Back to the 33rd Annual Festival of New Musicals

TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix

2021 Festival

Director
Sherri Eden Barber

Music Director
Rose Van Dyne

Cast
Courtney Bassett, karen EiLbacher, Sara Porkalob, Storm Thomas, Skyler Volpe and Ada Westfall


Number of Acts: 1
Number of Principals (Female): 4
Number of Principals (Trans / GNC): 2
Total Cast Size: 6
Orchestra Breakdown:

Keys, Bass, Drums, Guitar (these are actor musicians who play the band characters in the script), Keys 2

Casting Notes:

This is a cast of 6 people who are not cis men. T and L should be women, but don’t have to be cis women. Most importantly, the cast needs to defy the traditional cis, white, femme, skinny, able-bodied, male gaze inspired concept of queer women in media.

Genre & Style:

fantasy-driven, irreverent, queer, rock musical



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Synopsis

T and L drive their convertible off the edge of a cliff and into a fantasy-driven, irreverent, queer, rock musical – TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix where strong female characters don’t “always gotta die.” With full-on Riot Grrl aplomb, the Kickass Band helps T and L find the queer happy ending they deserve.

Development History

TL;DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix has grown from a cheeky idea to turn “a definitive ending into a queer beginning” to a full-throttle, fantasy-driven, irreverent, rocking meta-analysis of queer women in media. Along the way, we’ve shared songs from it at Ars Nova and 54 Below, workshopped it at The Tank with the help of an Anna Sosenko Grant, fleshed it out in residence at Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, incubated it at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, done a Zoom reading with RWR’s Triple R residency and won a Richard Rodgers Production Studio Award to fund its next step.

Festival Successes

Richard Rodgers Award Winner, 2021. Production at Diversionary Theatre (CA), 2024.

Excerpts