LIGHTHOUSE
a new musical
music & story by Veronica Mansour
book & lyrics & story by abs wilson
WINNER of the 2024 Richard Rodgers Award
Selected musical for the Orchard Project's Summer Series (2025), selected musical for the Lucille Lortel Theatre's 121 Project (2025), WAM Collaboration Award Honored Finalist (2025), selected musical for the National Alliance of Musical Theater's Alliances's Festival of New Musicals (2024), winner of the Eugene O'Neill National Music Theater Conference (2024), selected musical for the Rhinebeck Writer's Retreat (2024), winner of Syracuse University’s New Works, New Voices developmental reading program (2024), a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill NMTC (2023), finalist for the Olney Theatre Center Vanguard Arts Fund (2023), NAMT finalist (2023), song "Runaway Girl" one of the three winners of Taylor Louderman's Write Out Loud Songwriting Contest (2023), featured in the Vanguard Theater Illuminating New Voices New Work Festival (2023), featured in New York Theatre Barn's New Works Festival (2023), with further development alongside Millikin University, St. Olaf College, and the Kayenta Arts Center. Originally developed at NYU Tisch.
LIGHTHOUSE
LIGHTHOUSE is a 6-women, fourth-wall-breaking pop country musical following our unreliable narrator "Bus," an 18 year old girl who wants nothing more than to escape her small Minnesota town.
But what Bus really wants to escape? Herself— and everything she fears she could become.
With a cast ranging from ages 18-73, LIGHTHOUSE explores anxiety and OCD, the lives of women in rural, conservative communities, and what it means to be yourself for the rest of your life. Ultimately, LIGHTHOUSE celebrates the idea that maybe, just maybe— every version of yourself is worth being.
the LIGHTHOUSE keepers
Music/Story
Veronica ("Ronnie") Mansour is a composer/lyricist/artist based in New York City and Los Angeles. She is a 2024 Jonathan Larson Grant recipient, recent nominee for a Marvin Hamlisch International Music Award (Musical Theatre Composition), selected as one of four writers for DreamWorks Theatricals, MTI & NBC Universal Emerging Writers Program, and one of three 2023 Write Out Loud Contest Winners for her song “Runaway Girl” (written with abs wilson). Current works: How to Train Your Dragon Jr. (DreamWorks Theatricals commission, JTF Australia & New Zealand 2023, Pilot Production 2023), LIGHTHOUSE (Eugene O'Neill NMTC Finalist 2023, Olney Theatre Center Vanguard Arts Fund Finalist 2023, New York Theatre Barn New Works Series 2023, Vanguard Theater New Works Festival Commission 2023, St. Olaf College World Premiere 2024, NAMT Playlist 2023, Syracuse New Works New Voices 2023) and The Dark Lady (selected for 2023 National Music Theatre Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, selected for 2023 Musical Theatre West 29-hour Reading, Syracuse New Works, New Voices Finalist 2023). Past works: CYRANO (music/lyrics, University of Notre Dame, named part of NAMT's "Other Shows You Should Know About Jukebox", NAMT Playlist, 2023), An Old Family Recipe (book/music/lyrics, Regional BroadwayWorld “Best Streaming Musical”, premiered as a film at the University of Notre Dame in the Spring of 2021), music for Zoe Howard's play, Midnight Mirage (Theatre Row-- Downtown Urban Arts Festival, placed third in the "Best Short Play" category). She holds an MFA in Graduate Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Veronica is a proud member of Maestra, BMI, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and the Dramatists Guild.
Book/Lyrics/Story
abs wilson is a playwright, lyricist, and poet. She’s a recipient of the 2024 Richard Rodgers Award, recipient of the Lucille Lortel Theatre 121 Project grant (2025), selected writer for the Orchard Project Summer Series (2025) WAM Collaboration Award Honored Finalist (2025), selected writer for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals (2024), Eugene O'Neill National Music Theater Conference winner (2024), selected writer for the musical theater Rhinebeck Writer's Retreat (2024), selected writer for Millikin University's New Musical Workshop (2025), selected writer for the Syracuse New Works New Voices program (2024), Write Out Loud Contest winner for her and Veronica Mansour's song “Runaway Girl" (2023), National Musical Theater Conference Finalist (2023), NAMT finalist (2023), recipient of the Vanguard Theater New Works Festival Commission (2023), THE SEVEN New Works winner (2023), finalist for the Olney Theater Center Vanguard Arts Fund (2023), featured on the NAMT playlist, and finalist for the David Einhorn Prize (2022). She’s had work done with Theatre Barn at Playwright’s Horizons, Kayenta Theater, Paper Kraine, the Tank, the Brick, Fusion Theater, Syracuse University, Millikin University, and St. Olaf College, with songs performed at 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, the Composers Concordance Marathon, and a play published in Some Scripts Literary Magazine. She got her MFA from NYU Tisch’s Musical Theater Writing Program and her passion for theater at the National Theater Institute’s 2020 Summer Intensive theatermaking program. abs is a member of the Dramatist's Guild, ASCAP, and Maestra. Past Works: I CRAVE THE HEAT, As Long as the Light, SPACE OVEN, All We Know of Love & Fire, HE DID IT., Dutch Kassidy & the Skydance Guy, ASTRONOMER / STAR-WEAVER., DEAD ANY WAY. Current Works: LIGHTHOUSE, RAT KING, Swamp Song, UGGO.
WHY US, WHY NOW
When we first sat down to create the midwestern, pop-country musical that has now become LIGHTHOUSE, one thing was clear: we needed to create a show about women, for women, and by women. And not just that, but a show that allows these women to be too messy, too perfect, to be warm, cold, desperate, confident, hilarious, painfully raw— and everything endlessly complex in-between. A show that creates a space for us to see ourselves and know that our story, no matter how small we've been told to believe it is? Is always worth telling.
Both of us have connections to the midwest. I grew up in Minnesota, and Veronica went to college in Indiana. And there's something a little different there than other places in the US, the food a little heartier, the people a little quieter— and the February's a little bleaker. And there's something beautiful and unique about country music that perfectly matches the heart of these rural, story-rich communities we're representing. We also wanted to earnestly explore how mental health, isolation, and the often religious communities there so shape the lives of these women. Veronica has OCD, and using a world based around my upbringing, and we wanted to see and honor women of all ages who live with these conditions and others— and let their stories live honestly onstage.
LIGHTHOUSE is, ultimately, a show about self-love— all of us are just made up of all the people around us— and those are a lot of people who need a lot of love. And so maybe, just maybe, we can find a little hope and self-understanding in that fact. Or at least a pretty kickass country musical.
