Songs of a New World Director Mr. Bari Robinson gives notes to the cast following tech rehearsal in the Gelb Theater.
By Reinah Lee ’26
Get ready to embark on a musical journey presented by Choate students in the Gelb Theater this fall. Written and composed by three-time Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown, Songs For A New World (Songs) consists of 17 songs, no dialogue, and no concrete plot; instead, a series of individual stories are presented, following themes of love, loss, rebirth, and reconnection.
This musical has no written plot — it is a series of individual songs each with a different story. Approaching how to connect all the individual stories is left to the director. Theater teacher Mr. Bari Robinson directed the play and created the plot based on the actors in the cast. With eight student performers, he decided to create a narrative for Songs that was easy to follow for the audience. The final idea was to have three very different couples all living in New York City. For example, one couple in the song cycle is in a long distance relationship and has to fight numerous challenges to stay together. “Each song represents a moment in time,” Mr. Robinson said. “That’s another way I thought about the narrative.”
Without dialogue, the music in Songs is the star of the show. “We couldn’t do this without our really talented music director Mr. Nathaniel Baker, who’s an amazing pianist in his own right and is helping to shepherd [actors] through this really challenging music,” Mr. Robinson said.
Songs is student-choreographed by Jordan Dodd ’25 and Leanne Parks ’25. After choreographing a scene in last winter’s play She Kills Monsters, Mr. Robinson asked Dodd and Parks to do the same for Songs.
Even though choreographing and acting was exhausting at times, Dodd explained that “it always felt good to see [our] work come to life and have those ‘aha’ moments where this choreography works.”
Tackling the dual roles of castmate and choreographer was also tricky for Parks at first, but she, too, enjoyed the excitement of it. “It’s been really fun being able to do both because I love being on stage, but I also like doing stuff behind the scenes,” she said.
Whether it be improvising to the soundtrack or taking snippets from TikTok dances, the student-choreographers drew inspiration from wherever they could find it. The Act One finale, entitled “Steam Train,” radiates Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Another number, “River Won’t Flow,” borrows dance moves from Tina Turner. Lots of movement was taken from 90s pop culture and bands, such as TLC and En Vogue.
One of the greatest challenges for the actors was crafting their characters solely from their assigned songs. Actor Leanne La ’26 used a technique called method acting — incorporating the character’s life into your own life — to approach her character.
“We did a lot of scene study with [Mr. Robinson] to analyze every lyric and see what happens to us as actors and as artists,” La said. She expressed the importance of being intentional and its key role in crafting the show’s current narrative.
Making his creative debut at Choate, the set designer for Songs, Mr. Kyle Artone, a renowned set designer who studied design at Yale, collaborated closely with Mr. Robinson to transform Gelb Theater. The set consists of a blue safety net, made of 150 feet of netting, hanging from existing hooks on the ceiling. He also created a black, glossy dance floor to create the illusion of a dynamic void for the characters to live in.
Mr. Robinson also gave the actors 48 milk crates to use on stage to create different shapes, seats, walls, and dance with. These crates are symbolic of New York City’s working class because of their ubiquity on the sidewalks. Rooted in the principle of propelling the narrative, he wanted the set, alongside the cast and music, to resonate with the audience. “My design philosophy is to develop a design language that enhances the production and creates a dimensionality that goes deeper into the piece,” Mr. Artone said.
Songs for a New World is set to be a captivating collection of narratives, interweaving music, choreography, and set design. The team will present the play to audiences in the Gelb Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on October 27-28 and 2:00 p.m. on October 29.
