Vicky & Frank has been optioned for development by Joey Parnes Productions. Please contact the Parnes Office for information on the future of the show or to discuss joining the producing team.

Vicky & Frank is a new gothic musical comedy loosely based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with book, music, and lyrics by New York Times bestselling novelist Tommy Wallach. It tells the story of Vicky Godwin, a brilliant and strong-willed 17-year-old science nerd who happens to be dabbling in reanimating the dead. When Vicky petitions her school to let her take shop class instead of home ec, she sets off a chain of events that culminates in her killing (accidentally) and reanimating (purposely) her long-time crush—high-school hottie Frank—only to discover he’s gay. What follows is a macabre and radical reimagining of the most famous science-fiction story ever told, complete with murderous monster dogs, righteous proto-feminists, and a full-on torches-and-pitchforks climax.

Vicky & Frank was a finalist for the 2023 NAMT Festival of New Musicals, putting it in the top 20 entries from a record-setting application pool of 575.

Creative Team*

Tommy Wallach (Book, Music, & Lyrics)

Tommy has published five YA novels with Simon & Schuster, including We All Looked Up, which spent over six months on the New York Times Best Sellers list. As a screenwriter, he sold the feature film Delilah to Sony (in development; dir. Alexis Ostrander) and the limited series JonBenet to Paramount+ (in development, not yet announced). His musical TV pilot PV & Franny was recently recorded as a podcast starring Fred Armisen and Ty Burrell, who are attached to the project as director and producer respectively.

As a singer-songwriter, Wallach was signed to Decca/Universal records and has performed at the Guggenheim Museum and Joe’s Pub. Wallach also owns Hatch Escapes, creators of Lab Rat, the top-ranked escape room in LA, and also Mother of Frankenstein, a narrative tabletop game lauded by such luminaries as Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood and available at all 2,000 Barnes & Noble stores nationwide.

Rachel Dart (Director)

Rachel is a New York-based director and educator. Favorite credits include Coming Soon: A New Rock Musical at Z Space (featured on the SF Chronicle’s Best of Theater 2022 list); IVANKAPLAY at Theatre503 in London and at Edinburgh Fringe; Dance Nation (regional premiere, Nashville Story Garden); associate director, Summer, 1976 on Broadway. New plays, musicals, and classics at, among many others, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown, and EST/Youngblood. Proud member of SDC.

Joey Parnes Productions (Lead Producer & General Management): Joey Parnes has over thirty Broadway credits as a producer, executive producer, or general manager, including the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Revival Hello, Dolly!, Meteor Shower, 1984, A Doll’s House, Part 2, Bright Star, the Tony Award-winning Best Play The Humans, The Glass Menagerie, the Tony Award-winning Best Play Revival Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge, Shuffle Along, Blackbird, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder, Betrayal, the Tony Award-winning Best Play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Merchant of Venice, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Revival HAIR, Equus, and he worked on the original production of Dreamgirls. He served as the Executive Producer (1994-1996) and the Interim Executive Director (2011) of The Public Theater as well as the Coordinating Producer of the Tony Awards (2001-2008) and, since 2012, as the Producer of the Drama Desk Awards.

Cast*

VICKY

Kuhoo Verma (Film: Plan B, Murder Mystery 2, The Big Sick; Theater: Dave Malloy’s Octet)

Vicky’s dearest desire is to be a scientist, but 1950s America makes it tough…so she’s carrying out some secret reanimation experiments in her garage. Like you do.

FRANK

Michael Thomas Grant (TV: Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist)

Frank is the resident dreamboat at the school. He turns out to be a rebel with a cause: he’s a gay boy growing up in Middle America in the middle of the 20th century.

MIKE

Clifton Samuels (Broadway: Follies, Amazing Grace; Film: Hail, Caesar)

Vicky’s father: He’s a single dad and a cop. He begins to suspect his daughter might be involved in the strange murders sweeping the community.

ENSEMBLE

Joyce Meimei Zheng (Rutgers: Three Sisters, The Tragedy of Antony & Cleopatra)

* Cast and creative team lists reflect previous readings and are subject to change