Project Title: Unrequited: A New Musical

Biographical Statement
Omar Almakki is an actor, singer, dancer, and writer, originally from West Lafayette, Indiana. He loves Broadway musicals as well as working on Shakespeare. Omar aims to work as an actor either in Chicago or New York in the future, while developing his skills as a writer of both plays and musicals. Omar is also interested in potentially starting and DMing a D&D Podcast in the future.

Project Statement
Originally inspired by John Green novels and the concept of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, I set out to write a musical with two clear goals: first, the subversion of the classic storytelling trope in comedies where the protagonist always ends up with the girl of his dreams, and second, the deconstruction of the writing advice that the moment in the plot that you are writing about should be one of the most important moments in every character’s life. I wanted to write a story where one of the characters explicitly almost seemed to not want to engage with the story – that they had other things going on outside the scope of the narrative that were more important to them than participating in the story being told.

This led me to what I’ve written now, using what I’ve learned from the amazing Scott Elmegreen. A full-length musical entitled “Unrequited.” Based very loosely on my own high school experiences, I tell the story of a group of friends grappling with what the senior year of high school, and leaving the people they’ve spent the last 4 years with, means, while also looking at when obsession with love turns unhealthy, and why friendship is the most important relationship there is. I think one of the things that really resonates about this show is how hard it is for teenagers to be vulnerable, and how to them – every moment is the most important moment. While the current times didn’t allow for a full staged production of this show, I gathered 7 of my friends to do a lowkey Zoom reading and became not only writer and actor, but sound and video designer/editor as well, something that I am not that skilled at.

My lovely and talented cast:
HUNTER: Omar Almakki
LORIENNE: Hope Gundlah
JEREMY: Zander Galluppi
MARIA: Aliza Oppenheim
TEJA: Alisa Boland
CONRAD: Alexander Wiecking
ALLIE: Tess Gundlah
RANDY: Elizabeth Ombrellaro

Stage Directions Read By: Omar Almakki