“The best of the musical fringe shows.”
Winner of the
Richard Rodgers Award
Book, Music and Lyrics
by Tom & Jack Megan
It’s Billy McPherson’s first day in 5th grade at a Catholic school in Boston. He’s the new kid in class, having just moved from Florida with his Mom. She hopes to reign in his extravagant imagination by giving the boy a rigorous religious education. But it seems they never attended Church in Florida, and as result, Billy knows absolutely nothing about Catholicism! He is completely unprepared for the strict rigors of parochial school and in particular, for the harsh eccentricities of his homeroom teacher, Sister Rudy.
Then Billy meets Sister Katherine and his imagination takes flight. She is his beguiling young drama teacher; warm, funny, humane, quirky and quite musical! Sister Katherine encourages his imagination and creativity as no one has before. She sees all the potential inside him. Billy feels that anything is possible with Sister Katherine by his side! And this feeling leads him on an epic quest to earn her love and to change the rules of the Church so that they can one day marry. But he soon learns that if you want to change the rules, you’ve got to be the one making the rules!
Billy McPherson meets Sister Katherine. NYMF production.
(shown: Eric Anderson, Jillian Louis, Kyle Brenn, and James Judy)
“One hit! The score is a hoot.”
THE KID WHO WOULD BE POPE was originally produced at the Creative Arts at Park Program, in Brookline, Massachusetts.
In the Fall of 2011, it had a sold-out run at the New York Musical Theatre Festival directed by Gabriel Barre. The show was one of only 12 musicals selected from over 450 new musicals to be part of the “Next Link” program at NYMF. Because of the high interest in the show, extra performances were added during the festival.
Two years later, THE KID won the Richard Rodgers Award, chaired by Stephen Sondheim. The show had a terrific run of workshop performances at Ars Nova in NYC directed by West Hyler and musical director Jeffrey Lodin. In this iteration, the authors explored having all the roles played by adults for the first time, including the children’s roles. The workshop revealed how flexible the casting can be.
(Kyle Brenn as Billy McPherson, NYMF)
“With an upbeat score and witty lyrics… a new musical that appeals to the inner child in all of us.”
“OLIVER meets ANNIE meets Charles Busch meets Disney meets THE SOUND OF MUSIC in this absurd Catholic romp of a delightful, irreverent, charming and truly original new musical. Hysterical. With humor aimed at both kids and adults. Blessed be the creators that can cause such merriment!”
“The Kid Who Would Be Pope is a fun-filled 90 minutes that will remind you of your school days... when everything was simple and magic made anything possible.”
Tom Megan (right) and Jack Megan (left)