Musical Theatre Radio presents "Be Our Guest"

Double Olivier-Nominated actress, Marisha Wallace hails from North Carolina, USA where her love of singing began in her local church with her family. She made her Broadway debut in Aladdin directed by Casey Nicholaw and, following that, went into the Original Broadway Cast of Something Rotten. A last-minute request to go to London to take over the role of Effie White in Dreamgirls in the West End, a role she was only supposed to do for three weeks, turned into eight years in the role!

Marisha went onto star in the Original West End Cast of Waitress playing Becky and the revival of Hairspray at the Coliseum playing Motormouth Maybelle. Her formidable performances led to Director Daniel Fish asking her to play Ado Annie in his ground-breaking production of Oklahoma! at the Young Vic Theatre, for which she was nominated for the WhatsOnStage, Evening Standard and Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical. It was quickly followed by another smash-hit revival, Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner, for which she was nominated for the WhatsOnStage, Evening Standard and Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

On screen Marisha has appeared in the most recent series of Feel Good and Jingle Jangle for Netflix, Almost Never on CBBC, and Aladdin for Disney. Alongside her acting career, she is an international singer-songwriter. She frequently collaborates on new music with songwriting legends Toby Gad (Beyoncé, John Legend) and Steve Anderson (Kylie Minogue). Last year Marisha performed live for HRH King Charles and Queen Camilla on two occasions, as well as at the D-Day at 80 on the BBC, the Royal Variety Performance at the Royal Albert Hall on ITV1, and on Dancing On Ice.

Marisha’s performance as ‘Sally Bowles’ in Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Cabaret in the West End, received critical acclaim.

Twelve Maids takes you behind-the-scenes of life in Ithaca during Odysseus’s journey in The Odyssey, from the never-before-heard point of view of a palace maid. Often silenced or glossed over, Penelope’s maids are given a voice for the very first time in this dynamic new musical. Our stellar cast will transport you to Bronze Age Greece, where love, loyalty, and laughs await. Featuring breathtaking ballads, dazzling duets, and electric ensemble numbers, Twelve Maids is sure to excite lovers of myth and musical theater alike.

Exorcistic is a self-aware parody that creates a chaotic, over-the-top rock musical. This original work promises to deliver a thrilling combination of horror and hilarity, accompanied by some of the most powerhouse rock tunes.

In true Rock and Roll fashion, Exorcistic features a rotating cast of Celebrity Guests each week, creating an incentive for audiences to return again and again. This unique aspect sets the musical apart in the crowded horror-comedy genre, promising fresh surprises at every performance. The storyline follows a theater company planning to put on a parody of “the exorcist”. The exorcist? “Because it will sell!” a direct quote from the writer!

The audience will follow this theater company from stage reading to Broadway as their quest for fame and money supersedes their art and humanity, ensuring that their lead actress, Emma Hunton, becomes actually possessed in the process.

With iconic imagery and an explosive live band, the show comes to life with energy and flair that will keep audiences captivated from start to finish by a sensational theatrical experience that not only pays homage to the classic film but reimagines it in a truly electrifying way.

Echolocation is a road trip musical in the dark. A teenage love story without a map. Echolocation is a musical performed in pitch blackness.

Ethan and Sadie are best friends, but they have little else in common. He’s serious, she’s goofy. He works after-school jobs, she has a rooftop hot tub. He’s sighted, and she’s completely blind. 

One thing they share is that they’re totally sick of life in safe, suburban Las Vegas. And so, to enjoy a last gasp of freedom before their SAT scores come back, they lie to their parents and set off on a secret road trip up to Yellowstone National Park – going on some unexpected misadventures along the way. 

Featuring skinny-dipping, wacky science, an environmentalist twist and a fizzing score, Echolocation is a podcast musical about Gen Z friendship, love, and disability. 

Eliza Randall is a composer, pianist, and music director from Boulder City, NV, currently based in New York City. She began playing the piano and composing music when she was six years old and has been hooked ever since!

