S4E1: abs wilson and Veronica Mansour
In this episode, Hayley and Amy talk with musical theatre writing team abs wilson and Veronica Mansour about the recent success of their show LIGHTHOUSE, the joy of collaborating with women to tell nuanced women-forward stories, the importance of practicing gratitude, and more. Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Guest: abs wilson and Veronica Mansour
Music: Chloe Geller
Episode Resources:
National Theater Institute (NTI)
NYU Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program
LIGHTHOUSE at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals
Guest Bios:
abs wilson (she/her) is a playwright & lyricist originally from Minnesota and now based in NYC. She’s a recipient of the 2024 Richard Rodgers Award, selected writer for the National Musical Theatre Alliances's New Musical Festival (2024), Eugene O'Neill National Music Theater Conference winner (2024), selected writer for the musical theater Rhinebeck Writer's Retreat (2024), selected writer for the Syracuse New Works New Voices program (2024), Write Out Loud Contest winner for her and Veronica Mansour's song “Runaway Girl" (2023), National Musical Theater Conference Finalist (2023), NAMT finalist (2023), recipient of the Vanguard Theater New Works Festival Commission (2023), THE SEVEN New Works winner (2023), finalist for the Olney Theater Center Vanguard Arts Fund (2023), featured on the NAMT playlist, semi-finalist for SheNYC (2022), and finalist for the David Einhorn Prize (2022). She’s had work done with Theatre Barn at Playwright’s Horizons, Paper Kraine, the Tank, the Brick, Fusion Theater, Syracuse University, and St. Olaf College, with songs performed at 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, the Composers Concordance Marathon, and a play published in Some Scripts Literary Magazine. She got her MFA from NYU Tisch’s Musical Theater Writing Program and her passion for theater at the National Theater Institute’s 2020 Summer Intensive theatermaking program. abs is a member of the Dramatists Guild & ASCAP.
Veronica Mansour (she/her) is a composer/lyricist/artist. She is a 2024 Richard Rodgers Award Winner and Jonathan Larson Grant winner, was recently nominated for a Marvin Hamlisch International Music Award (Musical Theatre Composition), selected as one of four writers for DreamWorks Theatricals, MTI & NBCUniversal Emerging Writers Program (currently commissioned to write How To Train Your Dragon Jr.), and one of three 2023 Write Out Loud Contest Winners for her song “Runaway Girl” (performed by Jessica Vosk, written with abs wilson). Current works: LIGHTHOUSE (NAMT Winner 2024, Eugene O'Neill NMTC Winner 2024 & Finalist 2023, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat 2024, Syracuse NWNV 2024, Olney Theatre Center Vanguard Arts Fund Finalist 2023, New York Theatre Barn New Works Series 2023, Vanguard Theater New Works Festival Commission 2023, St. Olaf College World Premiere 2024, NAMT Finalist/Playlist) and The Dark Lady (Eugene O'Neill NMTC Winner 2023, Syracuse NWNV Finalist, 2024 Musical Theatre West New Works Festival, 2024 Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed Musicals, 2024 South Carolina New Play Festival).
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello beautiful people, and welcome back to the Women & Theatre Podcast! We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: And Amy Andrews. Grab a cozy beverage and join us as we talk to women and gender-expansive folks about their experiences at the intersection of womanhood and theatre.
Hayley: On the pod, we cultivate open conversations across identities and professional roles…
Amy: We look for opportunities to support one another in growing our careers…
Hayley: And we pool our collective wisdom to build the equitable theatrical spaces of the future.
(Music)
Hayley: How are you?
Amy: Good! I just got back from a fabulous little getaway weekend with my college roommate, and it was lovely. How are you doing?
Hayley: Good. I'm in Toronto right now, spending time with the spouse. It’s been really good.
Amy: That's wonderful.
Hayley: So, we're trying out this new segment, everybody.
Amy: Roses and Thorns! Haley says a lot of people do this in summer camp, but honestly, I never did this in summer camp. But I'm all for it. I think it's real cute. For our roses, we say things that we're proud of or that we're excited about. And then for our thorns, we say things that maybe aren't going so well or a challenge that we're facing.
Hayley: Yeah, so give me your roses and thorns for the week, Amy.
Amy: Oh, sure. So for one of my musicals in progress, To the Lighthouse, we recently did our second virtual reading of the show. And it went really, really well. I'm so, so proud of all the work that me and my fabulous collaborator, Julie Richardson, did on the show to get it ready for this reading. We had a really warm, wonderful room of friends and supporters who 1) did a brilliant job reading through the show, and 2) have just been so generous in offering us, like, so much helpful feedback that's really gonna help us take the show forward. So that's a rose that I'm feeling really good about right now. Yay.
What's your rose, Hayley?
Hayley: I had the pleasure of visiting the Banksy exhibit with my best friend, Emma. Shout out, Emma, if you're listening. I got to see some of Banksy's work and learn about the messaging behind it. And there was a quote at the end of the exhibit that said, “Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a fucking sharp knife to it.” (Amy laughs) There's something about that energy. It's a lot, but I kind of love it, and I'm taking it into this week. So that's my rose, is the Banksy exhibit, and taking a fucking sharp knife to the box.
Amy: I love it.
Hayley: Tell me something that's challenging you this week. What's your thorn?
Amy: If I were to name a thorn right now, it's just the rain this morning. Today, it's kind of a gray rainy day and like, even though things in my life are going pretty swimmingly, the rain and the clouds make it hard for me to wake up in the morning and be a person sometimes. My daughter, whenever I say, “Oh, it's raining, it makes me sleepy, I don't like the rain,” she gets really upset at me and she's like, “Mommy, the rain is good for the earth and it helps the flowers grow.” And I'm like, “Girl, you know what? You're right. You're right.” So I'm trying to embrace the benefits of the rain and take it along with the thorns. So that’s where I’m at.
