{"id":12639,"date":"2026-02-19T08:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/?p=12639"},"modified":"2026-02-19T22:08:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:08:53","slug":"student-musical-unites-historical-research-and-dramatic-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/2026\/02\/19\/student-musical-unites-historical-research-and-dramatic-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Student musical unites historical research and dramatic storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2540\" height=\"1304\" src=\"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series.jpg\" alt=\"The cast onstage at Studio 4 in McKee Gymnasium.\" class=\"wp-image-12640\" style=\"width:350px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series.jpg 2540w, https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series-300x154.jpg 300w, https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series-1024x526.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series-768x394.jpg 768w, https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series-1536x789.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/Mizzou-New-Play-Series-2048x1051.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2540px) 100vw, 2540px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a>The cast onstage at Studio 4 in McKee Gymnasium.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Last Friday, I attended the sold-out performance of a student-created musical that thoughtfully examines an infamous moment in American culture \u2013 and was developed through Mizzou faculty mentorship and research support.<br>\u00a0<br>Andrew Smith \u2013 a computer science and digital storytelling major with\u00a0several minors including theatre \u2013 began work on an ambitious project his first semester at Mizzou and continued over two years as a <a href=\"https:\/\/honors.missouri.edu\/scholarships-aid\/discovery-fellows\/\">Discovery Undergraduate Research Fellow<\/a> in the Honors College. In 2024, the result of Andrew\u2019s research and writing, \u201cUNABOMBER: The Musical,\u201d was awarded the Outstanding Honors College Research Award and workshopped at the Missouri Playwrights Workshop.<br>\u00a0<br>Andrew\u2019s historical drama features 17 original songs from a variety of perspectives, including the victims, investigators, family members and the perpetrator. The production explores important questions about technology, mental health and society.<br>\u00a0<br>This most recent performance featured the play\u2019s first act and\u00a0was produced as part of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calendar.missouri.edu\/coas\/event\/13768-mizzou-new-play-series\">Mizzou New Play Series<\/a>. Led by Dr. David Crespy \u2013 who also serves as Andrew\u2019s faculty mentor \u2013 the series showcases over one weekend\u00a0numerous plays created by students, faculty and alumni.\u00a0<a>This is the first musical script produced by the Mizzou New Play Series,\u00a0<\/a>which is committed to presenting the completed stage reading next year.<br>\u00a0<br>Congratulations to Andrew on his achievement, along with the show\u2019s director, Andrew Moon, and all our talented Mizzou playwrights and performers.<br>\u00a0<br>\u2014 Mun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Friday, I attended the sold-out performance of a student-created musical that thoughtfully examines an infamous moment in American culture \u2013 and was developed through Mizzou faculty mentorship and research support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12639"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12651,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12639\/revisions\/12651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}