End of the Road : The Musical

End of the Road: The Musical was born from the idea of shaping a true and little known event in American history, the 1982 secession of Key West from the US, into a full length musical.  Grounded in the tradition of classic “book” musicals, the libretto and score are infused with the fresh vitality of current contemporary sensibilities and a unique beach rock sound.


Michael Tahaney, a professor of Theatre Arts at East Carolina University, was both teacher and mentor to Tyler Griffin, a BFA Theatre Arts major, in 2012 when they first had the idea.  Fast forward several years; Tyler has graduated and Tahaney & Griffin have emerged as a writing team partnership.  End of the Road has already had several readings and workshops for script and score development.  The piece is poised for the next step, a fully produced stage production.  

 Here's where YOU come in... our project has already received interest from theatre festivals and regional theaters across the country, but we need your help rasing capital for critical resources required for production.  End of the Road was recently selected to be the national headliner for the St. Lou Fringe Theatre Festival in August 2018!  We’re honored to have been selected to headline among national entries.  In the St. Lou Fringe venue each selected shoe/event is self-produced, meaning we are responsible to raise production funds ourselves to cover scoring, orchestrations, travel, cast salaries, sets, lighitng, costumes and much more.   We think we have a really fun night at the theatre and would appreciate your help in geting the show on stage in front of audiences. 


Once funds are raised to get End of the Road prepared for production, Tahaney & Griffin will be able to step back and allow other artists such as; directors, actors, singers, set designers, costume designers, and musicians opportunities to share their talents in a collaborative, creative theatre process.  (One of the perks of this project is it may lead to the potential employment of a variety of creative artists as noted above).
Tahaney & Griffin have over 40 years combined experience in Musical Theatre performance, however, neither have formal training writing for Musical Theatre.  Writing and seeking outlets for an original work is a new artistic venture in both our theatre careers.  The End of the Road project provides an avenue for this creative team to further develop skills as composers, lyricists, and book writers through applied process.  How will we know if we’ve achieved success?  Well… when the Tony nominations are announced for the 2019/20 season we’ll be among them.  Why not dream big?  For now, the focus is getting the show ready and the funds raised for the summer 2018 St. Louis, MO premiere. 


Thanks again for your support of not only the arts, but for us as well.