pandemic, I decided to write a collection of "weird fiction" short stories, all connected to musicals, eventually called Night of the Living Show Tunes. Again, I spent a long time reading all the great horror stories and several novels, as well as Stephen King's nonfiction books about horror.  Now as we go into rehearsal for Frank Wildhorn's stage musical Dracula and I start ..read more

This is the introduction for my newest book, Anything, Anything, Anything Goes: A Deep Dive: My freshman year in high school, Anything Goes (the 1962 version) was the first “real” musical I was ever in. I played Bishop Dobson (who gets arrested in the first scene) and I was also in the tap dancing chorus. I fell in love with the show and all the songs. I knew it was an “old” show, but it didn’t seem old-fashioned to me. It was sexual and cynical, and kind of wild and anarchic, and blazingly self-aware. I now know it was very much in the vein of George M. Cohan’s first musical comedies in the ..read more

The second show in our 32nd season, Sweet Potato Queens, is a musical I had never heard of -- and there aren't a ton of those out there!  One of our loyal New Line Subscribers, Debra Lueckerath, had seen the show in Los Angeles, and she brought me the program, adamantly urging me to check it out. I looked at the program cover, saw the show's title; and I confess I thought to myself, "Ugh. Chick show." For a while, the program just sat on my desk, like most things do. But at some point, I picked it up, looked through it, then on a whim I Googled "Sweet Potato Queens" and holy shit ..read more

'Twas a year full of New Line, and yep, we're still here! Tell me, who would've guessed we'd survive one more year! But we're quickly returning to more solid ground, Thanks to New Line's supporters, whose help's been profound! These dark times remind us how much we need Stories, To help us make sense of our stumbles and glories; So New Line's still here, busting all categories! In March, from the bucket list came the divine And surreal, Felliniesque, musical Nine! It's rarely produced, but it's ballsy and bold, With evocative music and rhymes like spun gold; It's a streaming-of-consciousnes ..read more

What a wild, interesting, and exhausting ride its been! Jesus & Johnny Appleweed's Holy Rollin' Family Christmas has closed. Jesus and Johnny have left the building. Though it was a long road pockmarked by several crises, we pulled it off! Believe me, the "magic of theatre" is real. We didn't have huge houses, but the reviews were great and audiences really seemed to enjoy it. Well, those who didn't walk out. I mean, if folks don't walk out once in a while, can we really call our company "the Bad Boy of Musical Theatre"? I'll admit that this truly odd musical I wrote is more confrontat ..read more

I'll tell you what I'm thankful for this year. I'm thankful that musical theatre has become a vigorous, popular part of our culture again. I'm thankful that there are so many artists out there writing new, amazing musicals. I'm thankful that St. Louis has a musical theatre scene of such breadth and depth. But there's one thing I'm particularly grateful for -- your trust. We're opening our THIRTY-SECOND season next week. For thirty-two years, St. Louis audiences have trusted me to find the most interesting, most exciting, most iconoclastic works of musical theatre. Some of New Line's best se ..read more

When we produced Hair the second time, in 2008, it struck me quite powerfully that our current politics are all essentially a battle between the 1950s and the 1960s, between the oppressive universal conformity of the 1950s versus the cultural, political, and sexual freedom of the 1960s. Looking back, I realize that ever since Nixon, our two national parties have been aligned along this fault line as well, the Republicans wanting to return to the 1950s, and the Democrats wanting to finish the work of the 1960s. And that may be because the American people are split on this issue ..read more

New Line Theatre was recently awarded a bigger-than-usual grant from the Missouri Arts Council (MAC) for its coming 2023-2024 season -- a generous $25,000. Soon to open our 32nd season of alternative musical theatre, the increased MAC grant was very welcome, particularly in this time when every nonprofit theatre in America is still struggling so badly, and so many are closing down permanently. Just this past week, the famed Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago announced they are laying off one-eighth of their staff. But then... A plot twist! Even as theatres across America fail, MAC Executive Di ..read more

(An excerpt from my new book Rescuing Cats: The Musical That's Better Than You Think) I’m a musical theatre snob. I admit it. I just don’t enjoy a mediocre, conventional musical anymore – or even worse, a mindlessly conventional production of a rich, complex, unconventional musical. But I’m no knee-jerk snob. It’s just that I love what’s amazing. And truthfully, there’s a lot of it. While it’s true that many of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s later shows are not my cup o’ tea, I honestly think that Jesus Christ Superstar is a brilliant, audacious piece of musical storytelling that is too often treat ..read more

Is the theatre dying? Yes and No.  Theatre as we've practiced it for thousands of years is not dying. Theatre as its practiced today in the United States (and elsewhere) might be. It looks like big commercial theatre -- in other words, Broadway -- must either die or evolve. My personal bet is that Broadway will become less and less theatre, and more and more theme park. Just look at Back to the Future, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Beetlejuice, Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark, and others. Some of these shows are returning to the Ziegfeld model -- lots of eye candy, just a dollop of content ..read more