Class of 2024, Student Managing Editor, College Editorial Team
The student-written musical ‘Strings Attached’ attempts to tackle a big question: to what forces beyond us do we owe allegiance? Or, more specifically, to whom do our strings attach?
‘Strings Attached’ is a full-length musical written by Jefferson Lind, AB’24, who graduated this spring with a dual degree in psychology and economics, with music by UChicago students Althea Li and Adrian Lo and direction by Eleni Lefakis.
It’s an homage to “The Muppets” and tells the story of Jason and Amy, a couple whose 10th anniversary and engagement is ruined—and ultimately saved—by Jason’s puppet best friend, Walter. The main characters' actions are controlled by a diabolical puppet master called The Marionettist.
More broadly, the musical is about what it means to be human and to be the master of our own futures.
Lind described the writing process as a concentrated sprint during Spring Quarter 2023, with a goal of proposing the show to University Theater (UT) for the 2023-24 school year. UT is UChicago’s student-driven theater organization, which regularly produces over 35 shows each year. It is a distinct space for creating works of theater, because it is largely student-driven. It has given UChicago students the chance to learn about and explore careers in theater since 1898. In this case, it allowed three UChicago students to produce a piece they had been working on for over a year for an audience.
“We essentially had to write a full draft of the musical in a month,” Lind said of the proposal timeline. “We completed something like 12 songs and 60 pages of script.”
The show ultimately transformed from a proposal in the spring, to a workshop the following fall, to a fully-produced UT show that ran from April 18-20. Working with UT allowed for Lind’s vision for ‘Strings Attached’ to come to fruition, with a weekend-long run at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts’ Theater West, costumes, props and a full set.
‘Strings Attached’ featured student actors, stage managers, scenic designers and more.
Joseph DePaula, who played the main character’s friend, Walter, was part of the original read-through of the show last spring, so he has seen the show from start to finish. A rising third-year student majoring in history and medieval studies, he has been involved in UT since he started at UChicago, currently serves on the UT committee and plans to stay involved throughout his time in the College.
For Robert Stimpson, who played Dallas Richman—an evil oil baron who crosses paths with Jason, Amy and Walter when his plans to steal the oil under Niagara Falls threaten to ruin Jason and Amy’s engagement plans—‘Strings Attached’ was his first UChicago theater experience. A rising second-year sociology and comparative human development double major, Stimpson got involved in the production through a mutual friend, and said the experience has convinced him to stay involved in student productions on campus.
“I get to become an animal and beat a man up, which is very fun,” he laughed. “I haven’t done much fight choreography in the past, so that was cool to learn.”
Spencer O’Brien, a rising fourth-year Media Arts and Design major who played Jason, the main character, said that embodying his character forced him to learn skills and mannerisms that are outside of his comfort zone.
“I never really slid on my knees before, and now that’s a big part of what I do every day,” O’Brien said.
Lind said he learned about what musical theater writing looks like in practice, and the collaboration required to take a show from the page to the stage.
“I learned a lot about how to satisfy the interests of lots of different collaborators,” said Lind. “Somebody comes into it from a direction perspective, and another person comes into it from a composition perspective, and another person from a choreography perspective. You can’t really learn it any other way than to be in situations where you’re figuring out which of these interests to balance and prioritize.”
Student-driven productions also allow students to try new things and give them the chance to discover new pathways to a career in theater. For example, Emma Linderman, who graduated this spring with a Theater and Performance Studies and Cinema and Media Studies double major, has mostly acted in UT shows, but chose to work as a scenic designer for ‘Strings Attached.’
Working in theater from a new vantage point proved to be a transformative experience for Linderman, which has opened up new possibilities for what a career in theater might look like for her.
In addition to opening up new career possibilities, Linderman also said she enjoyed meeting the challenges of the show and working with a student production budget to produce a professional quality show.
“Our main thing that we built was this platform that the marionettist is gonna stand on,” Linderman said. “And we’re storing a bunch of things underneath it. We also have a platform that we use as a bed. We didn’t want there to be a lot of transitions where no one was on stage, so we wanted to have things that could be stored under the bed.”
Beyond all the professional experiences being a part of UT and working on ‘Strings Attached’ has offered students, the student performers and writers said they were proud of the community they formed together and grateful that UT has been a formative part of their college experience.
“Most of my friends are from UT or performances,” Linderman said. “It’s definitely been a community. I came into college interested in theater but not thinking I was gonna do as much of it as I did, and I did a lot of it.”