Hayley: Yeah, even with the challenges, we help the flowers grow. Exactly. There's something in Les Mis about that. Anyways… (laughter)
Amy: And look, we're on musicals!
Hayley: It was an intrusive thought that I just had to share with all the beautiful people listening. Yeah.
Amy: Thank you for sharing. What's your thorn, Hayley?
Hayley: Yesterday, I left my yoga mat - I've been doing yoga outdoors. I'm a yoga girly, it helps my mental health a lot. I've been doing it outside on the balcony in Toronto, which is lovely. But I left my yoga mat out, and our neighbors upstairs were cleaning their balcony, and they decided to dump water and it just, like, rained down and got my yoga mat wet and then I couldn't do yoga yesterday. So, here's the thing. It really was my own fault, because if I had listened to my lovely spouse and put away my yoga mat right away when I finished doing yoga, this wouldn't have happened. However, I'm like, “Y'all, think about your neighbors.”
Amy: I hate it when our spouses are right.
Hayley: Right? I'm gonna take that lesson of like, “Just do it now,” into my life this week. If it's gonna take less than five minutes, do it now.
Amy: Oh, I love that. That's a good one. All right, so we're talking with some really cool people today, Hayley, and I'm psyched about it.
Hayley: Yes, I'm really excited. I'm actually friends with abs and Veronica. I had the pleasure of working with them. They're lovely, fun people. I love to see two badass young women succeeding the way they are. They are totally on fire right now.
Amy: We love women writing teams. Oof.
Hayley: Yeah, I really want to pick their brains about what it's like to have this many eyes on them right now at this early moment in their career and see if they have any wisdom to share about that or challenges. I'm just really excited to have a conversation about that.
Amy: Yeah, it's a really unique place that they're in. It'll be interesting to hear more about it. Yeah, and I just, whenever we talk to badass teams of women, I'm just always so interested to hear about their team dynamics and how they work together and like, what brings them joy about their collaboration. That's what lights me up.
Hayley: Me too, me too. So I think that they're on the line now.
Amy: I feel good. Let's do it.
Hayley: Woot woot!
(Musical transition)
Amy: abs wilson is a playwright & lyricist originally from Minnesota and now based in New York City. She’s a recipient of the 2024 Richard Rodgers Award, selected writer for the National Musical Theatre Alliances's New Musical Festival, Eugene O'Neill National Music Theater Conference winner, selected writer for the musical theater Rhinebeck Writer's Retreat, selected writer for the Syracuse New Works New Voices program, Write Out Loud Contest winner for her and Veronica Mansour's song “Runaway Girl", National Musical Theater Conference Finalist, NAMT finalist, recipient of the Vanguard Theater New Works Festival Commission, THE SEVEN New Works winner, finalist for the Olney Theater Center Vanguard Arts Fund, featured on the NAMT playlist, semi-finalist for SheNYC, and finalist for the David Einhorn Prize (2022). abs has had work done with Theatre Barn at Playwright’s Horizons, Paper Kraine, the Tank, the Brick, Fusion Theater, Syracuse University, and St. Olaf College, with songs performed at 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, the Composers Concordance Marathon, and a play published in Some Scripts Literary Magazine. abs got her MFA from NYU Tisch’s Musical Theater Writing Program and her passion for theater at the National Theater Institute’s 2020 Summer Intensive theatermaking program. abs is a member of the Dramatists Guild & ASCAP.
Veronica Mansour is a composer/lyricist/artist. She is a 2024 Richard Rodgers Award Winner and Jonathan Larson Grant winner, was recently nominated for a Marvin Hamlisch International Music Award in Musical Theatre Composition, selected as one of four writers for DreamWorks Theatricals, MTI & NBCUniversal Emerging Writers Program (currently commissioned to write How To Train Your Dragon, Jr.), and one of three 2023 Write Out Loud Contest Winners for her song “Runaway Girl” (performed by Jessica Vosk, written with abs wilson). Veronica’s current works include: LIGHTHOUSE (NAMT Winner, Eugene O'Neill National Music Theater Conference Winner & Finalist, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Syracuse New Works New Voices, Olney Theatre Center Vanguard Arts Fund Finalist, New York Theatre Barn New Works Series, Vanguard Theater New Works Festival Commission, St. Olaf College World Premiere, NAMT Finalist/Playlist) and The Dark Lady (Eugene O'Neill NMTC Winner, Syracuse New Works New Voices Finalist, Musical Theatre West New Works Festival, Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed Musicals, South Carolina New Play Festival).
Hayley: Hello beautiful people! abs, Veronica, welcome to Women & Theatre. Can you share your pronouns and tell us a little bit about what you do in theatrical spaces?
abs: Absolutely. Ronnie, would you like to go first?
Veronica: Sure. Yes. Hi. I'm Veronica. I use she/her pronouns. I am a composer, lyricist, [and] occasionally librettist, in the theatre space. And I'm so excited to be here.
abs: Oh no, Ronnie was funny and now I have to be funny! I’ll be funny later. I'll bank my funniness for later.
Hello, I am abs wilson. My pronouns are she/her, and I am a lyricist and librettist and occasional aspiring playwright…someday. I'm excited to be here, if not more excited than Veronica to be here.
Veronica: Oh no, a competition!!!
Amy: Wow, fighting words, and we're just getting started, goodness! (Laughs)
Veronica: (Laughing) Obviously, it's a healthy collaboration.
abs: Yeah.
Amy: I love it. I would love to hear from each of you about…What's something, literally anything, that's inspiring you right now?
abs: Oh well, what a frightful question! I mean…so many things are inspiring me. I think off the top of my tiny little head, I recently saw a musical called Three Houses and that was very inspirational to me. I'm obsessed with Dave Malloy. I'm obsessed with theatre that like… experiments with form but still feels, like, really freaking personal. And that was very exciting to me.
