the moxie motto

Rachel and Lindsay met in a Chicago audition room in early 2014 while Lindsay (with her former theatre company, Transcendent Ensemble) was casting musicians for an original work. Long after the show was over, the pair continued to support each other's endeavors, forming a steadfast friendship in the process. 

Lindsay had founded her own theatre company (Transcendent Ensemble) back in 2013. With Transcendent’s creative platform she experimented with the topic of sexual assault survivorship first with an Equity Showcase ensemble movement adaptation of Titus Andronicus that centered around Lavinia’s journey (NY, 2013) and secondly with a documentary theatre piece that adopted words from actual interviews of sexual assault survivors that Lindsay herself collected (Chicago, 2014).

Specifically in the case of the docu-theatre exploration Lindsay was challenged by how the delicate subject matter was received. As a survivor herself, it was important to Lindsay to find the most effective way of story-telling with this topic without overwhelming the audience with its triggering content. It wasn’t until 2016, while brainstorming over a picnic on Lake Michigan, that Rachel proposed the idea: Why not make the show a musical?

The inaugural workshop of Someone You Know (then billed as "Survivor Story: A Workshop") was performed in Chicago in 2017. In 2018, the show was workshopped in Barcelona, Spain at Eòlia Conservatory, where Rachel was working as a teaching artist. There they learned that Someone You Know's story was relatable across cultures because of the universal language of music. That's when Lindsay and Rachel knew they had something special.

Lindsay and Rachel have always been driven to create their own work. Both women share a passion for telling female-driven stories using the art of music and ensemble movement. Neither of them had written a full-length musical before, but in true moxie fashion, the ladies dove into creating something they felt was important and much needed. Through their evolvement into a team with common creative goals they co-founded moxie productions- a new home for their creative endeavors together.