Program

Band Members

 Flute 

Tenor Sax, Flute 

Clarinet, Bass Clarinet 

Bari Sax, Bass Clarinet 

Trumpet 

Trombone 

Trombone 

Drum Set 

Piano

Conductor

Director’s Note

First of all I would like to express my appreciation to the cast, design, management, and creators of SHH!…(The Library Musical). This production has been a few years in the making and I feel really lucky to join in and help put David García Saldaña and Alex Lee’s vision on stage. I first worked with David when he composed original music and created a sound design for Macbeth in 2015. We then collaborated on Sherlock Through the Looking Glass, with him again composing original music and creating a sound scape. I told him then if he ever wrote a musical, I would love to work on it. Little did I know that he and Alex were doing just that. In 2021, Alex, David and I met to try to create a Zoom workshop of the show while in quarantine. Although it wasn’t approved by the department, it led to us setting this workshop this year. As our division and department come back from quarantine, this is a perfect show. It’s humor, joy, and silliness what make it really special.

We gathered our production team and when we then had to gather a cast, we were again lucky to get these amazing performers. As a director, I am always terrified I won’t find the right cast, and this time we had numerous choices. The cast that came together from the talent that we had audition was really fun to watch in the audition, and to get to see them come together over the last 8 weeks as been truly wonderful. It is a group of highly talented, incredibly hard working, and intelligent theatre artists.

-Will Hickman, Director

Writer’s Note

In 2018, I dug into my trunk and showed Alexander Lee (composer) the book for a library musical I’d drafted named SHH! We laughed and joked about how fun it’d be to rewrite the show. Shortly afterward, William Hickman asked that infamous question: “Do you have a musical we can workshop?” Serendipity! As soon as we lied, “YES,” the lockdown commenced. The rest feels like history.

This story writes the world I dream of into existence: a place where we no longer misconstrue privileges as tale-worthy heroic traits. We each live lives containing countless epic-worthy stories, this one inspired by a childhood memory of an at-that-time scary local librarian. One day I noticed her presence missing from the familiar scene and wondered, “who was she, and where did she go?”

I recently got a chance to reconnect with that childhood librarian, Roberta. I thanked her for being so important to me, and to all the other families of South El Monte that remembered her distinct vocal drawl. That library meant to us, as libraries across America mean to countless others, a chance to free ourselves of reality and to dream better worlds.

Imagination is a powerful tool for change, not just entertainment. Today, librarians lead the charge in the epic battle for intellectual freedom. They protect these beacons of equity and accessibility. They do their jobs with little recognition, and even less public understanding. Librarians come in as many varieties as their patrons. They are the heroes of this tale. 

We present this love-letter to Librarydom—a place that asks only that we use it!

-David García Saldaña, Book & Lyrics