Okay. So Sunday night, my daughter says, we have to go see my friend Haley perform in this play that they're doing in Aurora, and you have to go with me, and let's go. And we went. And first of all, was a show that I had not seen, and I had only heard good things about, and they are all accurate. The show is six. It is currently still on Broadway. It's going to be coming. The Broadway version is going to be coming through the DCPA this upcoming season. I'm
relatively certain. Yeah, I think it's coming this upcoming season. But the show is about Henry the Eight's six ex wives, and I don't want to give up too much, but it is wildly entertaining. It's a musical. It's fun. The music is great. And on Sunday night we went and saw performance put together by a little student theater. Passion Project is the name of the company in this little theater that looks like it is a converted garage, and it is all high school students or early college students.
Six young women on the stage doing the show. And the director of the show is another woman who when I saw her, I was like, I think she's twelve years old, but apparently she's older than that. Her name is Brooklyn Stevens, and she's joining me now to talk about her passion project, which is this theater group. Brooklyn, Welcome to the show.
Hello, welcome. I'm so excited.
Well Brooklyn, first of all, how old are you?
I'm eighteen years old?
Okay, okay, So I was not totally like that far off that. I was like, she looks like she's twelve. Let's talk about First of all, we're going to talk about the Student Theater Passion Project. Then we'll talk about Roaming Gnome and what they do, because that's really cool too. I had never heard of them, so we'll talk about what they're providing for you. What is the Student Theater Passion Project. What happened here?
No. I was introduced to a student led production of Haitiestown last summer, and I met a ton of amazing students and people there who really became a family. And I talked about the possibility of starting to direct my own show, and so did a lot of other of the a lot of other people a part of this production. And then I just decided, in like late November early December, that I was going to direct sixteen Edition throughout the spring and summer of this year.
Now, tell me the difference for people that don't know about these teen edition shows, because they're not exactly like the show, but they're very very close. How how do they differ from the show you might see on Broadway?
It differs as like the script has changed a little bit because of some perhaps innuendos or some language. But six is honestly a really family friendly show for a lot of people. It's a lot different than let's say, like Heather's teen Edition because that one's a lot darker, so a lot of lyric changes have to go towards that one. But six is pretty much the same show for teens and for the adult actors on Broadway.
So this is all teen actor. How did you find the actors? Did you have tryouts and all that stuff? Tell me about that process.
So this all started. I made an Instagram account after Thestcon, which was in early December, and a lot of people ended up seeing it on Instagram. When I sent out a whole casting call, and then I had virtual auditions start coming in, and then I gave everybody a callback for at least one character, and they all came to my house, which honestly seems a little sketchy for somebody who've never met. I definitely have another plan for when I do that again, as I know another little theater
that I could do callbacks at and such. So then I did callbacks and then the rest is history. Casted the show and now it's on.
Well, to be clear, you casted the show twice. There are two different casts that do this show. How did that pan out? Why did you end up with two different casts?
I ended up with two different because I felt like to have I had about thirty people audition and I felt that just taking out of those thirty six girls was not fair to a lot of these girls. And so that's why I ended up doing two casts. And there was also just so much talent to go around, and I was just like so overwhelmed with so much support and love. And yeah, well.
The show was dynamite on Sunday night. Now you're gonna have the I believe the Bolin cast is coming up in the next few productions. But let's talk about the Roaming Nome Theater. This little tiny space that has a little set, It has a little snack bar. I mean it has. It's like a little miniature theater. How what is the Roaming Nome Theater?
Uh, Roaming Nome Theater. I've been a part of Roaming Home Theater since twenty twenty three when my mom found it out of the blue on Google or like with her coworkers, and I started doing shows there. My first show there was Loose and that was the great production. Roamingnome has really been such a detrimental part to our success, And honestly, I think if we had an even bigger space for six, we wouldn't know what to do with the room, if I'm being completely honest, because the show
is just so good and it's so tiny. But it's like if we had like a four hundred theater theater, I would not know what to do. I would have felt so overwhelmed. But Roamingnome helps set up tickets for us.
They're obviously do they're doing the snack bar. They've really been just so helpful, and they have summer camps going on like every single day, so it's like they're doing summer camps all day long, and then we'd come in at night to come and rehearse and set up and do everything and I'm honestly just like so grateful for them, especially Alex Oliver Boston. She's one of my favorite directors and she's just like the kindest human soul.
Now that's a big thing to step in and direct a show. And is this the first time you've directed a show yourself.
Yes, this is the first time I've directed a show. I plan to go into theater education at the University of Northern Colorado Go Bears, And I've met so many people up there already, and so many people are actually interested in coming down and you know, doing a show under me in the future. Up there already, and so many people have already reached out to me, especially after this first weekend, which the show was just gonna get better in my opinion, especially with two casts.
And what I love about this is like our audience was full of the friends and family of the girls who were on the stage, so they were into it and they were clapping and having fun. It was just a blast. And I got to tell you, the young women, how old are how old is your cast? Like? What range do you have in this cast?
So between both casts, the cast ranges from girls who just finished their freshman year of high school to girls who have just finish high school year of high school and are not going to college. So it's really like fourteen fifteen and up, which is honestly so great. Yeah, our youngest queen on that stage that is going to be in the Ballink Castes are Anna of Cleaves. Her name is Kiir Cantrell. She is the funniest human being. And then it's like, then, we've got a lot of
seniors in the show, so it's really great. A lot of them are going into their senior year though.
Oh but that's okay. Brooklyn Stevens is my guest. She's with the Student Theater Passion Project. Now, Brooklyn, this is the first year of the Student Theater Passion Project. Have you chosen a show to do next time? You and I were kind of talking off the air and You're like, well, maybe we'll do a bunch of one acts or something like that. Are you kind of trying to figure out what you want to do next?
Yes, I totally am. Next summer, I really really want to do Mama Mia. That is a show I've been wanting to do for many, many years. I'm right now just depending on when those auditions and stuff. Go out right now, it's looking like we'll be at Roamingnome again and like do a lot of fun things there. But it's like, if we get like fifty people to audition, then then it's like I could get an even bigger theater.
And then I was talking about maybe doing a one act festival with a couple of people, which I would be so excited to do because I just love one act there. I find that the best monologues.
Come from yeah, oh yeah, because you got to do a lot in one act. You got to tell the whole story in one act.
You know.
That's there's a lot of pressure on those one act shows to get that entire story arc in very very quickly. Well, Brooklyn Stevens, I'm a fan. I can't wait to see what you guys do next. I need you to put out a newsletter or something, or a Facebook group that I can join and follow along so I can keep following. The next performances of six at the Roamingnme Theater are July even, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth. Be clear from my audience, this is community theater. You're not going to go there
and expect Broadway. That is unrealistic. But these girls that I saw in this cast, and I'm assuming in the other cast as well, are so talented and they left nothing. They left nothing on the stage. They just went all out and I loved it. I thought the performances were fantastic and for a first time director, hats off to you, Brooklyn for such an amazing job.
Thank you so much. That really means the world to me.
Oh, it was great. I can't wait to see what you do next to Maybe we'll have you on in the future to talk about the next Student Passion Project production.
Yes, that would be great.
All right, thanks Brooklyn, Thank you all right. I've got links on the blog for both things. I've got links to my tickets to the teen edition of six and I also have links to the Roaming Home Theater cutest little theater you ever saw in your life.