Veronica: I…yes! I’m so inspired by so much of what I see in New York. I think…we are very lucky to have a lot of friends, like y’all, that are also in like… musical theatre writers, and so getting to see a lot of our friends’ new work and getting to go to readings of projects that are in early stages or [that they] have been working on for a couple of years. That's been really fun.
And I tried to see so many Broadway shows this season. It was such a packed season. A couple of really cool standouts for me were like The Rumble in The Outsiders and a lot of stuff in Water for Elephants that are sort of approaching musical theatre from a more cinematic standpoint. How you can play with time on stage, I think, is something that I'm very excited about and I haven't seen before in a live theatre setting. Yeah. So—just so, so much exciting stuff.
Hayley: So we're trying out a new thing this season where we're doing a flash round of questions. So we're going to do some very quick back-and-forth that are just like, don't think, just speak kind of answers. Let's start really quick with: If you were an animal, what would you be? abs.
abs: Some kind of small rodent, I think. A mouse, unfortunately, maybe a rat.
Hayley: And for you, Veronica?
Veronica: Lemur. (Laughs)
Amy: Veronica, what's your weirdest hobby?
Veronica: Reading romantic novels.
Hayley: abs.
abs: When I see a pigeon that looks friendly, I try to tame it and make it my own.
Veronica: That's so weird.
abs: It's true.
Hayley: That's so weird and so good. I love it. Give me a quote or a mantra that is speaking to you right now, Veronica.
Veronica: You've got to be the leading lady of your own life, for God's sake.
Hayley: Nice. abs?
abs: Oh, no! We were recently around the NTI students where it's like risk… I can't remember it! Risk, fail, try, risk again??
Amy: Terrific. abs, what's your favorite musical?
abs: Oh my god. I think Great Comet is tied with Dear Evan Hansen. And they came out the same year, I think.
Veronica: Wow.
abs: Yeah. They're different. Yeah. Quite different.
Hayley: Yeah. How about you, Veronica?
Veronica: My favorite score is Dogfight, and my favorite show as a whole is probably a tie between Newsies, Aladdin, and Fiddler on the Roof.
Amy: Ooh, I love that mix.
Hayley: What a combo. I love it. What's your song of the moment? Veronica, you go first.
Veronica: No, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, all I have is like Lighthouse songs and like TikTok sounds!
Amy: It can be your own song! 100%.
Veronica: Oh it's not gonna be my own song!! Oh my god.
abs: That's so funny. (Laughing)
Veronica: I'm gonna go with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Amy: That's an excellent song.
Hayley: I love it. An excellent song. abs.
abs: Oh, my god. I've been listening to a lot of Sabrina Carpenter recently. I know this is so generic, but “Please Please Please” has been on loop in my head. Against my will, I would say. So that's my song of the moment.
Hayley: I like “Please Please Please” but specifically “against my will.”
Amy: I love it. Thank you guys for playing along. That was really fun.
I would love to hear from each of you how you came to the field of theatre, to your creative work. So, Veronica, why don't you go first?
Veronica: Yeah, so I grew up as a classical cellist. I'm still a classical cellist, but that's sort of my “in” into music. I grew up in Los Angeles, studying at a conservatory from a very young age. And I started doing community theatre when I was eight and started singing and realizing just how much I love to sing. And I felt that there was a certain freedom that I had in theatre that I didn't really have in my classical music life. So I just kind of kept doing theatre throughout middle school and high school.
And when I went to college, I continued to do theatre, I was also a cello performance major, and those two elements of my life kind of kept going. But I was always writing songs for my friends, I just wanted to be like Taylor Swift. Every time they would go through any kind of heartbreak, I wanted to articulate that experience for them and would just write them silly songs about the boy or girl that broke their heart. And I would just do it for fun. I would like, write songs in my free time in a beat-up journal in my room and I'd play them for my mom or whatever. And I still have them. They're like, “Property of Veronica Mansour”, like, “Keep out!” You know, as if people were looking.
Hayley: One day they might!
Veronica: (Laughing) You’re going to find some crazy stuff in there.
But it was sort of an outlet for me. And when I got to college, I sort of started taking that more seriously. I was writing a lot. I ended up going to NYU for their summer songwriting intensive for pop songwriting. And people would always say to me, “You know, there's a very theatrical element to your writing.”
And I was like, “Yeah, what of it? I love musical theatre.” I was always, you know, a theatre kid. So I thought…I personally liked that. But I wanted to sort of find a way to meld these things. So when I was in college, one of my professors said, “Hey, have you ever thought about writing a musical?” He had heard some of my stuff and I said, “No, I could never do that.”
But I did! And my first show, I did book, music, and lyrics. It ended up being the show that my college put up my senior year. It was COVID. And so the film department got involved, and we ended up doing the whole film of the show and we had to wear masks. Everything was pre-recorded…but it was sort of like the moment I knew that this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. And I applied to two grad programs - one of which was NYU, their graduate musical theatre writing program, and one of which was at Belmont in Nashville. And it just became very clear that NYU was the program and the place that I needed to be. And it's all kind of snowballed from there.
Amy: Fantastic. abs…how did you get into theatre?
abs: Oh boy. Also going back to when I was but a youth, but a babe. I was also always kind of in community theatre. Not to brag—
Hayley: No, please do brag.
abs: Okay, absolutely to brag… My first speaking role was in Dear and Glorious Physician. Who was it about you ask? Well, it was about Luke —like, Bible Luke—like disciple Luke from the Bible— and it’s Bible fan fiction about like, Luke and his girlfriend. And I played Beggar #2. I yelled at someone. “Thou ungrateful!” and hit them with a rubber chicken. I know you’re all super jealous of me.
So yeah, I was really involved in community theatre. I did a lot of community theatre musicals. And my writing experience growing up was a lot more centered in like, prose and poetry and stuff like that. I was always writing short stories and writing little poems, usually about nature and trees and stuff like that.
