Out of Focus, a new musical by Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alums Quinn Rigg ’20 and Kelan M. Smith ’20, both graduates of the Theatre Department’s BFA Program in Musical Theatre Performance, will be performed on Sunday afternoon, August 11, as part of the 2024 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival, a celebration and showcase of the growing field of musical theatre creators from Chicago and beyond.

This year’s festival, running August 8 through 11, will feature concert presentations of five new musicals over the course of one weekend, presented by Kokandy Productions as part of Steppenwolf Theatre’s dynamic and genre-defying LookOut series. Out of Focus will be performed in a concert format on Sunday, August 11, at 3 PM at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre, located at 1700 N. Halsted in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. For tickets, click here.

With a book by Rigg, music by Smith, and lyrics by Rigg and Smith, Out of Focus is a coming-of-age rock musical about a young photographer named Nick in his first year of college. As Nick struggles with his newfound independence, he is faced with his mother’s own struggle of a newly diagnosed case of early onset dementia. In his journey to find himself, and grapple with familial uncertainty, he comes of age alongside a cast of other young characters, all of whom are dealing with their own unique familial imperfections. As demons from the past threaten their clarity of the future, each of them attempts to fill in the missing pieces of their lives. But only through one another can they bring what’s out of focus into frame.

Both Smith and Rigg are performers as well as writers. As previously reported in this blog, Smith is currently an understudy in the U.S. premiere of The Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Rigg, while a student at Columbia College in 2018, received the Jim Jacobs Musical Theatre Scholarship at Columbia College, established by actor-playwright-songwriter and Columbia College Honorary Doctorate recipient Jim Jacobs HDR ’14, coauthor of the hit musical Grease.

The show’s cast includes Columbia College alums Callan Roberts ’22 and Jakob Matthews ’21, both graduates of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Musical Theatre; Zac Richey ’21, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Musical Theatre with a Minor in Stage Combat; and Claire McConnell ’22, who graduated Summa cum Laude with a BFA in Musical Theatre Performance.