Musicals & Plays
Lyricist, Librettist & Playwright
In my stage work, I create innovative, character-driven stories about the profound human capacity for resilience, connection, and reinvention.
Marathon
A new musical currently in development
Book & Lyrics by Kara Cutruzzula
Music by Kristoffer Bjarke
Marathon is an original, full-length musical which takes place over the course of a 26.2-mile race. We are led by June, a 60-year-old first-time marathoner, who must run through her past to find her future, and a group of five diverse fellow runners searching for their own finish lines.
Marathon is a journey of endurance, hope, and finding connection in our modern world.
Marathon had a 29-hour developmental reading at Open Jar Studios on Dec. 6, 2024.
Directed by Tyrone L. Robinson, the presentation featured Liz Callaway, Thom Sesma, Ethan Carlson, Stephanie Bacastow, Tracy Sallows, and Leana Rae Concepcion.
More in Playbill, Broadway World, and Brass Ring Daily.
Listen to Kara’s guest appearance on the Many Happy Miles podcast to talk about Marathon.
Kara also wrote about developing Marathon for
Letters From May
A 10-minute musical available for licensing
Book & Lyrics by Kara Cutruzzula
Music by Kristoffer Bjarke
Letters From May tells the story of fictitious artist May Dalton and her journey from humble beginnings to fame and eventual obscurity over sixty years. May speeds through ages 22 to 82, surrounded by an ensemble of five playing characters from her life.
This through-composed piece asks the questions: What does it mean to be a creator? And what do you have to leave behind?
Available for licensing via Theatre Now New York/MTI
Letters From May was produced at the Sound Bites 10-Minute Musical Festival on May 23, 2022.
Directed by Tyrone L. Robinson, the musical featured Stephanie Bacastow, Eric Cotti, Jack Adams, Dolores Avery Pereira, and Liz Sanders.
Letters From May was first developed in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Songwriting Workshop.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Musical
An adaptation inspired by the series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino
Book & Lyrics by Kara Cutruzzula
Music by Ron Passaro
It's 1958 in New York and perfect housewife and mother Miriam "Midge" Maisel is on top of the world...until she isn't.
Created as our second-year project in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Songwriting Workshop in 2020 for educational purposes only.
Our musical ode to Maisel culminated in this digital presentation.
Featured songs include “A Perfect Life,” "B. Altman,” and “You Got the Goods.”
Fever Dreams
A time-traveling musical of crisis and catharsis
Music by Shoshana Shattenkirk
Lyrics by Kara Cutruzzula
Book by Justin Schwartz
Fever Dreams takes a surrealistic look at the ways pain, love, and loss intersect over centuries to tell the stories of four imperfect artists—illustrator, composer, singer, art therapist—and discovers that the art which binds us will ultimately heal us.
Developed at the New Musicals Lab residency at the Ferguson Center with director-in-residence Ilana Ransom Toeplitz in July 2021.
Digital presentation at Across a Crowded Room at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts on Nov. 2020.
The Eyes of Vienna
A two-character, 20-minute musical
Book & Lyrics by Kara Cutruzzula
Music by Joshua Cerdenia
An artist. An empress. An afternoon. When Elisabeth, the Empress of Austria, visits famous painter Hans Makart, neither could imagine what would happen next.
The Eyes of Vienna was produced at the Tulane Chamber Musical Festival at Tulane University in Dec. 2020.
A concert presentation was held at Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center in Sept. 2019. This musical was developed in the Across a Crowded Room program produced by the New York Public Library for Performing Arts.
Video of that presentation can be found here.
Plays
Old Hollywood
Kidnapping Oprah
Montecore
Short Plays & One-Acts
Idiom
The Brother and the Cat
George and Sally on the Moon
Flower Farm
Did You See?
Excuse Me, Mr. Brantley?
Earlybirds
I Want to Believe (in Love)
Strangers in the Night
Bigfoot Goes to Work
Dot Dot Dot
The Truelogy Episode
Monologues
“Windows”
”The Little Things”
”Kidnapping Oprah”
”Cuffing Season”
”When to Quit”