At its surface, The Wedding Singer is a fizzy, candy-colored musical comedy—a nostalgic nod to the 1980s, filled with big hair, big emotions, and even bigger punchlines. But beneath the neon, I see something deeper: a story about heartbreak, resilience, and the raw, clumsy human longing to connect.

For me, directing The Wedding Singer wasn’t about polishing a perfect, shiny musical. It was about inviting chaos to the table—and letting the audience sit right in the middle of it.

This production leans into the beautiful contradictions of the piece: it’s both hilarious and devastating, glittering and grimy, over-the-top and achingly sincere. I wanted to create a world where the audience isn’t just watching a wedding fall apart—they are guests at the table, feeling the tension, the awkward toasts, the drunken confessions, and the heartbreak up close. This is why we chose an immersive staging: to blur the line between performer and spectator, so the audience becomes emotionally complicit in the story unfolding around them.

I’m drawn to the characters’ messy humanity. Robbie is not just a lovable underdog; he’s a man dismantled by rejection. Julia is not just the sweet girl next door; she’s caught between hope and survival. Even the comic characters—Linda, Glen, Holly—are walking survival strategies in spandex, all trying to navigate love, ambition, and self-worth in a world where romance is often just another transaction.

Stylistically, I embraced a tension between nostalgia and rawness. Yes, there are sequins, dollar bills, Jell-O shots, and a soundtrack that slaps. But there are also quiet moments of heartbreak, vulnerability, and emotional collapse. The goal was never just to stage a party—it was to stage the emotional truth underneath the party, where love teeters between performance and authenticity.

As a director, I believe theater works best when it’s both entertaining and disarming—when the audience laughs with their whole body, then unexpectedly finds themselves moved. With The Wedding Singer, I wanted people to show up for the glitter, and leave having witnessed something tender, human, and unexpectedly cathartic.

Ultimately, this show is about resilience—the human impulse to keep singing, keep loving, and keep showing up, even after the music falters. It’s a wedding, yes—but it’s also a funeral for old dreams, a revival of new ones, and a sweaty, glorious mess of everything in between.

That’s the kind of theater I love to make. That’s The Wedding Singer we made here.