work samples
01
Song Samples
1. Lighthouse (LIGHTHOUSE, music by Veronica Mansour)
The opening song from our new pop-country musical LIGHTHOUSE, a 6-woman show— this song features and introduces each of these 6 women.
2. Runaway Girl (LIGHTHOUSE, music by Veronica Mansour)
Sung by "Church," a 23 year old woman who's always been the perfect church girl— until now. In the past few years, she's found herself stuck in a constant loop, unable to stay in her hometown, but also unable to stay away from it.
3. The Way She Sees Me (LIGHTHOUSE, music by Veronica Mansour)
Sung by "Hotdish," a 21 year old woman who's married to a youth paster, has a baby— and completely in love with a woman. She sings this, comparing her relationship with her husband and his gaze to that of the woman she loves (who surely must love her back, right?).
4. Everything's Edgar (DEAD ANY WAY, music by Veronica Mansour)
Part of a song cycle after forgotten sisters of famous artists, this song is sung by Rosalie Poe, Edgar Allen's Poe abandoned sister.
5. Blindsided (DEAD ANY WAY, music by Veronica Mansour)
This song is song by May Alcott— Louisa May Alcott's sister— who Amy from Little Women is based off of.
6. Sara's Song ( music by Veronica Mansour)
A standalone song written at NYU GMTWP for a Penn State collaboration.
7. June is coming soon (school assignment, music by Adam Laporte)
An assignment at NYU GMTWP where we had to write a song from the perspective of a character from August Wilson's play "Gem of the Ocean." Our character is Aunt Esther as she speaks to another character named Black Mary, and features spoken stage directions in the opening.
8. Running Sequence (school assignment, music by James Powers)
An assignment at NYU GMTWP where we had to write an extended sequence, imagining the movie "Minari" was a musical. This song is from the perspective of the young David, a 7 year old boy, as he goes with his family to a doctor's appointment— all shadowed by the tension between his parents that's been building the whole film.
02
Other Media Samples
THE STONES - an interactive text adventure
A 30-minute text based game and dark comedy where you play a judge of the underworld, deciding which greek heroes/villains of lore go to Tartarus (mega hell) or the Elysian Fields (mega heaven). The game includes short songs (music by Matt Graham): the game isn't totally finished because guess what I don't know how to code, so instead see the songs on soundcloud! Click the image to play the game!
I CRAVE THE HEAT
Tao, along with thousands of other workers, has one job: Dig The Tunnel to the center of the earth until she either dies from the exertion or succeeds and gets nerfed by her greatest love, the heat of the earth’s fiery core. That is, until her center-to-the-earth elevator almost explodes and sends her and the other workers staggering, in the motion of the accident Tao discovering one greater love— the power of the Feral Dance. So what’s stronger? The sweet sweet call of inevitable, magma-melting annihilation, or the rapid spread of the dancing plague? Based on the Dancing Plague of 1518 and the religious upheaval of the Reformation, this is a play that relies on over-boiling anxiety, grounded surrealism, and musical riffs of language to explore themes of global warming, capitalism, performance, and religion. It's a play about confronting and surviving radical newness, when hopelessness is so pervasive that all you can do is descend until you find the sky again.
I CRAVE THE HEAT is a full-length one act play and is published in Some Scripts Literary Magazine.
ASTRONOMER / STARWEAVER
ASTRONOMER / STAR-WEAVER is a 10-minute musical with book/lyrics by myself and music by Chris Gierymski. Based on the myth of the origin of the stars Vega and Altaire, ASTRONOMER / STAR-WEAVER is musical about two girls who, kept apart by their separate families, sneak away to have a short moment together before they're forced to be apart again. While Vey is resigned to the two never being together, Aire begs Vey for one moment to play pretend and imagine there's nothing stopping them. Vey reluctantly agrees— but how long can pretend last?
The pictured performance is from when this piece was performed as part of Fusion Theater's FUSION 7 New Works Festival in spring 2023.