And then in high school, if we needed another role in a play, my teacher would ask me to just, like, write in another character. I won't name the plays, but Importance of Being Earnest-level kind of plays, where like, you really shouldn't be adding another character—I would do that. I really…I love writing in ways to emulate styles or using found text, and that kind of was the beginning of learning how to illegally sound like other people.
And then in college, I was like, “What do? Who am I? Will I work at a zoo? Will I be a professor? Literally, who's to say?”
But then in my sophomore year, I was really lucky to go on this study abroad. It's like a J-term thing, where we went to London and saw like, 30 shows. And that basically exploded my tiny brain. The medium of theatre was really exciting to me. And like, the liveness of it. I hadn't really realized until that point, like all the potential of what live theater has.
All to say, then I ended up in 2020—so this was like a Zoom version of this program, but I got into NTI at the O'Neill Center. And so that was like five weeks or something of writing intensive. And we had to write a musical in a week, and then we had like two days to rehearse it and then put it on in some way.
We were very lucky that our director made like a movie/film version of it…but that was the first time I'd ever written lyrics or anything to do with musicals. Was it good? Dot dot dot... But I think it was really fun! And I feel like I…I kind of had never even thought of [musical theatre writing] being an option creatively. And then Donna DiNovelli, who was our advisor for the playwrights in that program. She was like, “You should apply to NYU.”
And I was like, “Cool, cool, cool, whatever. Sounds cool, but like, who am I? Who am I?”
And so then I applied to like 20 different grad programs, and one of the ones I ended up getting into was NYU. And I just was really sold on the idea of something that's so inherently collaborative. Ultimately, I really think what even drew me to musical theatre was just the collaborative element paired with the live element and how so few mediums have that. There's so much potential for something that can always be evolving, and not just evolving within yourself, but like evolving kind of outside of yourself. Yeah, that's my life.
Hayley: Okay, amazing. We know you met at NYU, but I want to ask you, is there a meet-cute story between the two of you?
abs: We can make something up right now.
Veronica: Wait, is there?
abs: There are some real things that I think are kind of amusing... I mean, we were in the same class, we were paired together for a song and then comes the thesis partners…
For all y'all who don't know how the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program works, it's a two-year program, and the first year, you're paired up with like, basically everyone. And then the second year, you're paired with one person for the whole year for your thesis project. And to do that, you're going to have all these meetings with people and figure out who you want to be your thesis partner. And then ultimately, you're going to make a ranked list of ten people. And then everyone sends these lists to the professors, and then the professors kind of end up pairing everyone.
When we met for our thesis meeting, I…being the true, honest, delightful person I am, was like, “Ronnie, you're my number one, just so you know, I'm not lying, you're my number one.” And then Ronnie interpreted this as—
Veronica: Well, listen, I didn't say it back. I didn't say it back, because—
abs: It's like, I said, “I love you” and then you were like, “I'm glad you feel that way.”
Veronica: I think I said like, “That means so much to me. I…like, I'm really happy to hear this from you.” But I thought, you know, I don't know who else she's saying this to!
Hayley: Veronica's like… out here playing Big Brother!
Veronica: I'm skeptical! I'm from LA, okay? I don't know what's fake, what's real…I don't know what's going on. I don't know what abs is saying.
abs: I didn't say it to anyone else. I only said it to Ronnie!
Veronica: I know. That's very sweet.
abs: ‘Cause I'm honest! And good!
Veronica: You are honest and good. And everything worked out. And I really think that's the moral of the story: Be bold with your love. Trust that in their own time, the other person will reciprocate that love. That's what I take from that.
abs: And we're still working on that.
Amy: Tell me, both of you, I would love to hear what you love about working together.
Hayley: It's time to be bold with your love!
abs: I…no, like, I was going to make a joke, but no, I'll be serious. First of all, Ronnie is so freaking smart. Especially like…as a words person, it's so cool to work with someone who can literally do it all. Ronnie always has an answer. Her brain is a (monster noise) monster giant brain.
In collaboration, you want someone you can trust. And like, I trust Ronnie to the moon and back, goddamn it. It's so refreshing to be working with someone that you know is like a good person and that you know is such a hard worker. We're also friends, besides just collaborators, which is really nice. I could literally go on and on. I'm literally obsessed.
Hayley: Veronica, what do you love about working with abs?
Veronica: abs has such a unique and distinct voice. Any theatre that abs writes…I think is just going to be so entertaining, so funny, so deep…It's so exciting to work with someone who has such a clear understanding of what she wants to say and how she wants to say it.
I never have to worry about abs delivering something that is just, like, so herself. And I think that that's what draws a lot of people to her writing style in general. It’s just, like, it's so human, and it's so unapologetic and unafraid. It's fearless! And I love being in the room with abs because her brain is this creative monstrosity of amazingness, of genius. I'm sorry, I won't shy away from that word because I think it's like a perfect storm of all these amazing creative things.
And I think - just adding on to what abs said as well…we're very collaborative. Some composers don't want to be involved in that kind of storytelling process. And I really do want to be involved. And I feel very grateful to be with somebody that lets my ideas come to the table and lets us decide together on certain lines or lyrics or storytelling beats. I just think that's a real blessing for me and helps our collaboration. For both of us! abs has musical thoughts sometimes, or she helps me sometimes understand how a line is supposed to be set that I may not interpret in the right way.
And being in very vulnerable situations as far as feedback goes…We're in scary rooms a lot of the time with really intimidating folks who are really nice and always have the best of intentions, but it's a very vulnerable experience to get your work talked about and critiqued in front of a room full of people. It's sort of like letting them see the inside of your brain or the inside of your heart. And I feel like we have a level of trust in that we're going to support each other. Even if feedback comes back about the music for me or about the book and lyrics for abs, we're going to stand by each other's choices and have external discussions, but we're a united front as a team. And I think that's been really important, as far as like, us staying healthy. It helps me feel very protected that I have somebody that's my friend going into this with, and that's so rare.
