the process

I began writing Stumped the summer after my sixth grade year, based upon a school project in which we were instructed to take a popular story (for me, Peter Pan), and turn the villain into the hero, and vice versa. That summer, with no formal training and chords in the key of C, I began writing what would become the “I Want” song of the show, “Second Star to the Right”. Over the next year and a half, a collage of a musical came to life: about 20 songs inspired by everything from Singin’ in the Rain to Sweeney Todd with a very rough draft of a script. I wanted more from J.M. Barrie’s beloved character Peter Pan. I wanted a deeper understanding of his story, his motives, his relationships, and I needed more closure to his journey.

Originally, I had in mind that I would write the musical in a year (which felt like an eternity at the time) and direct the show myself as part of the KidWorks Festival the next summer. Even in my little 12 year old self, however, I had an intense inclination toward the darker side of the original Barrie novel. I found one passage in particular absolutely riveting: a short, nearly throw-away vignette about young Wendy comforting a fretful Peter, upset by recurring dreams about his very existence, in the wee hours of the night. (I can not tell you how many times throughout this process people have asked me if I am in therapy. Haha.) This fascination, combined with the need for a conflict to tear the young Peter and James (Hook) apart, as well as a burgeoning realization about the horrors of domestic abuse (my dad was a criminal prosecutor in this field for a long time), coalesced in my decision to have Peter struggling through post-traumatic stress disorder following the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. It was at this point that I realized this would not be a KidWorks production.

After a year and a half of private work on this increasingly dark reimagining of the Pan/Hook rivalry, I invited 17 of my actor friends and their parents to read through it on the weekend of my 14th birthday. I received a host of helpful feedback from that reading, including a consensus that Peter needed more stage time in the second act. To achieve this and dive deeper into Peter’s troubled psyche, I wrote the song “Shadow“, a pretty disturbing number in which an insomnia-ridden Peter pleads with his memories to stop haunting him (this also allowed me to utilize the idea of that chilling scene from the novel I loved so much).

After four months of revisions, I asked most of the original group back for a week of rehearsals culminating in a staged reading in front of an invited audience. A post-show Q&A and an Audience Evaluation sheet gave me lots of ideas for how to improve the work over what turned out to be three years, due to COVID setbacks. This was also one of the first times I think I really understood the beauty of delegation… not because I utilized it, but because I didn’t. Even before the first workshop, Amy Cave (dance studio owner, theatrical producer, and creator of the KidWorks Festival) promised me that she would produce a full production of Stumped when it was ready. It was she who laid out the development process, starting with the table read, continuing with the staged reading, and building up to the final production. She would also ask me occasionally if I (still) felt strongly about directing the full version. Being the naive, borderline control-freak that I can be, I would respectfully but adamantly respond that I felt I was the only person who could possibly direct this production. However, directing the staged reading nearly broke me. I was clearly way out of my depth, attempting to musical direct incorrectly notated music (it took me five complete drafts and several years to learn how to notate correctly) and having my first, very stressful experience giving seasoned adult performers acting notes. Needless to say, when she asked me after that staged reading if I was ready to hand over the reins, I could not have been more willing.

Stumped was originally slated for a full production over the summer of 2020. This plan, of course, was sidetracked by a global pandemic that wiped out musical theatre for over a year. However, I have now come to recognize this timing as a blessing in disguise. I had time to drastically revise the show: rewriting songs I had written as a twelve year old, fully orchestrating the show with the significant aid of my ever-generous orchestra teacher, Hunter Jackson, and adding a fairy dust addiction reminiscent of cocaine to Peter’s ever-growing list of maladies (just in case the show wasn’t dark enough already.)

When it finally came time to begin casting the show for its 2022 world premiere, one of the big conversations director Amy Cave and I had pertained to Peter’s age. Originally, I had written him to be played as a ten year old by a young teenager. However, Amy (correctly) realized the show had progressed beyond the capabilities of most pre-teen actors. The score can be intensely difficult, especially “Shadow”, a song requiring intense emotional vulnerability, a big belt, and impressive breath support. Though I was admittedly reluctant to part ways with a younger Peter, 18 year-old Andrew Cave was the perfect fit for the role, delivering a consistently heart-wrenching performance that would have been difficult for a younger actor to achieve. In retrospect, having a twelve-year old actor snort fairy dust like cocaine probably would have crossed a line, as well. However, though some elements of the big brother dynamic I loved so much between James and Peter were sacrificed in this adjustment, the casting created a new opportunity for an implied love triangle between James, Peter, and Tiger Lily, more realistically fueling Peter’s intense possessiveness of James in light of his relationship with Lily.

Finally, after five years of development, Stumped  received its world premiere production at Resolute Theatre Project, directed by Amy Cave and music-directed by Kelly Pfaffenberger. I was fortunate to have the invaluable experience of working on the show in the rehearsal room: changing lines as needed, identifying ways to clarify the sheet music, and putting in my two cents on other artistic decisions. However, a week out from opening, the show was still not falling together. We identified the problem point in Act I: a lackluster song called “Daughter of the Chief”. The song was an agent of major plot development, building tension between Peter and James when James falls for the native warrior princess, Tiger Lily, in the midst of a dispute between the stranded heroes and the cautious warriors. Besides the song being generally unexciting, it was a cringey recreation of the stereotypical “Indian” sound in the Disney movie and Broadway adaptation. I wrote the song as a clueless twelve year old, and the truth is, it needed an update. From a dramaturgical standpoint, it also focused far too much on the relationship milestones between James and Tiger Lily, rather than the mounting conflict between James and Peter. Yet again, I was realizing that Peter needed to be more central in his own story. All of this contributed to my decision to scrap “Daughter of the Chief” five days out from opening and write an entirely new song the weekend before we entered our three-day tech week. I worked hard over an entire Saturday to write, notate, and harmonize a new 7-minute set piece of a number, “Watch Your Back”. When I brought it in to Amy that Monday, she was resistant, scared that we were heaping too much on the already stressed actors as we approached a hard deadline in front of an audience. But when she heard our MD Kelly Pfaffenberger playing through the melody line, she looked at me, sighed, and said, “Oh crap. It’s good.” The addition of “Watch Your Back” really tied the production together. It fulfilled the dramaturgical needs of the show, dodged any unintentionally appropriating or offensive content, and took a dud song and turned it into one of the highlights of the show. The first weekend of the run, the actors held sheet music in their hands for the number, allowing the audience a unique perspective into the process.

In the end, the two-week run was an astounding success. We overcame every obstacle, from actors dropping out suddenly to multiple COVID scares, but the result was electric. The sold-out production was received enthusiastically by audiences, and even got a favorable review from local critic Jill Sweeney at Onstage NTX.

But it still isn’t perfect. Within the two-month rehearsal process, we identified multiple plot concerns and cut and added scenes and songs, all the while trying to tone down a ping-pong match between musical comedy and gritty drama. However, I feel excited to enter the next stage of life for this show with a lot to be proud of and a lot that I will revise. I feel thankful for the naivete that allowed me to pursue this project with such abandon as a young kid, but I am equally thankful for all I have learned about the true work and craft in the process. And I am so excited to move toward making a revised version of this show available for licensing, so that (hopefully) this story can be shared with more people in more spaces in more inventive ways. The most exciting thing to me about theatre is that the text is alive. And I hope it keeps breathing.