Hi, I’m Marshall and I make theater.

When I was a kid, I liked to make theater in my parents’ living room. I invented stories I thought no one had heard before, gathered friends to be the actors, told them where to stand and how to say their lines. I still do that, and so I’m pretty lucky my very first passion became my career.

Between then and now I’ve studied a lot of disciplines. I learned how to get laughs as a child performer on Broadway, I learned dance at the School of American Ballet, I studied drama at Laguardia High School, I was in a bad soap opera, I used the money from the bad soap opera to buy a keyboard and I used that keyboard to teach myself to write songs. I studied composition and philosophy at Yale University, I learned to direct.

Since then I learned story structure working with masters at DreamWorks Animation, I learned how to write and direct for fringe festivals, and then regional theaters, and eventually, Off-Broadway. I learned how to foster community from theaters like The Chance where I was the resident playwright and met my wife. I learned what it felt like to win awards, and to lose many more awards than you win. I learned how to be trusted creating for brands like VeggieTales, Shrek, The Magic School Bus and PBS Kids.

Through it all I learned there must be musicality in drama and dramatic discipline in musicals. There must be childishness in serious stories and seriousness in stories for children. I’ve learned there’s no excuse for unkindness towards co-workers. No space for selfishness. And most of all, no time to stop learning.