First Drafts

First Drafts is a series of musicals that reimagine, reconstitute, and reanimate the Western “musical theatre canon” in a way that acknowledges the truth of where we are now and where we hope to go. First Drafts is grounded in an urgency to make space for stories that must be told now and must continue to be prioritized in our art form.

Each installment of the initiative supports three teams of writers/composers to generate 30 minutes of a new musical to be developed with and performed by Sheridan’s fourth-year students. This writing development program perfectly encapsulates Sheridan’s dual interest in training exceptional musical theatre performers, and using our resources to create an engine for producing a more diverse canon of work, one that speaks to the issues we’re facing presently, and represents the stories of the next generation.