Goodbye Despair Musical & MORE! Twisted Minds 2025

From the creators of Hope, Despair, Musical!, Burr: A New Musical Revue, Arkhamites! and more comes a new season of content blasting through the stratosphere all the way to your eyeholes!

Twisted Minds Theater is a community of artists and performers originally founded at Ithaca College in 2023. It has produced original full-length musicals, cast albums, digital productions, and a plethora of other weird and exciting projects. Our shows have attracted 1M+ views on TikTok and 150k+ views on YouTube.

In our efforts to go bigger and better with every new production, we are hoping to bring to you our most explosive year yet, most prominently featuring our latest mainstage show, Goodbye Despair Musical.

The latest entry in the Despair Musical series, Goodbye Despair is a musical parody written by Sam Wurdemann and Zachary Lawrence largely inspired by the second mainline entry in the Danganronpa franchise. With original music and a laugh-out-loud script, GDM is set to be our biggest show ever, with an incredible cast and crew to boot.

On top of our three live performances and our proshot to be released sometime this year, we also hope to record and produce a cast recording featuring all the original music from the show, plus some never-before-seen BONUS TRACKS including bonus content and cut songs from the show! Your donation will go to paying our producers, engineers, and instrumentalists to achieve the quality we're looking for!

Your donation will also go towards the development of Twisted Minds's first ever completely original production, Changing Affairs! A one-act comedy, written by Natalie Fadlon and Sam Wurdemann, Changing Affairs features three performers who swap parts during the show at the push of a button! The resulting chaos is a hilarious half-hour romp you will not want to miss!

From Despair Girls Musical to the Hope Despair Musical Staged Reading, we have a cavalcade of additional content set for 2025, and your contribution will ALSO help to make these possible!

As a reward for reaching our goals/stretch goals, Twisted Minds is also VERY excited to announce: The Back2Back2Back Mini-Musical Extravaganza! Three short musical adventures parodying some of your favorite worlds!

$2,500: Back Together, A Five Nights at Freddy's Mini-Musical Parody

(Book by Eloise Mae, Music/Lyrics by Sam Wurdemann)

$4,000: Back to the Falls: A Gravity Falls Mini-Musical Parody

(Book by Olivia Celenza & Molly Dubner, Music/Lyrics by Sam Wurdemann)

$5,000: Back to Danganronpa: A Killing Harmony Mini-Musical Parody

(Book by Natalie Fadlon & Zachary Lawrence, Music/Lyrics by Sam Wurdemann)

(Yes, we will do it)

Finally, our top donor for the campaign will have the privilege of receiving a song of any kind free of any additional charge written by Sam Wurdemann!*

Our team is at a critical point in the company's history! Your donation may shape the future of Twisted Minds as a whole. We're excited like we cannot put into words to bring these stories to life, and we preemptively thank you for taking a step to join us on our ride! New, independent theater thrives on engagement with its community! We couldn't do it without you!

-The Twisted Minds Operations Team