> recent & upcoming theater productions

Click here to see a list of
theatrical works in development.

WHISPER HOUSE
"A darkly enchanting production... the show, a hybrid alt-rock concert-psychological ghost story, has a revivifying freshness... What excites me about the musical is the way it reaches for poetry." -LA Times

It's 1942 on the Connecticut coast. Eleven-year-old Christopher's father has died in the war and he's sent to live with his aunt in a remote lighthouse. But this is not just any lighthouse: it's haunted. A new musical collaboration with Tony Award winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). it premiered at the Old Globe Theater in Jan-Feb 2010. Duncan released the songs from the show in a concept album from RCA/Victor. You can buy the record here.

HOSTAGE SONG
"A devastatingly poignant, strangely philosophical meditation on salvation that just happens to sport a sick downbeat." -Time Out New York

Kyle wrote the music and lyrics for this piece: a moody, moving, sometimes quite funny examination of two American hostages being held abroad. Clay McLeod Chapman wrote the book and Oliver Butler directed. Produced at the Kraine Theatre, NYC, Spring 2008. Click here to see a feature article about it, and here to see a page of press quotes.
Listen to a song: Safe

LOVE KILLS
"Built for exhilaration." -The Villager

Nebraska, 1958: the world is closing in on Charlie Starkweather and Caril Fugate, teenage lovers charged with committing eleven murders. Under pressure to confess by dawn, facts blur and loyalties shift, and the question remains: how far will you go for someone you love? An emo rock musical based on the true story that inspired the films Badlands and Natural Born Killers. Produced Fall 2007 at the New York Music Theatre Festival, and in St. Louis in Fall 2009.
Listen to a song: When I Could Feel

TRIGGER
"A darkly funny, provocative new play about placing blame and struggling to survive tragedy." -Broadway World

Ryan's wife gets in a crippling car accident while he's in bed with another woman, and he begins to wonder: do his actions have the power to cause disaster? Produced at American Repertory Theatre, February 2008.


GORILLA MAN
"Jarrow's philosophical fable has an antic charm!" -Variety

Script now available from Samuel French
Waking one morning to find thick fur growing on the backs of his hands, young Billy discovers the awful truth his mother has been hiding from him for 14 years. It's a darkly comic coming-of-age tale in the form of a rock-and-roll musical. Premiered at P.S. 122 in NYC, March 2005, it also ran at Boston Theater Works in April 2006 and Vestige Group in Austin TX in 2008.
Listen to a song: Gorilla Man

ARMLESS
"Affecting comedy... Jarrow builds on his reputation as a playwright both droll and humane." -Village Voice

Winner 2004 Overall Excellence Award at the NY Internat'l Fringe Festival
A provocative farce about notions of personal freedom and medical ethics. It premiered at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival, and it's now a feature film.

A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN'S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT
"A cult-hit blueprint for a young generation that prefers its irony delivered with not a wink but a blank stare." -New York Times

Winner 2004 OBIE Award
Now available from Samuel French
A jubilant cast of children celebrate the controversial religion in uplifting pageantry and song. The actual teachings of The Church of Scientology are explained and dissected against the candy-colored backdrop of a traditional nativity play. Produced by Les Freres Corbusier at The Tank and The John Houseman Theatre in November 2003-January 2004. It's been all over the country since then.
Listen to a song: The Way That It Began (This original cast album was called "the offbeat theater offering of the year" by AllMusic.)

PRESIDENT HARDING IS A ROCK STAR
"In the manic imagination of this show's creator, President Warren G. Harding wore black leather pants and a shirt ripped open to the navel, snorted coke in the Oval Office with Napoleon and Alexander Hamilton, and belted his stump speech and tariff laws as Tommy-esque rock ballads." -New Yorker

This funny, freewheeling rock musical was produced by Les Freres Corbusier at HERE Art Center in July 2004 and by Landless Theatre in D.C. in Fall 2008.

> For information on Kyle's current
theatrical works-in-development, click here.