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Update: This story was updated at 11:05 a.m. EST on Thursday, April 2, 2026.

When Maya Landry arrived at her first rehearsal for “A Rebel Prayer” after a semester abroad in London, she didn’t know what was going on. The musical had not been fully performed before, and Landry found herself learning new material every rehearsal.

“Once we got on the stage, it was a very quick turnaround,” Landry said. “Either you learn the new material same day, or you have one day to learn your new song and come in off book.”

“A Rebel Prayer” debuted at Syracuse Stage on Saturday as a production of the College of Visual and Performing Arts Department of Drama. The show runs through April 5. Created by Aleksandra Weil and Eloise Govedare, the musical is set in Russia in 2012 and follows a 16-year-old Nikita as she decides whether to follow in her father’s footsteps as a rebel or conform to the status quo.

The production is directed by Syracuse University assistant professor of musical theater Kathleen Wrinn and is a part of a larger plan to help support newer, original works to both drama students and the general public, SU junior Lara Adria Castro said.

“A Rebel Player” was born out of Weil and Govedare’s 2015 graduate thesis project at New York University. Weil composed the music, while Govedare wrote the lyrics and script. After working on several drafts, Weil and Govedare put the work on hold to focus on other commissioned pieces.

However, Weil said she still had the “itch” to return to the show because she loved it. When she received the opportunity to work on the piece for two years for SU Drama in 2024, she jumped back into the work immediately.

“Some pieces have this magical pulse and feeling, and it just feels like this is a special story that needs to live in this world,” Weil said.

Weil said she was initially inspired to create the musical when the group Pussy Riot was imprisoned for protesting against Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2012. The musical and political influence of Pussy Riot helped Weil create the soundscape of the musical, she added.

Weil also pulled inspiration from her own life, including her father’s murder as a theater director fighting against censorship in the Soviet Union.

“Once we understood what the piece was really about, we realized it wasn’t just about Pussy Riot,” Weil said. “It was a much more personal story about a girl losing her father and trying to figure out whether she’s going to follow in his footsteps or not in an authoritarian regime.”

“A Rebel Prayer” was inspired by the imprisonment of Pussy Riot, a group that protested against Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2012. The musical was also inspired by the events of Weil’s personal life. Courtesy of Joanna Penalva

The musical went through three unstaged iterations at SU, where the plot transformed the story into a more mature piece. The show initially started with younger characters, but as Weil and Govedare developed the musical further, Weil found herself addressing larger themes, and they settled on a musical about grief. The musical’s title song still remained at the heart of the piece even as other musical numbers changed.

With each iteration, the cast and crew of the musical needed to quickly adapt to the changes.

Sophomore stage management major Nikky Spencer only began working on “A Rebel Prayer” in mid-February when she was called to cover the stage manager position. By the time she began the position, it had already moved into its third iteration, where the musical was brought to life with a full-scale production.

“When I initially hopped onto the show, the script I was reading was quite different from the script we’re performing now,” Spencer said. “Trying to understand the show and how it’s changed and grown from that point was really interesting.”

Landry, a musical theater major, plays Elena, Nikita’s mother. Throughout the rehearsal process, she said she often needed to learn new material within a day. As songs were cut and changed, Landry worked with Wrinn to understand why her character was changing.

“We’re always being asked to learn new material, and forget old material,” Landry said. “So I think that’s been the hardest part, and the most rewarding part of the show.”

At the same time, the cast was allowed to experiment and add new material to the musical as it developed onstage.

Castro plays Oksana, the musical’s “mean girl.” Castro, who is also an understudy for Nikita, said many of Oksana’s scenes were added as a part of the new material.

In one rehearsal, Castro began “laughing ridiculously,” and the director liked how it fit into the scene, so it became a piece of comedic relief in the show. In another run-through, the actresses who played band members of Pussy Riot began dancing to a solo. Castro said Wrinn reacted enthusiastically, so the dance was also added.

“The cast can play around, not professionally or disrespectfully, but they can try things,” Castro said. “And a lot of the time it is wonderful, and it’s added into the show.”

Weil, who’s worked on the musical since 2015, said she feels nervous about presenting a full work to an audience for the first time. Despite the fact that characters may initially appear merely good and evil, Weil said she hopes to show the complexity within each character.

“We’re all really complicated. Even people who do bad things can regret them and they’re still human,” Weil said.

Ever since Spencer began researching Pussy Riot, she’s been motivated to help share their mission.

Even if she’s not in the spotlight, she said she feels she’s someone people can lean on as a stage manager. Spencer hopes people watching the musical are inspired to share their own voice with the world.

“I hope that people feel like they want to step out into the world and make a change,” Spencer said.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that “A Rebel Prayer” was a collaboration between SU Drama and Syracuse Stage. The show is a part of SU Drama’s main stage season, but it was not in collaboration with Syracuse Stage.

Published on March 31, 2026 at 9:46 pm