Her short musical THE YELLOW WALLPAPER, written with Sam Norman, was a finalist for the Mazumdar Short Play Prize and has been performed all over the country by Harp Theatricals, Irvington Theatre, Alleyway Theatre, and Blank Conversations. Her new musical THE DEBUTANTES was recently workshopped and performed at the 2022 Leeds Conservatoire Musical Workshop. Eliza's various other stand-alone compositions have been showcased at the Broadway Future Songbook at Lincoln Center, the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre off-Broadway, and the Hackney Empire (nominated for the 2021 Stiles and Drewe Best New Song Prize). 

As a music director, Eliza especially loves directing new works, and most recently she has been MD/Keys 1 for multiple shows at Pace University, NYU's New Studio on Broadway, Dixon Place, the Scranton Fringe, and the Two Rivers Theatre with Joe Iconis and Sara Schlesinger. 

Education: BM in Piano Performance from BYU, MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch.

Hi, I’m Sam — an award-winning (but more often award-losing) rhymester who bounces between the UK and US.

I mostly write lyrics and libretti for musicals and operas. Sometimes I write screenplays and light verse.

Recently… Echolocation (winner of the 2025 MTI Stiles & Drewe Mentorship Award), The Shadow, Come Dine With Me: The Musical.

You might have seen my work produced and/or developed off-West End, off-Broadway and regionally, at venues including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Turbine Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and the Edinburgh Fringe.

I’m currently a Resident Artist at the American Lyric Theater. In the past I’ve been a Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriter, an American Opera Initiative Fellow, a winner of the Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry in Translation, a Lincoln Center Broadway Future Songbook writer and a three-time finalist for the Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize. I’m a proud member of Mercury Musical Developments, the BMI Musical Theatre Librettists Workshop and the Dramatists Guild.

Beyond Perfection is Be More Chill meets Urinetown, it  is an original story so timely, we’ve been warned to stop writing before more of it becomes true. Ryan and his wife Kate are the flawless faces of Perfection LLC’s government-run marriage program: an algorithmically crafted romance, broadcast for all to see. Their love is scripted, their happiness engineered…until a glitch breaks the illusion. As Ryan spirals, he stumbles into the No-See-Ums encampment, a hidden rebel society in Central Park where outcasts unveil a world: unscripted. Boisterous, funny, and surprising, Beyond Perfection is a zany dystopian musical adventure perfect for our current age.Kenady Sean (lyricist, composer, bookwriter and producer)

Kenadyis currently working on three musical projects other than The Scarlet Letter Musical. The Birthmark was recently featured in Theatre Now’s Soundbites Festival. We Can Do It! was an award-winning festival participant of the 2023 National Women’s Theatre Festival. The Scarlet Letter Musical was a SheNYC Festival semi-finalist in 2022 and a Moxie Incubator Finalist in 2023. Beyond Perfection and The Scarlet Letter Musical have both had a workshop produced by or in conjunction with The Table Co/lab, now SheDFW. Kenady graduated with an MBA and a BS in Music Business from Dallas Baptist University where she received the Texas Business Hall of Fame Scholarship. She currently is the regional moderator of Texas for Maestra Music, and hopes to improve gender parity in the musical theatre business. She is also a member of Theatre Resource Unlimited’s Producer Mentor Program.

Kaylee Killingsworth (bookwriter, and lyricist)

Kaylee Killingsworth is a playwright, librettist, teacher and performer. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Theatre focused on Theatre Studies from UT Arlington. Recent productions include: “The Birthmark” via Theatre Now New York’s SOUNDBITES festival, “The One Who Drew Cats” via Ugly Radio Podcast, “Beyond Perfection (Now titled A Brave New York)” Developmental workshop via SheDFW, “Secular” via The Guinea Pig Festival. Kaylee is currently working as a Librettist for the musical “A Brave New York”. In addition to teaching and writing, Kaylee works at the intersection of holistic therapy and theater as a medical clown with The Laughter League. Her original clown character Dr. Hashtag is a cast member of Telly-Award winning show, On The Nose. In her collegiate career she contributed research to the Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Student Research Conference at Collin College. At UTA, Kaylee contributed to the University’s 2016

Jessica Francis Fichter

Book and Lyrics

Jessica Francis Fichter is a South Carolina-based director, playwright, and teaching artist, currently serving as the Executive Director of Trustus Theatre in Columbia, SC. She has directed and taught in various locations, including NYC, where she earned an MFA in Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School. Recent directing credits include Twelfth Night: Welcome to Our Table (New York Shakespeare Best Comedy 2020) and Dandelion: An Original Musical (NYMF finalist 2019). She is also the founder of Evolving Door Theatre Company.

Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga

Story, Book, Addt. Music and Lyrics

Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga is an Atlanta-based theatre artist and the concierge of the renowned Woodruff Arts Center, home to the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre. She graduated from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC in 2019 with a Bachelors in Performance and has been heavily involved in the Atlanta theatre community since her relocation in 2022. Her most recent projects have been directing Brandon Jacobs-Jenkin’s Everybody with Renegade Theatre Co. and performing as Mal in Disney's Descendants at OnStage Atlanta.DANDELION: An Original Musical is a contemporary show that captures the emotional ups and downs of familial love, loss, and change. Female-driven and fearless in its approach to storytelling, it is a universal story that will touch the lives of audience members across generations.

BRIAN USIFER Broadway credits include The Heart of Rock and Roll (Music Supervision, Arrangements, Orchestrations) A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical (Arrangements, Orchestrations), Disney’s Frozen (Music Director, Additional Arrangements), Kinky Boots (Music Director, Additional Arrangements, Associate Music Supervisor - Tour, London and Toronto) and The Book of Mormon (Associate Music Supervisor). Other highlights include Chess at the Kennedy Center, Swept Away at Berkeley Rep and Arena Stage, Afterwords at Seattle 5th Ave, and Mr. Chickee's Funny Money at the Atlantic, Bobby and Kristen Lopez American Songbook, NBC’s Annie Live, and The Wiz Live. 
@brianusifer or  www.brianusifer.com

JOY MACHINE RECORDS is a record label seeking to change the way we think about theater music. We call ourselves Joy Machine because we love making records. The music we release embraces the joy of authenticity, both in style and genre for today’s artists and audiences. Our focus on process and collaboration stems from our collective experience in the recorded music industry as well as our work on Broadway. Our hands-on approach to each project allows artists at every level to develop their own voice.

Artists will be greeted with kindness and transparency as they explore the best solutions for their unique musical projects. Our services provide the ability for artists who have typically worked within the space of musical theater to explore where they fit within the recorded music industry. We are a company of theater music artists for today.

Emotions run high in the world of closed adoptions and sealed records, but the potential human stakes are even higher.  

It's the fall of 1967, and an unexpected pregnancy thrusts teen lovers into the stark arena of adult realities. An infertile married couple longs to become parents via a system rooted in secrecy and shame. A beloved baby, named Joshua by his adoptive parents, must grow up severed from his roots. Forced to navigate seemingly insurmountable obstacles on the journey to learn his full identity as an adult, Joshua discovers a group with shared experiences who find their voices and fight for access to the truth about their origins. 

Drawn from decades of real-life timeless stories of love, longing, loss and the visceral human quest for identity, empowerment and connection, For the Record(s) resonates with anyone who has lost or found family. 

GALLANO.H  tells the story of Ethan — a character shaped by loss — and the chorus of voices that surround him: Soul, Past, Present, and Future. Through live guitar, movement, and raw ballads, the performance dances between memory and momentum, stillness and song.

This original musical was born from the real-life experience of TYK’s Artistic Director, Ethan Persyko (they/them), who lost their beloved dog, Bailey, during a time of deep personal isolation. But GALLANO.H reaches far beyond one person’s story — it is for anyone who has ever loved and lost, who has ever needed to be reminded they’re not alone.

WINNER, is an original musical about coming out and coming-of-age set against the backdrop of a rigged school election in Southern California in 1999.

The show’s electrifying rock-pop score was created by Joe Barros (Artistic Director of New York Theater Barn) and Nico Juber (one of 2023's Women to Watch on Broadway) with a concept album launching July 2025.