San Diego State theater community anticipates season’s fresh new musical

San Diego State University’s School of Theatre, Television and Film recently announced its 2025-2026 theater season, which opens Oct. 24.

The shows blend a mix of classic and fresh material, including the opener, Merrily We Roll Along in Concert, followed by Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Sophocles’ Elektra and When She Became the Moon, a new play by SDSU lecturer Mabelle Reynoso.

The closer of the season, however, might be the most anticipated of all, especially among SDSU’s MFA Musical Theatre program.

Opening on May 1, 2026, is the brand new musical, Tomorrow, The Island Dies, which tells the story of a group of young adults who must close up their island home because it is about to be overtaken by rising sea levels.

Tomorrow, The Island Dies marks the fourth new work developed through SDSU’s New Musical Initiative, a program that seeks to “nurture the creation of new musical theater and to provide an invaluable educational opportunity.”

In 2024, out of a record 308 submissions, Ryan Scott Oliver’s Tomorrow, the Island Dies was chosen for the two-year-long development and production process. 

Robert Meffe, who serves as the head of the MFA Musical Theatre program, music director for Tomorrow… and co-founder of the New Musical Initiative, said the program gives new works proper amounts of development time that they typically doesn’t get in the fast-paced theatre industry. 

“Time is an underrated asset, and the idea that they can do this without commercial pressure, we don’t have any financial stake in these shows. If something’s not working, we don’t fire someone, it is free from commercial restraint. And I think that creativity is sometimes inspired by commercial restraint, but sometimes really discouraged by it, and you start to make decisions that aren’t based on the quality of the work,” Meffe said.

Over the course of two years, the new musical undergoes repeated revisions. For one to two weeks, students rehearse and workshop the musical alongside the writers and creative team, who then take what they learned and rewrite. Wash, rinse and repeat. 

“The full production of this is going to be great because so much of this piece is told visually,” Meffe said. “We’ve done all these readings of us sitting around music stands, and there are things about the show that don’t make sense because we’re not watching it. And Ryan is a very visual creator, and I think even people in the cast are going to be surprised about how much the design of this, the visual part of it, is going to [do] the heavy lifting of the storytelling.”

Not only do new works sustain the art form of theater, Meffe said, but they also provide unique educational opportunities for the students who partake. 

“As a musical theater actor or director, you need to understand how to create character,” Meffe said. “So this is a way that you get to develop characters from scratch, like you don’t watch the video of Idina Menzel doing it, you have to do it from scratch, just from the script.”

All students in the MFA program, a terminal degree in musical theatre, are required to be part of the production. For MFA student Rebecca Murillo, who also plays the lead role in Tomorrow…, developing the new work has been one of many highlights of the program.

“The fact that SDSU has this new works program is so valuable in a theater education because it teaches students how to trust their instincts, trust their point of views, because that is what the writers and the directors are looking for,” Murillo said. “It teaches you how to be fast and quick on your feet, quick in your brain, learning music so quickly. And it really teaches you about story elements, whether that’s really clear from the go, but it’s really fundamental in teaching students how story structure works and how they can be a part of building that narrative.”

Murillo also highlighted the message of the show, which she helps tell through her character, Widow Clack, a community outcast preparing to evacuate among mystery, a murder and a race against the clock.

“I think we’re dealing with some really interesting material this season, whether it’s about gender and identity in Twelfth Night, whether it’s about creativity and who we are as artists in Merrily We Roll Along, and then this larger conversation [with Tomorrow, The Island Dies,] about, what do we do when the world ends, and what happens to our humanity? And this really good material with these really smart student bodies,” Murillo said. “I think there’s going to be some really incredible performances to be found from everybody.”