This Guy Loves Musicals!
A new theater-centered club has joined Arcadia’s campus, and it is none other than Off Book Productions. Off Book is a club centered around student-led and operated shows, giving opportunities to students who want more experience acting, designing, directing, choreographing, music directing, and so much more. Their first show they are putting on is a production of StarKid Productions’ “The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals.” The performance will be brought to the stage for Arcadia this coming March 2026.
The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals is a horror comedy musical centered around Paul, who (as the title suggests) hates musicals, and his reaction as his world slowly devolves into the thing he fears most. StarKid Productions, which began as a group of college theater students writing and producing their own show, entitled “A Very Harry Potter Musical,” which went viral and opened a space for theater to move online. It starred Darren Criss, also a founding member of StarKid, as Harry Potter, who would later join the cast of “Glee,” and win a Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Musical for “Maybe Happy Ending” on Broadway. StarKid is also credited with many other viral moments, such as “I don’t really wanna do the work today.” StarKid provides accessible theater with virtual tickets to shows and videos of performances uploaded to YouTube, free to watch. StarKid also just announced that The Guy Who Doesn’t Like Musicals (arguably their most popular and well-known show) will be coming to the West End.
I have the honor of assistant directing and playing the role of Charlotte in the musical, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s both a dream show and a dream role of mine. I was always educated on how much it takes to put on a show, but learning about it, seeing it, and running it are very different stories. As one of the only seniors working on the project, I have donned many hats during our rehearsal process, and it has shed light on how important some of the behind-the-scenes stuff is. You never think about who makes the schedule until you’re in the Great Room past midnight, trying to sort out when to learn music for a song titled “La Dee Dah Dah Day.”
This show has had a lot of support, made possible by a GoFundMe started by club president Mikayla Monclova ’28 in order to purchase the rights for the show. It’s been beautiful to see students stepping up or volunteering for roles, and families and friends donating to help make this dream possible. I strongly encourage the Arcadia Community to come out for this production, and I can’t wait to see what Off Book Productions does in the future.
Check out the Off Book Productions Instagram here.