Fun fact! Sometimes, when I get stressed, I don't have the best poker face. And abs has developed this ritual where she'll sit next to me and know I'm stressed, and she'll just touch her shoe to my shoe and go (kiss sound) and just give my shoe a little kiss with her shoe. And it's become my favorite thing ever. That’s her way of saying, “Don't be stressed. We're in this together. I got you.”
Amy: I love that so much. That's so beautiful.
(Musical transition)
Hayley: So, I want to talk about Lighthouse. It's obviously blowing up this season. I mean, between the two of you, you’ve won the Richard Rodgers, the Jonathan Larson, Write Out Loud, The O’Neill, NAMT is coming up in the fall. There's so much excitement and buzz around the show.
Veronica: Yeah, so Lighthouse is a six-woman, pop country, fourth-wall-breaking new musical. It takes place in Minnesota. abs and I sort of bonded over our mutual Midwestern roots. I went to college in the Midwest, so I sort of feel like I have fake Midwestern roots. But that's how we sort of started writing this piece, is talking about some of the stereotypes that exist in the Midwest and our experiences about living there…and wanting to talk about the humanity behind people that are sort of pushed into certain niches or pigeonholed [in a way that] that takes away from the nuance of who they are and some of the best parts about living in the Midwest. There’s a certain kindness and community and emphasis on family…There’s a real sense of community out there that I think we experienced a little bit differently than living in Manhattan or myself being from Los Angeles.
And when I lived there…I couldn't wait to get out. And when I moved to Manhattan, I had that same feeling. I wanted to get out of there too. The piece really explores what that means—when you're blaming all of your external circumstances for why you feel a certain way, when really you need to be looking inward. [It explores the idea that] maybe you'd be unhappy anywhere because you're not happy in your own skin.
And so that's really the story of Lighthouse and the story of Bus, who's our main character. She's an 18-year-old girl. She's an unreliable narrator, so she may or may not be lying to the audience about certain things in her fourth-wall-breaking direct addresses. There's a magical realism element, and she suffers from OCD that I suffer from. And abs has epilepsy, and Bus has that as well. She's a flawed character who struggles that's still extremely lovable, and her story about finding herself is really the story of Lighthouse.
The show gets quite heavy…and we wanted to explore country music as a storytelling device—that combination between musical theatre and country…but also like how that functions with pop country. [We wanted to know] like, how could we write like radio hits? These more compact - radio edits, I guess - like 2.5 to 3.5-minute songs that could stand alone and help bridge a gap between musical theatre listeners and country listeners.
When I listen to country music, I love listening to female pop country—easy blend, multi-part harmonies that my ear goes towards—I love that kind of music. And so that's just been a really fun element of us trying to tell these six stories. And using that type of music felt right as far as like, melding their stories together as their voices literally come together or sometimes apart, and how dissonance and consonance and all that can help us as a storytelling device.
Amy: Can you tell us about where you are in your creative process?
abs: We just got off the O'Neill and we did a huge, huge, huge rewrite, kind of taking what we love about the piece and really honing in on that. The show used to be 2.5 hours and now it's two hours. So we cut a large chunk off of it and we've just been really excited. Besides obviously clarifying the piece, also just continuing to make it something that we care about and something we love, and hopefully making the things that we care about be more effectively translated to audiences.
We're not just telling a story that feels really special and potentially more unique in the musical theatre canon…but also [it’s more unique in] like the ways it's being told. For this character who is an 18-year-old girl, the show really is almost a study of her psyche. And I feel like there are so many stories, especially in musical theatre, where characters of that age don't get to be taken very seriously.
Hayley: Yeah, that’s real.
abs: They’re often the punchline to a joke, or their anxiety is often filed away as like, “Oh, well, when you're older, you'll understand, like, this isn't important.”
You're allowed to have both worlds. Things will seem different in scope once you're older, but also you are so valid as an 18-year-old. And everything you're going through is interesting. And it should be allowed to be interesting and should be allowed to be an entire musical kind of centering around that.
We're hoping it's a piece that will give a lot of roles to actors who often don't get to have complex characters, especially for middle-aged women and older women. The age range is 18 to 73 and everything in between! And it's just been really special having rooms of people either of those ages or even younger actors learning to play those ages in a way that infuses the space with an energy that has always felt really special.
The show also deals a lot with mental health and intergenerational trauma. While some of it is quite heavy, ultimately, it tackles all these bigger themes in ways that hopefully let people see themselves on stage, with ultimately a hopeful lens. The theme of the show, that’s always in our taglines, is the idea that you're made up of a lot of people, and there are so many versions of you you can become depending on, you know, where you are in life or how you see yourself. But ultimately, whatever version you become, every version of yourself is worth being. And it’s this idea that as much as you're encountering the future and the fear of what the future could be, just inherently by existing, you are worth existing and you're always capable of change.
Veronica: Yeah!
Hayley: I'm so pumped to see the show at NAMT this fall. I'm just really excited to see where it goes beyond that. It’s really exciting.
Amy: Yeah. So as Hayley said, hyping you all up, you all are having quite a year. There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on with the show. It's blowing up in a really big way. We would love to hear from you…What is the experience of being so early in your careers and having this kind of attention on your work?
Veronica: [We’re] so grateful. I mean, it's been a whirlwind and completely unexpected. There are so many talented writers that we know - let alone all the talented writers in the world - but like even in our small circle of friends, everybody is so amazing and talented and deserving of the unfortunately small amount of opportunities that exist for writers in musical theatre. And it would be great to have more of those. Listeners, make more!
Hayley: Yeah, friends, if any of you have a big bag of cash that you want to give us to create more opportunities…
Veronica: Yeah, absolutely.
Hayley: Call us up!
