Kieran McCabe, Grant Brown, and Lauren Vogel 

Sitting mid-house beside stacks of O’Neill, O’Hara and Parks, I can discern what I think are three numbers to come: one piano bop from a trio, one mic’d with a looping board and beatboxing and…well maybe that third one was just sing-songy conversation. Random bleats, call-outs and quiet nodding affirmations fill every corner of the Understudy in Andersonville with enthusiasm and anticipation. It’s a musical theater crowd, after all.

The Chicago Theatre Composers Club, organized by Instrumental Theatre Company, convened on August 11. I snuck in pre-doors and caught an earful of backstage cacophony layered with the hubbub of things to come, communities bubbling and forming from shared chords. The group’s enthusiasm for show-and-tell (both to show and to watch the show) continued through two acts of fresh work in the sold-out cabaret featuring short pieces by Chicago composers and lyricists. The club’s meeting, they hope the first of many, emerged from an open-submissions policy that resulted in a lottery draw because of the volume of submissions.

Emblazoned across the promotional banner for the event is the call to action, “let composers rock,” and the evening made good on this promise. There was, unsurprisingly, excellent work in the mix that provoked standing ovations and gobsmacked tears. A surprise to me, though, is that nearly every piece out of a large range of styles and interests had pursuable merit. Perhaps it’s because of the dearth of events like the Chicago Theatre Composers Club, but the evening really showed me just how many excellent writers working simultaneously there are in this city, in both rehearsal rooms and their own living rooms. If not everyone can get a full production, would that they could, we can at least enjoy their work and show them how impactful it is in settings like this one. What Instrumental Theatre has created is both a think tank and a showcase, a community gathering and, for anyone looking to produce new work, a good opportunity to scout.

Instrumental’s first events were the 2025 Mixtape New Play Festival of “musically-inspired plays” and a fully-staged production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” as a “site-specific play with music.” After these collaborative productions, founding artistic director Skylar Grieco says, “we were trying to think of ways for us to continue investing in Chicago-based composers and writers developing new work and to create opportunities to grow our relationships with them in a way that felt like a lighter lift than full workshop productions. So we figured we would take the idea of an open mic from the live music scene but tailor it specifically to the people writing original music for theater.”

Satya Chávez

The club’s evening ran with a produced look but open mic-style delivery. A few Shakespeare titles, no doubt chosen in part for their adaptability, stood out from the list. I could discern at least a few other very clear influences and references including works by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jason Robert Brown, Anaïs Mitchell, Mel Brooks, and, of course, multiple Stephen Sondheims. Original narrative conceits coexisted with the Shakespeares, including medical drama, kitschy commercial and one “Sapphic Mexican Mulan” (direct quote), Satya Chávez’s looping board solo that brought the audience to its feet.

For composers including Chávez, this was their first time presenting this piece to anyone. For others, it was their first time presenting their compositions to another person, period. “I’ve been transcribing my voice memos,” L Dahline humbly reported to applause before delivering “First Fall,” a room-halting piano ballad.

The inclusion of instrumental compositions (pun intended) like Dahline’s was intentional on Instrumental’s part. “The small distinction of ‘theater composers’ matters to us,” Grieco says. The company thinks of their brand as much related to the live music scene as the theatre scene. “We want to produce plays about the human experience, and at its core the human experience involves music,” executive director Ali Foley explains. “We love musical theater. However, we want to challenge the mindset that the only way music can be used is a character bursting into song.”

The room already felt a bit like a warm hug, but the mutual support was clearest when, already into the beginning of his song, one composer’s enthusiasm knocked his keyboard around and, as it and other equipment began sliding to the floor, two audience members sprang to action to hold it up before the song had to stop. At least two more people supported the instrument or helped right the equipment as the song continued and finished unhalted with supportive whoops from the rest of the room.

The community vibe, which Grieco says is the purpose of live theater, is central to Instrumental’s aspirations for the club as much as the showcasing of successful new work. “We made the deliberate choice after ‘The Seagull’ to spend the year investing in events that build our community of artists and audiences rather than investing in producing one show after another,” Grieco explains.

“The goal is to make this recurring, and part of the community’s routine,” Foley adds, “and consistently have a way to get live feedback and trusted collaborators to ask for feedback.”

“Composing is often a lonely and isolating act of creation, and it’s important to make space for people to not only share their work but to meet other potential collaborators,” Grieco continues. “My pipe dream for this is that a composer shares something and a playwright is in the audience. And that playwright talks to the composer after and says they want to work together. Then they share again, and a director and a producer in the audience ask to meet up and hear more of their work. Then suddenly a collaboration that started in this room results in a production.” Foley summarizes, “a rising tide lifts all ships, you know?”

Brandon Jackson Baird

Whether this event is recurring or not, there’s clearly something here that needs an outlet. Every performer and audience member was equally invested even though, as some shared between sets, they weren’t all there to perform. People came for friends or genuinely to find new community, which sounds like a success. If this passionate grab bag of gems was the first incarnation and not every composer who submitted was able to get a spot, what else is waiting in the wings—or in voice memos—around Chicago? “We’re still working to discover how large the composer community is in Chicago,” says Grieco, “but it’s easily larger than you’d think.”

I was most moved by a song from Brandon Jackson Baird’s “Code,” a musical produced as a workshop through Instrumental’s Mixtape Festival last year. Mo Braithwaite delivered a performance of Baird’s song “Not Today” that was worthy of any stage in the city. When sharing my enthusiasm a bit fan-girlishly after the show and asking “what are you doing with this?” Baird sort of hopefully shrugged. I want to get it produced, he said. Other than recording the track with Braithwaite and working on the piece some more in the meantime, he’s waiting for a smart producer to say hello.

Check out Instrumental Theatre and their Instagram to see what the company has coming up. This fall, Instrumental will produce the world premiere of “The Trick of Three’s,” a new play by Annika Andersson, at LFC Center for the Arts, 4702 North Ravenswood, October 5-26.