Review: ‘Piano Lad’ is my new favorite musical
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Last weekend, island theatergoers had the chance to experience something marvelous: Vashon High School’s debut of a new musical, “Piano Lad,” at Snapdragon’s Black Cat Cabaret.
“Piano Lad” is an immersive, chaotic, absurd and, in the end, deeply touching original musical by high school junior Declan O’Brien, who fearlessly stitched together several wildly disparate theatrical forms to create something that is — gosh, Declan — a bit hard to describe. But let me try.
At one moment, “Piano Lad” is hilarious sketch comedy, and at the next, it’s cabaret, and then all of a sudden it’s an insane puppet show. It’s Tom Waits and Billy Joel and Pee-wee Herman together in concert. It’s the love child of Bertolt Brecht and Brendan Behan, as performed by circus clowns. And it will make me both laugh and cry as I gave up trying to understand it and just sat back to enjoy the ride.
“Piano Lad” is set in a bar a remote New England backwater, where the crusty and half-cracked denizens of the town gather to spin yarns, troll for romance and redemption and raise their voices in songs accompanied by the titular character — played to jaded perfection by O’Brien.
But there’s a looming disaster in store for these bar hounds and their musical muse: their town is about to be breached by the unthinkable — a bridge to the mainland. Can they somehow stop it?
I can’t praise the work of VHS theater Andy James highly enough. He’s created something so rare and amazing. In show after show in recent years, his students have stormed the stage at VHS as a joyous and trusting ensemble, and that was the case in “Piano Lad,” too.
The 19-member ensemble of “Piano Lad” was brilliant, as well, but to see them up close, at Snapdragon’s intimate Black Cat Cabaret, was a new and delicious delight. The play couldn’t have been staged in a more delightful location, with a mise-en-scene already perfectly in place for “Piano Lad:” a home sweet home and haven for eccentric, talkative and musically minded small town folks like us.
Bravo to Megan Hastings and Adam Cone of Snapdragon, for hosting this production in their beloved community gathering space. It was a perfect fit, and I doubled down on the sweetness of it all by nibbling on one of Adam’s ridiculously oversized, fairy tale scones as I watched the show.
Everyone in the “Piano Lad” company deserved to have their names shouted to the rafters: Monty Biggs, Nico Youngs, Landon Wettig, Jolyon Gogarten, Leo Watson, Iduna Chomsky, Lucy Ahern, Emmalyn Werner, Liam Waldron, Callia Brown, Kairo Ambler, Marlowe Cardoza, Autumn Carroll, Iris Hicks, Lidia Bojko, Ari Anderson, Sjoren Clemmensen and of course, its wildly talented star and creator, Declan O’Brien.
You are all artists. You shine. We’re all so lucky to have you in our midst, and for just a few years more, get to call you “Vashon kids.” I can’t wait to see where you go and what you do next.
Find out more about the VHS theater program and donate to support it at tinyurl.com/VHSTheater.
Elizabeth Shepherd is a former reporter and editor of The Beachcomber.
