UNSHELVED

(圖書館奇妙夜)

Book by Keurim Hur
lyrics by Emily Chiu
music by xiaodan zhang

Harper and Spork, two minor characters in a mediocre Young Adult novel, discover that they are on a magical shelving cart that allows them to travel to other books overnight. When Spork disappears, Harper must enlist the help of the cheerfully incompetent protagonist of the hit pirate series, The Adventures of Grayson the Younger, to find her sister before the library opens and she’s stuck in another book for good. Along the way, she discovers that maybe she can develop her own character arc without the help of her author.

Unshelved is a genre-hopping meta musical that examines what it means to be a character in our literary landscape.

(1 hr 20 min)

*English & Mandarin Versions Available

WATCH

Harper and Spork invent a backstory for themselves.

LISTEN

Spork, who has just discovered her love for coconut water from visiting a travel guide, finds herself in a sci-fi novel populated entirely with robots. Which means there are no bathrooms…

After seeing what the shelving cart has to offer, Harper has a big decision to make in deciding whether or not to return to her book, Chasing Chase.

PHOTOS

Development History

• (Summer 2020) Staged Reading (Abridged Mandarin Version)
  2020 Xintiandi Festival, Shanghai, China

• (Summer 2020) Concert Presentation (Mandarin Version)
  Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Shanghai, China

• (Spring 2017) 29 Hour Reading
  NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, New York

• (January 2017) Writing Residency
  Goodspeed Musicals, East Haddam, CT

• (2016)
  Conceived at NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, New York