Veronica: Please! But I think it's just been really surprising to us. And we're very humbled and very grateful that doors have opened for this piece. And we’re just trying to take advantage of those opportunities as much as possible as far as pushing ourselves - as writers and as humans - to continue to lead with kindness and continue to push ourselves in our writing process. To make big changes and do big swings while we have the resources to do so…because that's not often the case.
I’m putting it out there too, that it has been so so wonderful and we are beyond grateful. But at the same time, it has been a challenge, I think, for us to balance opportunity with still being able to live in Manhattan and be able to pay our rent. Because we've been so out of the city and these opportunities are often two or three weeks away…it’s been really wonderful, but a challenge.
We're young and starving artists and certainly haven't made a breakthrough as far as, like, making writing into our full-time thing that we're able to do. And I think a lot of us are probably in the same boat on that front and just trying to figure out how to, you know, balance the survival job with also putting writing at the forefront of our brains. And that's Plan A, and there is no Plan B…but there kind of has to be, you know?
So that balance [is] existing for us as well. But saying yes and trying to be the most open to that because…yeah, cannot stress how grateful we are. Of course.
Hayley: Oh no, we want to hear about challenges too. I mean, it's amazing, and also, there’s so much that comes with it. I imagine, as women too, I'm sure you're dealing with perception in a different way than you would if you weren't women, for example.
Veronica: Yeah. We just want to be taken seriously and um…
abs: It’s quite hard.
Veronica: It’s…it's hard, especially as young women. I think, you know, we walk into the room and I think people don’t take us super seriously. These opportunities have been really amazing as far as like… Sometimes it feels like the only thing we can have to prove that we're writers is resume value.
I don't think that that should be true. But I think a lot of times, at least I feel like I sort of have to flash it to be like, “No, I promise, I'm working really hard!” or “I promise I'm actually a writer.” Like, “Look at this thing!”
[So] being able to sort of have those things [the opportunities] in our pockets has been both helpful and also a little sad that that would even need to be the case.
Hayley: That's just like, an extra burden on you as you're trying to do your creative work, coming in and just wanting to develop the piece and make it the best that it can be and enjoy yourselves, move your career forward and the piece forward. And yeah, I think it's really important that we talk about the reality that that's a thing too. And you shouldn't have to walk in and prove yourself immediately. You deserve to be there because you're there.
Veronica: I do think everyone has been so kind to us, really, in all these opportunities…and that some of that pressure is pressure that we put on ourselves… You walk into the room and feel that preexisting, like, “Oh, are they going to take me seriously?” Regardless of whether or not that's actually in the room with us. I think it's sort of just something that we're carrying around.
Hayley: For sure.
Veronica: Like, did I send enough exclamation points in my email? That's always a thing.
Hayley: Oh my god, I feel that. Yeah,
Amy: Well, and it's probably some and some, right? It's internal, it's external, it's part of the society that we live in. So it makes sense.
Hayley: How does womanhood fit into your identity and your theatrical work, you guys?
Veronica: Oh!
abs: Oh, that's a question. That's a good question, though. At the most basic level, definitely subject matter. We're excited about creating work about experiences that we've had being women or that we've witnessed in other women.
When you tell stories about women, then that inherently means that other women are involved and you're creating a space that women are in—that’s a nice cycle. That's been very exciting for us to see. Especially again, when you're a woman artist too, people assume that you can only tell a certain kind of story, or you're either too intense or not intense enough or something like that.
It's nice knowing that regardless of the way people are going to see you or the way that they think it [being a woman] should influence you as an artist, you will be working with other women. It's been really nice being in a collaboration team of two women. I also collaborate with men who are amazing and I love them all, but I think especially for Ronnie, being a composer… There's just so many freaking men everywhere, and we love the freaking men. But it is…I’m sure [it’s] a challenge. I'm just talking for Ronnie.
Veronica: No, I think…I think that's fair. I think oftentimes, people don't assume that I'm a composer when they see me. I often get mislabeled: “Oh, you must be the lyricist” if you're a woman on a team… And that's not to say—there’s still definitely a disparity amongst writers in all capacities.
Hayley: No, but especially with composers.
Veronica: Yeah, I think especially with composers. I often feel very intimidated in those kinds of rooms and feel like I really want to prove myself, and I have a lot of anxiety just about making sure...
I want respect. And I want to show that I am a hard worker and [that] I'm constantly pushing myself so that I can sort of…get respect in those rooms. So yeah, internal, external, like you said, Amy, you know, putting those pressures on yourself.
I would also say that something I'm passionate about too, about telling stories about women, is that we're not interested in telling stories that are male-bashing or interested in telling stories that are like, “Women are great” - like, girl power, period. Yes, girl power, absolutely. But women aren't superior by nature of being women.
And I think that girl power is something we really want to explore in a more nuanced way. And the male characters we write will be nuanced and human in their own right. We're all just humans. And exploring that complexity is something that's very interesting to us in telling these women-forward pieces. We had an experience where a young guy was like, “I really see myself in the grandmother.” And we're like, “Awesome, that's great.” We're really not trying to exclude in our storytelling.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah, that’s terrific. I would love to hear from each of you: What are you most proud of in your life and your work so far? abs, do you want to go first just because you're making that face?
abs: Ha. Yeah.
Veronica: (Bing noise)
Hayley: (Laughing) For the listeners, Veronica just did the like, “brush-a-brush-a” motion—inf you think about Grease—I’m getting really specific here—in front of abs' mouth.
Amy: That’s a very specific cultural moment you're referencing, Hayley. I'm there with you. I don't know if everyone else is, but I'm there with you.
Hayley: I don’t know either. Love you all. Hope you're going with me.
Amy: (Laughing/singing) Brusha, brusha, brusha.
abs: Your finger is still in my mouth right now. (Laughs) I could just lie.
