a new musical by
Yuriko Shibata (music) and Andrew Strano (book&lyrics)
SKIN
SKIN is an elemental, impressionistic window into a world of yearning, queer identity, and parts of who we are that we so savagely cut ourselves off from,
SKIN tells the story of Cath, Ed and their adult child Siobh as the tide of memory washes over them, threatening to reveal the secrets Cath has kept for years.
Rattlestick workshop production photos
Developmental History
June 2022:
January 2022:
December 2021:
October 2021:
May 2021:
May 2021:
April 2021:
December 2020:
November 2020:
July 2020:
April 2020:
SKIN workshop production was presented at Off-Broadway Rattlestick Theater as a part of the Global Forms Theater Festival.
SKIN was selected for the semifinalists for the Eugene O'Neill Theater’s 2022 National Musical Theater Conference.
SKIN was featured on Music Theatre Radio’s “Follow Light Spot Radio” .
We workshopped, rehearsed and presented “Songs from SKIN”, featuring 4 singers and a band of 5 to a sold out audience as a concert. We were selected as members of the NYFA City Artist Corps, and given funding to present “Songs From SKIN”, a selection of songs from the musical.
SKIN underwent a developmental reading through Tisch, featuring U.S. actors and demos made by leading Australian recording artists. This was presented online.
Under the mentorship of Tony Award winning book writer and lyricist Rachel Sheinkin, Mel Marvin (an alumni of the National Music Theatre Conference), and Robert Lee, we completed a draft of the full length piece in May of 2021.
Songs from a developmental draft were workshopped and featured on the radio show Tin Pan Alley 2, a concert Series hosted by Durra Leung and Sam Rosenblatt.
We presented a 45 minute excerpt for the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.
SKIN underwent a scene-to-song workshop at New School Broadway directed by Kent Gash, highlighting and focussing on two 15 minute excerpts of the piece.
We begin expanding our 20 minute piece into a full length musical.
SKIN began its life as a twenty minute musical, featured on “The Latest Draft” (a podcast that specifically features new musical theater).
Writers
Andrew Strano
Andrew (they/them) is a lyricist, playwright, director and performer.
Their debut show, "Nailed It!" won the Greenroom Award for Best Original Songs, and toured globally to 5-star reviews including a sold out run at the Edinburgh fringe.
Other work includes "Jack of Two Trades” (Jeanne Pratt Artist in Residence musical theatre commission), "Voyagers" (commissioned by the Wagga Wagga Civic Theatre, recipient of the City of Melbourne 2020 arts grant), “Skin” (featured on “The Latest Draft“ musical theatre podcast and “Tin Pan Alley 2”), “STARSONG” (Rattlestick playwright’s theatre, SoundBites shortlist) and the song “Space” which was featured in the Lincoln Centre’s “Broadway’s future Songbook”.
Andrew is a graduate of the VCAs M.A. (Writing for Performance) and the NYU Tisch graduate musical theatre writing MFA program, and was awarded the 2019 Victorian Fulbright Scholarship, the 2020 Schubert foundation scholarship, the 2021 Peerce Scholarship, a major Mike Walsh Fellowship, a PPCA performer’s trust foundation grant, an American Australian Association Arts Grant, and the George Fairfax Memorial Award.
Andrew studied theatrical improvisation with the iO theater Chicago in 2014, and has taught writing, singing, acting and improvisation all over the world.
Yuriko Shibata
Yuriko Shibata is a Japanese composer, orchestrator, musical director, pianist, copyist, and dramatist living and working in New York City. Her specialty is creating beautiful, specific melodies to communicate the emotions of the characters, transcending language to speak right to the audience’s hearts. Her work includes the musical SKIN, which had an Off-Broadway workshop production debut at Rattlestick Theater in NYC. SKIN was one of the semi-finalists of O’Neil Theater’s 2022 National Music Theater Conference. Yuriko has also had her works presented at prominent NYC venues like Don’t Tell Mama, Green Room 42, and Lincoln Centre. She has directed music for the movie, “Jesus”, which won the Kutxabank-New Directors Award category of the San Sebastián Festival in Spain.
She holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition from Tokyo College of Music and an MFA in Musical Theater Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts. As of now, she’s attending BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.