Showing Up

After the input we received from the first workshop in November 2019, the creative team spent the last two years revising and polishing this extraordinary new musical. We proudly present the results of our process in November 2021.

Growing up in small-town Vermont, Miranda and Vanessa starred in high school musicals and dreamed of making it to Broadway. Life took them through New York stages, success and disappointment, the loss of old dreams and the creation of new ones. And through it all their friendship endured. Now they’re returning to their hometown to work with Doug Anderson, artistic director of Town Hall Theater, on a new musical that tells their story.

The Showing Up Creative Team

Vermont native Miranda Ferriss Jones (composer, lyricist, actor) studied theatre at Yale University and is currently a thrilled participant in the esteemed BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. Miranda has toured internationally as a singer and has been the recipient of multiple grants for her original musical works. Her show The Precipice- a 5 year long musical collaboration with Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and pianist Jeff Chimenti- was performed at San Francisco’s Z Space theatre. Miranda’s original children’s musicals have been staged at schools throughout the Bay Area and Manhattan. In addition to her work as a composer, Miranda runs a busy private vocal studio in Montclair and spends time parenting her two beloved sons. Working on this show with Vanessa has been the collaboration of a lifetime, resulting in the most hilarity and the greatest time discussing the most flattering costumes.

A native Vermonter, Vanessa Dunleavy (writer, actor) moved to New York in 2005 to pursue musical theatre. She trained at Circle in the Square’s theatre conservatory and graduated in 2006. Vanessa has been touring, performing and writing ever since. Favorite credits include Sweet Charity (Greater Boston Stage Company), A Man of No Importance (B-side productions), Damn Yankees (Goodspeed Opera House), Catch Me If You Can (First National Tour), Legally Blonde (North Shore Music Theater), Addams Family (Stoneham Theater), Hairspray (Arizona Broadway Theater), and My Post Traumatic Cruise Ship Cabaret, a one-woman musical she co-wrote with playwright Dana Yeaton, who is also her father. She is over the proverbial moon to be realizing this dream with her childhood friend, Miss. Miranda Ferriss Jones. 

Simon Broucke (orchestrations, musical direction) is a composer, orchestrator, and conductor based in New York City. He received his degree in Music and Mathematics from Columbia University, where he composed four musicals including the 123rd and 124th productions of the Varsity Show, Columbia’s oldest performing arts presentation. In addition to his work in musical theatre, he has also composed for the Columbia Ballet Collaborative, the Schoen Movement Company, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. He was the Music Director of the Columbia Pops Orchestra from 2016 to 2019, and his orchestral arrangements of cinematic music have been programmed by pops orchestras in the United States and Europe. Simon is the orchestrator and music director for the new musical Showing Up.

Douglas Anderson (director) led the charge to restore and revive Middlebury’s historic Town Hall Theater, which reopened in 2008.  He’s currently the artistic director of THT and the artistic director of the Opera Company of Middlebury, which just completed its 18th season.  Earlier careers including 17 years of teaching (Middlebury College, Amherst College) and a stint as head writer on the CBS daytime-drama, Guiding Light.  He’s worked in the ASCAP New Musicals program at the Kennedy Center and has advised dozens of teams creating new musical works. He has recently been honored with a 2019 Vermont Arts Council award for his devotion to community and to artistic excellence.