Award-winning Single Wide Musical Premieres at BYU

‘SINGLE WIDE’ MUSICAL DEBUTS FIRST FULL PRODUCTION AT BYU
New toe-tapping musical makes its BYU debut following an acclaimed, sold-out run at the New York Musical Festival

After traveling to New York and making headlines on hypable.com as one of the 10 Best Broadway Shows of 2015, “Single Wide” returns home to Provo for its collegiate premiere as a fully-mounted production. This new musical debuts on March 23 and runs through April 7 in the Pardoe Theatre.

Performance Dates and Times: March 23-24, 27–30, April 3–7, 7:30 p.m. | March 24, April 7, 2:00 p.m.
Location: Pardoe Theatre, Franklin S. Harris Fine Arts Center, Brigham Young University Price: $9-17
Tickets: Available in person at the BYU Ticket Office in the Harris Fine Arts Center or Marriott Center, by phone at 801-422-2981 or online at byuarts.com

Department of Theatre and Media Arts professor and playwright George Nelson started working on “Single Wide” five years ago. The BYU Music Dance Theatre program workshopped and performed a version of “Single Wide” before it received the high honor of being selected to perform at the New York Musical Festival (NYMF). There, the production went through several changes including a new director.

“It was very successful.” said director and choreographer Megan Sanborn Jones. “It won the most awards of any performance at the festival that year. I think every actor got an award. At that point, my question as the artistic director of the season was, ‘Why haven’t we done this yet? Why aren’t we doing our own finest work?’”

Although “Single Wide” had a set and professional actors at the NYMF, this is the first time it has had a full set. The title refers to a type of trailer home, and the TMA Department installed four authentic, full-sized single wide trailers on the Pardoe stage for the setting of this production.

This highly collaborative production features music and lyrics by commercial music alum Jordan Kamalu as well as additional lyrics by Nelson. Jones said Kamalu has been able to listen to the cast and has reworked the musical to create new songs for this particular production.

“Single Wide” is an entirely student-run production, except for mentoring positions filled by faculty. The costume, prop and lighting designers as well as the actors, stage manager, two assistant directors and assistant dramaturg are all students; and Kamalu was a student when he composed the music and lyrics.

“Everyone loves ‘new Broadway.’” said Jones. “‘Hamilton,’ ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ ‘SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical.’ Well this is new. This is it. This is how it starts. This may turn out to be someone’s brand-new favorite musical. If audiences don’t come they’ll never know, so I hope everyone who loves musicals will come see Single Wide so they can be at the cutting edge of new musicals in America.”