January 2026 - Movin', Groovin', Improvin'

I realize that we’re already WELL into February, but January was an absolute whirlwind, and it’s taken us this long to catch our breath so we can give you the recap. Let’s take it moment by moment:

After spending early January putting the final edits on our script & songs, we hosted the first ever full living room reading of Hijinx & Sue!!!!!!!!

After gathering some dear friends in Jessi’s living room, we ate bagels, drank boozy hot chocolate, and got to work!

Since a musical is a little more difficult to cold-read than a straight play, a few people have asked how we managed to incorporate our music into the reading. The answer is that we’re still trying to figure out the best way! We want to give everyone a feel for the music, without dragging everyone through listening to a ton of pre-recorded material. Here’s the formula we landed on:

• fully play songs that are especially plot heavy

• fully play new songs that we especially want feedback on

• play snippets of songs that may be repetitive or established songs that we didn’t especially need feedback on

• have actors read through reprises (EXCEPT if it involves multi-layered lyrics, then play through the reprise)

Watch the recap of our event on our SHINY BRAND NEW tiktok channel!!! (And follow us bc we’re gonna have a loooooooot of events to tell you about in 2026, and you don’t want to miss a thing.)

While we let our feedback digest, we took a trip up north to Jessi’s alma mater of Western Washington University, where we had the tremendous fortune of catching selections from Brian Quijada & Nygel D Robinson’s Off-Broadway sensation, Mexodus.

Mexodus concluded an incredibly successful Off-Broadway run in November 2025, and will have ANOTHER Off-Broadway run beginning in March 2026 at the Daryl Roth Theatre in NYC. Getting to hear selections from this live-looped musical about the Underground Railroad that ran to Mexico was SO worth the trip back to Bellingham.

Shout out to Western Washington University for hosting this free event as part of their annual Hip Hop Theatre weekend!!

And we can FINALLY make the big announcement: Jessi is a Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellow in Musical Theater!!!!!!

For the next eight months, Jessi will be meeting twice a month with her cohort, led by Bernardo Cubria and Christine Toy Johnson, to further develop Hijinx & Sue. This fellowship culminates in October, with the Dramatists Guild Foundation Gala in New York City.

Jessi is so honored to be representing the Pacific Northwest in this cohort of theatrical professional development.

Although it’s not Hijinx & Sue related, Jessi also recently took a trip to NYC for the premiere of her ten minute play, Maybe She Does, as part of Sapphest: NYC’s Premier Sapphic Playwriting Competition & Festival.

A very special thank you to director Reva Grimball, actors Liz Weiner and Alex Mayer, producer Marena Faye, photographer McKenna Christine Poe, and Brooklyn Art Haus. (And the BIGGEST shoutout to Ellie Boroughs for letting Jessi crash on your boneless couch in Brooklyn for a week.)

New York City is also chalk-full of other musical writing friends, so many of whom were kind enough to hang out with Jessi while she was there!

And Jessi DID do some editing on Hijinx & Sue while in NYC at the Dramatists Guild Foundation’s free workspace for theatre writers. So we can justify the NYC recap because it IS relevant to our musical.

This was very Jessi-forward, but don’t worry, Daniel’s still hard at work! He’s just behind the scenes and currently busy music directing (we’ll see you at Tacoma Little Theatre in March for Spring Awakening, and in April for the first staged reading of Hijinx & Sue!)

That wraps up January for us!!! We’ll be taking a quick breath before diving into edits over February — we’ll tell you all about them in a few weeks.

Also go Hawks 💚💙 Seattle is so back