This month, audiences can catch a variety of musicals on stage in the Indianapolis area, among them “The King and I” at Beef & Boards Dinner Theater, “Little Shop of Horrors” at Indiana Repertory Theatre, “Anastasia” at Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre, and “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” at the Murat Theatre.

These are all presented as finished, polished products — which is what audiences expect and should expect when they buy a ticket and take a seat. 

That’s very different from what audiences should expect when they take a seat at a one-time-only offering from Discovering Broadway, the Indianapolis-based brainchild of producer Joel Kirk.

Rather than reveal a finished product, Discovering Broadway gives an early look at musicals that are still in development. 

Kirk and company sift through stacks of submissions from theater creators in search of gems that show promise. One of the goals is to help those theater artists see where their creation is now and what it needs to get to the next level. That’s done by bringing top performing talent to the table and presenting the in-the-works piece in front of a live audience a critically safe distance from New York. 

“Coming to Indiana was so essential for the writing and development of our piece,” said Alex Petti, composer and co-lyricist for “The Trouble with Dead Boyfriends.” “The community embraced us with open arms, spoke candidly about our show, and provided us valuable insights that have brought our rewrites to the next level.”

[Indy Actors’ Playground perform scripts they’re reading for the first time.]

“The Trouble With Dead Boyfriends”

Petti’s work was the subject of an intensive writers retreat facilitated in November 2023 by Discovering Broadway, followed by a private reading in New York. The result of that work was offered to the public in two concert performances April 20 at the Tobias Theater at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, one was at 5 p.m. with tickets ranging from $39 to $69, and another showing was at 8 p.m. with a VIP price option of $169 that included an afterparty with the cast and creatives. 

Leading the cast is Barrett Wilbert Weed, a dynamic performer best known for originating the role of Janis in Broadway’s “Mean Girls” (and bringing the house down with the song “I’d Rather Be Me”).

Weed is the latest in an already impressive parade of Broadway talent Kirk has found to give voice to these projects. Among them: Adam Pascal (“Rent,” “Elton John’s Aida”) played a key role here in a musical version of “Hamlet” and Jessie Mueller (Tony-award winner and star of “Waitress” and “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”) was featured in Discovering Broadway’s “Five Points.”

The force behind the scenes is Kirk, whose roots in Indy go deep. His love of music and theater gestated at Carmel High School and Ball State University. An internship in New York took him to New Dramatists, a leading Manhattan-based playwrights organization, and he stuck around. “Ball State was very supportive, knowing it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn hands-on,” he said. 

Years of directing off- and off-off Broadway theaters followed (including, full disclosure, producing and directing an industry reading of a play of mine). Hosting monthly pizza-fueled readings in his apartment further helped him connect to even more artists and grow his interest in helping playwrights develop their work. 

“It was a signpost toward what Discovering Broadway could be,” he said. “‘You can do this,’ it said to me, ‘You can do this in your hometown.’” 

Which is exactly what he did, meeting with everyone he could to drum up support — and financing. 

“I remember keeping an Excel spreadsheet of all the people I met and who they recommended I meet and it was something crazy like 600 meetings in four months. Now I can’t physically fathom it but I was very young. There’d be an 8 a.m. meeting, a 10, a lunch, a two o’clock, a dinner and a cocktail reception.” 

“The Devil Wears Prada”: From Indy to London

Very quickly, he worked out a deal to host a workshop for the musical version of “The Devil Wears Prada” which, when it opens in London this fall, will be the first Discovery Broadway project to move on to a full production.

“I think people were suspicious of a kid coming on hot with a really big ambitious idea. I think people should be suspicious of a kid coming on hot with a really big ambitious idea,” he said. 

But not having a large organizational infrastructure proved an advantage. “The bigger the institution, the harder it is to turn the ship,” he noted. And the slower to react to an out-of-the-blue project.

Discovering Broadway, with a staff of two (plus paid interns and a board of directors), is nimble enough to stay open to such surprises. 

Kirk is now sifting through the approximately 100 submissions Discovering Broadway has received. Of those, he’ll choose five or so to present to his show committee, consisting of board members and artists. They listen to demo recordings of the work-in-progress and he tells them, “Pretend we are producers.” What follows is always a lively debate. But he’s also open to things like “The Devil Wears Prada,” which he pulled together in about two weeks.

“The Trouble with Dead Boyfriends” is one he brought to the committee without expecting it to fly with them. It’s about a trio of young women who use a magic undying love spell to summon their ideal prom dates…with unexpected results. After hearing it, Kirk thought:  “I love this. I think it’s fun. It’s smart. It’s goofy. But I didn’t think anyone was going to like it. But it brought the meeting to a halt after just four songs and we started talking about casting.”

As for what’s next for Discovering Broadway? That depends on what Kirk and company find in the submissions pile. Or what projects arrive unexpectedly as the reputation for this unique project grows.