Songs for a New World

Caitlyn Bogart, School of Music, Theatre & Dance

Collaborators: Reese Leif, Duncan McConaughey, Jack Weaver, Gilayah McIntosh – School of Music, Theatre & Dance

Our production team’s goal for our project is to alleviate the disconnect between students involved in the arts at Michigan. We plan to achieve this through the pursuit of a production of Jason Robert Brown’s timeless song cycle, Songs for a New World. Our objective is to include a student from every major department in SMTD in our creative process (whether onstage, backstage, or on the production team). This project will uplift diverse stories and voices from across the University of Michigan and give all of our collaborators an opportunity to learn from each other first-hand.

Our production of Songs for a New World fundamentally prioritizes interdisciplinary work within the arts here at the U-M. Our existing team plans to offer positions and opportunities to students of any experience level and major if they express interest in the project. Incorporating students of different identities and artistic backgrounds in our production will encourage networking among the arts community at U-M and promote hands-on learning. A benefit to this project is the intersection of majors that may not have had the chance to meet prior. With SMTD being a major arts hub featured in the professional world, it is imperative to make positive connections with classmates pursuing the same line of work. The pursuit of this project will not only allow us to network with other young arts professionals across the university, but also push the boundaries of our own artistic goals and experiment with disciplines unfamiliar to us. We think it’s incredibly important to learn the logistics and process of jobs related to ours that we aren’t necessarily pursuing professionally.