Veronica: Yeah, you could.
abs: Yeah…Gosh, I mean…I think just being here at all. I definitely did not expect to be where I am. Hopefully, whatever I do…I hope that I'm working as hard as I can and like, being a kind person as much as I can. I'm very much the kind of personality where I'm like, “Just let it come to me and we'll see what happens.” And so it's been…it’s…gosh, yeah, I guess maybe I need to be proud of myself more. Why am I struggling with this question?
I'm just gonna say this now…and probably in like two years, I'll be like, “You fool!” But I think having really strongly chosen something, maybe? Because I've always been the kind of person where I'm like, “Oh, there's so many things I'm interested in.” But to really commit to an art…not even necessarily to become a master of it, in terms of being amazing at it, but more in terms of just like… really infusing myself in the world has been very exciting and unexpected.
And I think to be able to stand by that also. Because if you're like, “I'm an artist,” people are going to be like, (Looks sideways) “Okay.” And so even to verbally say that…like whenever I've ever said that…that’s so frightful to tell anyone that. So the fact that, yeah…I guess to embrace even literally where I am, I'm proud of that. There, I said it. I'm proud of it.
Amy: Veronica, what about you?
Veronica: Oh gosh. Yeah. I also have a very difficult time being proud of myself, it's tough. Especially because, you know, I do feel like we've done a lot of great stuff…but we have a long way to go. There’s a lot more work to be done. And so sometimes I find myself not taking the time to feel proud, because I feel like I need to keep my head down and keep working and like…All of this could go away in a second. That's just like how the world works, especially in this crazy industry, you know?
Hayley: Yeah. Many of us don't take time to celebrate our wins. I think that’s like, an epidemic of our industry.
Veronica: Totally!
Amy: Absolutely.
Veronica: And my…you know, my OCD is always like…you know, “Don’t be happy! Don't celebrate those things because that could go away.”
But I would say, I think I'm proud of my collaborations. I'm proud of us for putting a lot of effort into our relationship, personally and professionally. And my other major collaborator Sophie Boyce — shout out Sophie—
abs: I love you, Sophie!
Veronica: We love Sophie. It’s been a huge effort from all of us as far as like, putting the work first. I think it's a huge challenge, at least for me, to be able to make cuts and get rid of stuff that I really like about the piece in order to better serve the piece. And I think that's just been a huge learning experience for me over the past few years. And it's getting easier.
So I'm a little proud of being able to kind of separate myself from the work and that process is becoming easier. And not giving up on the piece too. You guys know, I mean, creating a piece of art is so vulnerable and it's so easy to just throw in the towel when things aren't working or when opportunities aren't going your way or when people keep saying no.
And God knows—we've heard some yeses this year, of course, we're so grateful—but we hear no so much, like so, so, so, much. And I think developing that idea of like, “This too shall pass.” Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep working, keep working. And being able to hold that mindset close to our hearts, I think, is something that I'm proud of us for continuing even through the storm sometimes.
Hayley: Yay!
Amy: Love that.
Hayley: Aw, that's awesome.
(Musical transition)
Hayley: So we're trying out another new segment before we wrap up, which is the Trailblazer of the Week. So, we're going to take some time to uplift people who inspire us. It can be someone in your immediate circle or someone you admire from afar. So I'm going to ask Amy first, who is your trailblazer of the week?
Amy: My trailblazer of the week is Shaina Taub. I'm really loving her work right now. I'm loving what she's putting down, I’m picking it up. I went to see Suffs a couple months ago—Hayley took me for my birthday, thanks Hayley!—yeah, and the show is still living in my head rent-free. I'm still thinking about it, I’m still piecing it together and pulling it apart to see how it works. It's really inspiring me as a writer and as a woman, and I'm super psyched that it exists in this election year because it's bringing up a lot of stuff around that. If you haven't seen it, go see it. Yeah! Shaina Taub, if you're listening, which I hope you are, I like what you're doing and keep doing it.
Veronica, do you want to go next?
Veronica: My goodness, yes. My trailblazers are two good friends, Caroline Game and Addie Symonds. They drove down to the O'Neill to see our show, and they are not only the most supportive friends ever, but they are such amazing writers. Caroline is doing such an amazing thing with Michael Oosterhout with Riverbend, the piece they're working on, completely redoing the book. And I mean, just the bravery that it takes [to do that]. Addie Symonds, who is just the most witty, funny, amazing lyricist-bookwriter extraordinaire.
I think they're just examples of the kind of people I want to be in that they're doing their work, they're doing amazing work, but they're also like, the most supportive friends that make you feel like you're the most important person in the room. And I just love them.
abs: I was also thinking of people who came to the O’Neill. Christian Jimenez, Matthew Nassida, Michael [Oosterhout] also came. It's really our friends I feel like I want to shout out. I feel like we've been so, so lucky to be in a program—and then post-program, and still continue these relationships with incredible artists. And I think what they show by supporting us—and hopefully us being able to support them as much as we can—is that the way we all succeed is just by always being there for each other and always singing to the rooftops how talented and amazing and wonderful our friends are. It's just so heartening to know that being an artist is never about being alone. And I feel like our friends really emulate that even beyond, again, being like the smartest people literally in the universe.
Veronica: Yeah, they deserve to have their names out there.
abs: Find them on Instagram, find them online. They're all doing such cool stuff that we're very excited to see…’cause it's going to be put on, because it's genius.
Amy: Nice. Hayley, who's your Trailblazer of the Week?
Hayley: I'm going to say bell hooks, because I just read All About Love and I feel like her image for what being loving means is like, seeping into my brain right now.
The idea that love is about investing in someone's spiritual potential. I think it relates a lot to what you've been saying about your friends and showing up for other people. I think that we could all, in the theatre industry, afford to do that even more. Even if it's something that's already in your practice, I think that is a beautiful thing. So bell hooks is mine this week.
Amy: Yeah, love that.
Hayley: But speaking of finding people on the internet, where can our listeners find you?
Veronica: You can find us at our website: lighthousethemusical.com or on Instagram, @lighthouse_the_musical on Instagram.
abs: Yes.
