Vicky & Frank has been optioned for development by Joey Parnes Productions. Please contact the Parnes Office 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. It is now in development by eight-time Tony Award winning producer Joey Parnes.

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 and the limited series JonBenet to Paramount+ (see announcement here). 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 the just-opened The Ladder, which features a branching narrative and stars Jordan Belfi of Entourage and Tony Revolori of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Tommy also co-created Mother of Frankenstein, a 15-hour 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

Devin Cortez (Off-Broadway: Americano at New World Stages)

* Cast and Crew listed here is as of the most recent reading in May ‘24 at Open Jar Studios.