In this Showbiz U interview, composer‑librettist‑lyricist Kit Goldstein Grant recounts how a second‑hand Alan Jay Lerner book sparked her love for musical theatre, leading her to write her first musical at age 13‑14 and to run a teen theatre company. She explains that her creative engine is adaptation—turning folk tales, classic literature, and even sci‑fi concepts into stage works—citing her Victorian black‑comedy musical The Wrong Box, based on a Robert Louis Stevenson novel, as a recent example. Grant describes her experience in the Theater Accelerator program, highlighting how it taught her to think like a producer, improve pitching, and view the writer as a collaborative partner. Looking ahead, she is excited by streaming musical formats that broaden audience reach and by the continual reinvention of old stories. She concludes with advice for aspiring storytellers: study widely, read, network, and treat writing as a craft that benefits from collaboration and curiosity.
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Hello. Hi.
Can you give us your name first of all?
Yeah, so my name is Kit Goldstein Grant.
And you are?
I'm a composer, librettist, and lyricist.
What got you into this wonderful world of musicals?
Oh my gosh, it was so, so, so long ago. I read a book by Alan Jay Lerner, and a about like the history of musicals. And I had just like randomly picked it up at the secondhand bookshop and I suddenly realized that the thing I loved in life was musical theater. And like I knew I liked theater, but I hadn't really put it together that it was musical theater that I was so crazy about. And I read this and I just got like, I thought I would write my first musical after that. And I did. And I was about 14, I think. Yeah, I think I started when I was 13 and finished when I was 14. And then a group of friends decided we would put on this show. So we put it on. And after that, we kept doing shows every year for a while, and it turned into like a theater company that we did for quite a few years, and I kept writing some shows for it.
And it's been in your blood ever since.
And then I couldn't stop.
When you— what sparks your ideas? How do you know what to write or what stories you want to tell?
Oh, well, I like to do adaptations, so a lot of it is just reading a lot and finding things that really excite me that I've read that I can't— like, I want to turn into this different form. So I love doing like folk tales and old books sometimes too. Like, it's more like I've done collaborations where it's more like an idea that a couple people are batting around, you know, you're sitting here saying, what about this? And you suddenly hit on something that just really excites you. That's sort of like— I really like sort of science fiction and Twilight Zone-y sort of things, so one of my shows I worked on has that sort of vibe to it. That was an original that I worked on with several other people, and it was so much fun.
You came through this program called Theater Accelerator.
I did.
How did you find out about Theater Accelerator?
It was actually through a friend friend of mine who had been through the program, and she told me about it and said it was amazing and I should do it. And so I applied, and it was.
What was the show that you entered into Theater Accelerator?
So it's called The Wrong Box. It is based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. It's a Victorian black comedy about a tontine, which is this crazy system where a bunch of people put money in a fund when they're young, and then the last person living gets all the money.
What particularly did you, did you walk away from from Theater Accelerator? What were some of the takeaways that you now use today?
I think it was really helpful to get more of a feel for how producers think, for one, and to get a better handle on some pitching. I went away thinking also of the writer as more of a collaborator with producers, which I think was really helpful because I've wound up sort of in that default position before. So it's nice to think that's a good position to be in and to like more actively be a part of that. So yeah.
What excites you about the future of this art form?
Seeing more shows and seeing them go in new ways. Like one thing that excited me so much about Apples and Oranges Arts was like that you're doing these streaming musicals and seeing that there's a way to get them out to more people and sort of capture this art form a little bit more than we've done in the past, always without having to be like the major you know, motion picture. So that's something that excites me. Also, just like the way it's always evolving and like, you know, the way new shows still keep happening based on old subjects, but they're new and exciting. So I love, like, I love old subjects, as I said. So I love seeing like this old subject taken and something new and exciting done with it. And that still happens.
And for those watching, what advice would you give to those people thinking about a career or even just writing? It doesn't even have to be a career, but they are passionate about this type of storytelling. What would you say to them?
Just watch everything and learn everything and read the books. Like, learning about what you're doing is so useful, and learning what's come before you is so useful. And be out there networking all the time. Making connections and making friends is like where I've gotten a lot a lot of what I've gotten in this world, and like, it's so important.