Veronica: Or our personal Instagrams. Mine is my name, @veronicamansourr, except for there's two R's at the end of Mansour. And abs’ is:
abs: @abs.wilson2
Hayley: Amazing.
Veronica: Please find us.
abs: Yeah. Find us and comment really nice things all over us.
Hayley: (Laughing) Please do!
Amy: Thank you both so much for being with us today. This was so fun, and we just are thrilled for everything that's happening for you, and we're sending you all the good vibes and all the luck and love in the world as you continue to move forward.
Hayley: It's true. You're my rocket ship.
abs & Veronica: Awwww!
Veronica: That’s such a nice thing to say.
abs: Oh my god.
Veronica: Oh my god.
Amy: Wait till you hear the explanation. It's a good one.
Hayley: If you're in an airplane and you're watching a rocket ship, it feels like you're walking on the highway. When I'm looking at y'all, you're my rocket ship. It’s really inspiring to me, because it's like, “Wow, these are people that I know and that I care about that are succeeding that way.” So yeah. So when you think about those “nos” that you're getting, like what you were saying earlier, that you have a long way to go - like, you're my rocket ship.
Veronica: Everyone check out Amy and Hayley’s work too.
abs: I was going to say, like, y’all are so cool.
Veronica: You are our rocketship!
Hayley: Aw, that’s really sweet!
Amy: It’s a love fest around here!
Hayley: I love the love. Thank you so much for doing this and for being a part of the project. It means the world. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Amy: Thank you!
abs: Thank you again for having us.
Veronica: Thank you for having us.
(Musical transition)
Amy: Okay! So listeners, we just finished our interview with abs and Veronica. It was so much fun! They're so delightful. I had a great time.
Hayley: They’re so delightful, yeah. I love their collaboration and the way that they interact with one another. I think that that was definitely something to be admired, the amount of work and like, love that goes into their collaboration. Their little thing that they shared about the “kissing toes” thing… That was so cute.
Amy: Aw, that was so sweet!
Hayley: I’m kind of obsessed with - just the way that they support one another, it’s really really sweet.
Amy: Absolutely. I also really love how they talk about their work. It's so smart, and it's all so intentional, and, like, they have a very clear vision of what they're trying to do with their work, like, what messages they're trying to send. I haven't seen Lighthouse, and now I'm very excited to.
Hayley: Yeah, totally. What do you feel like are the broader takeaways?
Amy: I mean, you know, as we have talked about, we are talking to these two at a very unique point in their career where, like, their show is really taking off in this way that, like, I know you and I dream about for our own shows. And I know a lot of people listening, like, dream of having that kind of success. And for me, it's really grounding to hear both the joy in that happening and also the groundedness and the understanding that like, yeah, like, this could all go away in a second. We appreciate it while we've got it. And I think that's an important takeaway, I hope, for abs and Veronica too. That it's not a given, all we can do is heads-down, do our best work, and be grateful when the opportunities come to us. That's my takeaway. What's yours?
Hayley: Yeah, it circles back to the rocket ship thing, but like, they’ve got their own rocket ship.
Amy: Yeah!
Hayley: And just the idea that we don’t take enough time in this industry to celebrate our wins. Like, so often when we’re in the thick of it, we’re so focused on, “What’s next? What’s next?”
Amy: Yeah.
Hayley: And I think it’s hard to do. Like, I think I struggle with this so much. I think I was saying to you recently, I’ve been really struggling with finding that joy in the things that are going well. And I don’t know what that looks like, I want us to keep thinking about, like, what are the ways to actually do that? What does that actually look like in practice, you know?
Amy: Yeah. I wanted to double tap on that and just say that I think an important thing to remember in this crazy world that we call theatre is that everyone has their rocket ship that they're - like, the people who are ahead of them that they're watching them get the success. And it looks so fast, and it feels so slow when you're in it, but from outside, it looks so fast.
And also that each of us is somebody else's rocket ship. I think that's really important to keep in mind.
Hayley: Yeah, I think so too.
Amy: Rock on!
Hayley: So Amy, it’s Hype Girl Hour. So I’m gonna take this moment to hype you up. You’re such an active listener, and I love to see the way that you follow up on things that you’re interested in, and like, the way that you really lean in when people are talking about the things that they’re passionate about. I love the way you love people’s interests and passions and the way that you listen so actively to them. So that’s mine for you.
Amy: Aww, I appreciate that. Thanks, Hayley. I will give you a little Hype Girl Hour as well. I love how you - I know it's the director in you - just how you help people name things. Like, if someone is talking around something and like, they're not necessarily quite sure what they're saying, I feel like you have a really good way of seeing to the heart of an issue and naming, like, I think this is what you're talking about. And I love seeing people's eyes light up. Like, that they just, they feel seen in that moment. So, I love that about you.
Hayley: Awww, I’m gonna cry! That’s so nice! I love Hype Girl Hour!
Amy: And we love you too, listeners. Thank you for joining us on this adventure.
Hayley: Beautiful people - boy, is this an adventure this season. We love you, thanks for being here, thanks for being with us.
Amy: Yes!
Hayley: Go hype your people up. Go have your own Hype Girl Hour. And a reminder that “girl” is not speaking about gender in this time, Hype Girl Hour is for everyone. Tell the people you love you love them. I feel like love was also a big theme of this episode.
Amy: It was. You're right. I love that. We love love.
Hayley: Have a great week! Thanks, beautiful people. Talk to you later. Bye!
(Music)
Hayley: Join us for our upcoming Women & Theatre community events!
Amy: Coming up, we have our Women & Theatre Season 4 Launch Party on Thursday, October 10 at 7:30 pm on Zoom.
Hayley: Then you can join us on October 16 at 10am for our virtual coworking space.
Amy: Visit our community events page on our website to learn more and RSVP, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you never miss an event.
Hayley: Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show was written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks again for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
