THE KIDS MIGHT DIE (a tale told by an idiot) is an original solo comedy that premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2023 and has since toured the world. It's a fully immersive theatrical experience, with every detail designed to let the audience believe they are seeing a real children's production of Macbeth. So that included cardboard set pieces and budget-friendly black-and-white programs (complete with a dozen bios written by the cast themselves) handed out at the door. I designed and created everything from flyers and posters to handmade buttons and "in-world" screen printed t-shirts, that we sold after every performance.
This show, and with it our creative team, has been through quite a transformative journey. As you may have noticed in the social media posts above, the original title was "Little Stars Youth Theatre presents: MACBETH (a solo show)." While it was very fun to market, it caused confusion without an elevator pitch to follow. When we were about to go to Edinburgh for their international Fringe Festival, we decided it was time to change the name. (The Scots are very serious about the integrity of the Scottish Play.) The new title needed to pack the same punch on a billboard with no explanation. We landed on "THE KIDS MIGHT DIE," urgent and intriguing, with the tag "(a tale told by an idiot)" still promising Macbeth but less on the nose.
I overhauled our whole brand, but it didn't call for a complete redesign. We gained a loyal following in the local theatre scene, and we had occasional encore performances in between out-of-state festivals, so it had to be visually recognizable to stay associated with our first run. After the whole rebrand, and new screen printed hoodies (for just the crew this time) I'm proud of the entire package I made for this very unique and creatively challenging show. It was a chance to really dive deep into one concept's many applications and discover a lot along the way.
