Team Establishes Roots for New Musical

Carnegie Mellon University "Birds and Beansprouts" dates back to Joe Young's first year at CMU - Creating a new musical is a years-long process. Broadway shows that originated at Carnegie Mellon University like John-Michael Tebelak's "Godspell" and Stephen Schwartz's "Pippin," or even "In the Heights," which Lin-Manuel Miranda drafted at Wesleyan University, began life as student projects. A team of recently graduated and current Carnegie Mellon University students hope the musical "Birds and Beansprouts" will follow a similar path. Joe Young started writing the show as a play during his first year at CMU. "Birds and Beansprouts" is an homage to his home state of Oregon and follows the story of Shaylee, an adopted girl ready to begin college as a songwriter. Shaylee is named for and loosely based on a close friend of Young's, and the story draws from Young's experience as an adopted child. "There are a lot of stories about adoption from the adoptive parents' perspective or the birth parent's perspective, but not the child's," said Young, who is based in Bend, Oregon.