5 Broadway Musicals That Shaped Something Cheeky
Which one is your favorite?
In case you missed it, my latest rom com Something Cheeky is now available! You can nab in print, audio, and ebook. Details here.
During my sophomore year in college, I made the (perhaps not very wise) decision to drop my computer information systems major and focus solely on theatre. I also hid this fact from my parents for another semester or so. I loved the coding classes but was completely bored by the business classes that taught us how to make a profit at almost any cost.
I graduated with a major in costume design for the stage and worked professionally in various regional theatres after college. Theatre is what brought my partner and I to the DC area. While I’m no longer working in this industry, I’m still a big theatre nerd.
I try to see as much theatre as our budget allows—which is not often. DC and Baltimore have a thriving theatre scene—as much as it can be after the pandemic lockdown. I’m privileged to have friends who still work in the industry and offer me comps or low-cost tickets. I also try to stay up on theatre news via
who writes .The heart of the Something Cheeky is how are we, as Vietnamese Americans, are allowed to tell our stories. I chose to use the backdrop of my feminist retelling of Vietnamese Cinderella—but as a rock musical—to tell Derek and Zoe’s love story. As they fall in love, they’re forced to deal with how a white artistic director wants the musical to be versus staying true to their vision. Much like publishing, there’s a paradox between creating art versus being “marketable.”
I left theatre industry for multiple reasons, but the main one was that I felt stifled. At the time (well before Hamilton) colorblind casting wasn’t common. I was tired of working on productions with mostly white casts about stories that I couldn’t relate to. I didn’t know where to look or go to find the type of work that would fulfill me. The microaggressions I experienced also turned me off from working in theatre.
But even with all its faults, I’ll never break up with theatre. My love for musicals meant that I had the pleasure of including of musical Easter eggs in Something Cheeky. I wanted to share a handful of musicals that inspired various parts of this novel.
5 Musicals That Shaped Something Cheeky
Into the Woods music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine: Best friends-to-lovers Zoe and Derek reconnect after years apart. They reminisce about their college production of this fractured fairy tale musical. She designed its Southern-and-vampire inspired costumes, including Derek’s, who played the Wolf. The memory of him in a spandex suit with a big fluffy tail and a codpiece makes Zoe a bit flustered, but poor Zoe doesn’t quite understand why yet.
SIX the Musical by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss: This heart pounding musical is basically a ninety-minute rock concert about Henry VIII’s six wives. I walked out of the performance completely inspired by how they modernized the story. I originally conceived my fictional musical with rock music, but seeing this show live showed me how exhilarating it could be.
Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda: I couldn’t discuss modern musicals without mentioning this cultural zeitgeist. While I love Miranda’s clever rap lyrics, his ballads are my favorite songs here. Seeing Asian American Phillipa Soo sing “Burn” as Eliza Hamilton was heart wrenching, which is how I imagined Zoe felt when she believed that Derek betrayed her.
KPOP the Musical book by Jason Kim and music and lyrics by Helen Park and Max Vernon: I’m not as familiar with this musical as it didn’t stay on Broadway very long. A majority of the songs are in Korean, which received harsh criticism from a white NY Times reviewer. This affirmed how the artistic director in Something Cheeky pushed to whitewash Derek and Zoe’s production. KPOP also inspired me to make several songs in Vietnamese for my fictional musical.
Rent by Jonathan Larson: It’s one of the first professional musicals I saw live and one of my favorites. I often think of the song “Glory” where Roger sings about writing one great song to leave his mark on the world before he dies (he’s HIV positive). I think this is also a similar anthem that drives Derek as he writes and directs an all-Asian production of Vietnamese Cinderella.
Want more? Grab a copy of Something Cheeky!
I almost forgot to mention that the audiobook is narrated by VyVy Nguyen and David Huynh, both Vietnamese American performers!
Something Cheeky is available at most major retailers. (affiliate links)
Loyalty Books and other indie bookstores
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Do you have a favorite musical? If you’ve read Something Cheeky, what other musical references did you catch?
Fellow romance writer/reader here, and I did not know that we had a theater background in common! I never worked professionally, although I've done more school and community productions than I can count and I still perform every once in a while if the opportunity is right (I played Rosie in Mamma Mia just before the pandemic and more recently was Calliope in Xanadu). My daughter worked professionally as a child, though, doing regional theater here in CT later touring the US as Jane Banks in the first national tour of Mary Poppins. Navigating the biz as a "stage mom" was a whole new experience. Like you, I have written books with the theater as a backdrop, but I really look forward to reading Something Cheeky and getting your perspective on own voices in the theater, something I know my daughter, who got her BFA in musical theater and is focusing on the writing side of the business now, is very concerned about as well.