showpeople theatre collective inc. began as a response to the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic: without being able to physically connect, how can we still make meaningful theatre?about showpeople.
Our Story.
a brief history
by brighton valor horan
current resident artist & co-founder
As many of us did from 2020 onward,
we moved the process of creating theatrical work almost completely online. Through Zoom and (a)synchronous editing on Google Drive, we created our first original musical. And, over the course of a couple months or so, edited a (mostly) remotely-filmed piece together to showcase our writing.
That was our first Original Musical Workshop, Lost Justice.
humble beginnings.
Not necessarily as people or artists, but as a group. Our lives became busy with tying loose ends up with our collegiate careers and starting out on our professional ones (not to mention continuing to survive a pandemic). By the last quarter of 2022, we decided we had waited long enough, and coordinated a THREE DAY LONG (yes, a touch less than 72 full hours) Original Musical Workshop that December. It was the only way our schedules would allow us to write together again! This is where To the Fairest was first realized as a stage piece.
Performed for an audience of around 10 people in a small hall in New Britain, CT, the very first showing of To the Fairest was 35 minutes long. Our audio was wacky and out of balance, and Miles, current Resident Artist and music supervisor for the project, was still writing the (then) finale, "Troy Story" as our tiny crowd entered the room.
Oh, and at the end? Nobody clapped.
We didn't let that tank our spirits, though, because we KNEW we were onto something with this whole "new musical" thing.
Then there was kind of a period of time where...
we didn't do anything.
bigger and better.
〰️
bigger and better. 〰️
We got into the New York Theater Festival with the original, three-day draft of Fairest, but Miles and I also knew it needed some major tuning up before another audience laid eyes on it.
Within the summer and fall of ‘23, we wrote, rewrote, tried out new text and songs with virtual readings, and rewrote again. By the time we were in the thick of rehearsals for the festival, we also started planning for our next OMW (Original Musical Workshop): Shudder.
That piece also ended up at the same festival in early 2025, garnering six award nominations and taking two of them home (one of them being Best Choreography--for both myself and Ali Ragazzini…listen, you don’t write tap dancing skeletons into a show without earning some kind of nod for the choreography, right??!).
In our last few years of existing as a group, we’ve:
Written and premiered nearly 7 new musicals both in person and digitally
Showcased work at venues like 54 Below, The Green Room 42, and the Reverie Room in NYC
Gotten to add 150+ wonderful artists to our Collective
Performed an adapted script of To the Fairest for an auditorium of over 300 middle school students
Created and hosted our own reality game show-style musical theatre songwriting competition
Performed licensed works
Released original music on most streaming platforms
Become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
…with even more coming down the pike.
Consider joining us for a project or dropping a follow online! We’re most active on Instagram at @showpeopletheatrecollective.
You can also access a good portion of our original catalog of works for FREE via ourYouTube channel. There is very little (if anything) we keep behind paywalls because we know what it’s like to want new and exciting theatre from new and exciting artists… on a shoestring budget.
Our admin team is small and is mostly a group of volunteers-- if you’re able, send us a monetary tip or recommend us to a friend to follow! Even a series of shares helps us reach more audiences and donors everywhere, including outside our Northeastern US home base. You can learn more about making a donation here.
We’re growing on the daily and hope you can follow along or even hop on for a project with us VERY soon!
xoxo
