Soon

Soon is a new musical with a four-person cast and an indie-pop score. Nick Blaemire wrote the book, the music and the lyrics, and the story is original: no novel, film or earlier play is credited as its source. The Loft at St. Luke's Theatre hosts what the producers call the Off-Broadway premiere, a six-week limited engagement. Out of the Box Theatrics produces it in association with Bella Vita Entertainment, Dru Margolis and Red Horse LLC.

The premise fits in two lines. Charlie, a woman in her twenties, is waiting for the world to end. Jonah, for his part, wants her to start living. The show keeps returning to one question: how should anyone spend the time that remains?

Blaemire began writing the piece as a response to climate change. Its themes include the nerve it takes to pursue your dreams when the future looks shaky.

Charlie lives in an East Village apartment, and almost the entire show happens inside it. In this staging she is a shut-in glued to round-the-clock news. Her small comforts are a pet fish named Herschel, peanut butter and baking. Places beyond the apartment appear only as she imagines them.

Three people are drawn into her orbit. Adrienne is her mother, Steven is her roommate, and Jonah is a new love interest. Charlie is sure that time is running out, and before it does she has to face the hardest step of all: opening her own front door. The story asks what she is holding on to inside the apartment, and what waits on the other side.

Blaemire wrote both music and lyrics. The score is indie pop, scaled to the size of the room and the cast. Wiley DeWeese is credited with the orchestrations and arrangements and also serves as music supervisor, and Andy Collopy is the music director.

Three musicians play onstage: Kevin Wunderlich, Nyssa Grant and Collopy. The instruments are accordion, mandolin, violin, guitar, cello and keyboard, so the band is part of the picture rather than hidden in a pit.

As of October 2026, Ava Delaney plays Charlie, Mylinda Hull plays Adrienne, Mike Millan plays Steven and Oliver Richman plays Jonah. Four actors play the four roles, and two understudies cover them: Jillian Abaya for Charlie and Adrienne, and Ruchir Khazanchi for Jonah and Steven. Hull's Broadway credits include Gypsy and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Millan has appeared in Escape to Margaritaville and Titanique. Richman is a TikTok singer-songwriter who became known for a song-a-day project.

In the Loft, the audience sits on two sides of the playing area, inside the apartment set. The show belongs to the company's Loft Season, a series for developing new work. Expect a small room and a pared-down production rather than a full-scale set; the series exists so writers can keep reworking pieces after New York audiences have seen them.

Out of the Box Theatrics is a not-for-profit company working Off-Broadway. Elizabeth Flemming, who is legally blind and works as an actor and producer, founded it in 2015. Its mission centers on voices from marginalized communities, new material and fresh takes on existing works. In fall 2023 it settled at 154 Christopher Street, and it won an Obie Award for its 2024 season there. After learning in May 2025 that it had to leave that building, it signed a ten-year lease on St. Luke's Theatre. As of October 2026, the company's mainstage season is on hold while it raises money to make the building accessible under the ADA, and the Loft Season runs in the meantime.

Soon was developed at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, which gave it a world premiere. The first performance was on March 10, 2015, and the run continued through April 26, 2015. Matthew Gardiner directed, and the production was presented in association with Tricia Small. The original cast was Jessica Hershberg as Charlie, Alex Brightman as Jonah, Natascia Diaz as Adrienne and Joshua Morgan as Steven. The description of that premiere set the story during the hottest summer on record, with all the water on Earth due to evaporate within a few months.

Regional stagings followed. In April 2018, Maryland's Highwood Theatre, in Silver Spring, presented the musical as its fifth annual Open Source Theatre Project, with one high-school cast and one professional adult cast. In 2021, 11th Hour Theatre Company of Philadelphia and Prima Theatre of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, co-produced it under director Michael Philip O'Brien. It played at Prima from October 1 to October 23, 2021, and then moved to Philadelphia's Christ Church Neighborhood House through November 7, 2021. That version kept Adrienne as Charlie's mother and Jonah as her love interest, while the roommate was named Stevie.

The New York pilot production ran from October 29 to November 9, 2025, at the East Village Basement, the venue's first musical. Blum directed and Small produced. Ava Delaney played Charlie, Nicholas Podany played Jonah, Mike Millan played Steven and Mylinda Hull played Adrienne. As of October 2026, Delaney, Millan and Hull are in the Loft cast, with Richman now playing Jonah.

The Loft run was announced on July 22, 2026, with a first preview on September 30, 2026, and an official opening on October 5, 2026. An original New York cast album was released in August 2026. It was recorded at The Hit Factory and produced by Van Hughes and Robert Sher.