Sophomore David “Pierce” McDonald is an avid member of the Tiger Theatre Company, but in his free time, he’s a part time playwright and novelist. McDonald is currently in the process of writing his own musical, in which he single-handedly writes the script, music score and lyrics. 

“My musical is called ‘The Ultimate Show,’” McDonald said. “It’s about a restless doctor who tries to fulfill his life’s work, and his boss pushes him [until] he breaks. He starts [hallucinating] and falls into this stage of insanity. He meets three characters, named Alicia, Demento and Spolia, who teach him how to cope with his insanity. He takes their advice, and [the story] just evolves from there.”

“The writing process has actually been pretty smooth,” McDonald said. “I’ve just completed the rough draft script, and I’m now working on the final script which I’m typing on a Google Doc.” 

There are particular challenges McDonald faces in being so young without much equipment, experience or time. 

“Writing the music on a Google Doc is going to be a task, though I’m just writing the lyrics [for now],” McDonald said. “It’s been a little tough, juggling school and theatre, and [I’m at] a disadvantage because I don’t have the right software or budget to be a [professional] playwright in general. Other than that it’s going pretty well.” 

Though faced with these challenges, McDonald persists. He works efficiently whilst maintaining his school, theatre and personal life, along with writing his own literary piece. McDonald plans to publish this script sometime in the near future to allow companies to buy the rights to produce and perform his musical, but he doesn’t have an expected date set just yet. 

“I’m about halfway through with the script [process], but if I had to give a ballpark estimated date, I’d say maybe late October, early November [of this year],” McDonald said.