Arcadia Off-Book’s Production of The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals
The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals is a horror comedy musical by StarKid Productions, written by Nick and Matt Lang with music and lyrics by Jeff Blim. It follows Paul, who notoriously hates musicals, as the town of Hatchetfield falls victim to an apocalyptic event, one where everyone begins to sing and dance as though they are in a musical. This is the first production put on by Arcadia’s new club, Arcadia Off-Book Productions (hard to believe with three sold-out shows!), founded by Mikayla Monclova ’28, who also served as the director for The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals.
I had the honor of playing Charlotte, an anxious and distracted but sweet coworker of Paul’s, and serving for a time on the production team as assistant director. This production took a lot of time and dedication, and was entirely student-run. Everyone from the production team, to the cast, the sound, the lights, the costumes, audience services, even the social media team, and photos were all done by students. The dedication and support from the rest of the Theater Program and adjacent communities for The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals and Arcadia Off-Book itself lend themselves to exactly how talented, ambitious, and supportive the students are.
A GoFundMe was started at the start of the 2025-2026 school year in order to receive the funds to buy the rights to the show, and any additional money made was used as the budget for props and costumes. Tickets were free of charge, but there was an opportunity to donate money. All donations from The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals went to the Nationalities Service Center, an organization that provides support to individuals and families to navigate a new country with hope and agility. All in all, about $300 was raised. Mikayla speaks in her Director’s Note about the importance of theater being a place to bring people together and give a chance to feel emotions we may suppress or reflect, and sometimes serves as a much-needed chance to breathe, and say “thank you to everyone who made this possible!”
The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals is one of my favorite musicals, and Charlotte was an all-time dream role of mine that encouraged me to express myself as an actor and grow as a vocalist, and that is what Arcadia Off-Book aims to do. I am so excited to see what they put on next!
