Exclusive: What’s Next for ERNXST, the Kerrigan-Lowdermilk Musical Made With 22 Roles for Any Gender
Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk exclusively tell BroadwayWorld how and why they created their new musical ‘Ernxst’ to be licensed for young performers.
When it comes to Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk’s new musical Ernxst, Or the Importance of Being, you can play absolutely any role. It was created to accommodate any gender with a score that suits multiple voice parts.
“The fact that the whole thing is castable completely across gender lines is thrilling,” Lowdermilk exclusively tells BroadwayWorld of the longtime collaborators’ latest project, which features a book by Justin Elizabeth Sayre. Ernxst was released as a studio cast recording in June.
Kerrigan and Lowdermilk, along with book writer Sayre, were commissioned by Concord Theatricals to create a new musical with an expansive ensemble catered towards theater groups looking to license a show for larger casts. Concord, Kerrigan says, “realized that there was a gap in what people need,” especially given that recent Broadway musicals appear to be getting smaller in size.
“They were looking to see if they could change the model a little bit and create pieces that they could market to colleges and high schools and community theaters through commissioning writers that they thought would attract those groups,” Kerrigan explains.
Ernxst, a musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, features a cast of 22 that can be played by any gender. It is currently available for licensing.
While it seems Kerrigan and Lowdermilk’s star-studded album — featuring Tony winners Beth Leavel, Bonnie Milligan and J. Harrison Ghee as well as Tony nominee Joy Woods and more — popped up rather unexpectedly, the musical has gone through a few different stages throughout the process.
Ernxst had a New York City staged reading with an entirely non-binary, queer cast since that was “built into the DNA of how we wanted to make it,” says Kerrigan. Then it was workshopped with younger actors before Broadway stars got into the recording studio.
Is there a possibility that Ernxst will have a professional production? “Oh, yeah,” says Lowdermilk.
Though the writing duo intentionally crafted the piece to be something high schools or youth theater groups could license, Kerrigan says they also had “the agenda of making something that feels like it would live in a regional theater or Off-Broadway theater or maybe… who knows. We wanted to be able to make something that we really stood behind and that we think has something to say.”
Kerrigan and Lowdermilk, whose songs went viral on YouTube long before the TikTok and Instagram era, feel that this new developmental process could actually change the landscape of how a show gets made.
While their song “Run Away With Me” from The Mad Ones (previously titled The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown) racked up millions of views on YouTube via taped concert performances from the likes of Aaron Tveit, Jeremy Jordan and Michael Arden, the songwriting duo notes it took more than a decade for an Off-Broadway production to materialize.
“It took us 15 years to get an Off-Broadway production of a five-person musical that had some songs in it that everybody knew,” Kerrigan points out, adding that she and Lowdermilk are “really curious” about how writers can move at a faster pace and avoid a “development hell” in order to keep their work fresh.
When it comes to Ernxst, the goal was to get “the music right in the hands of fans really quickly,” Lowdermilk says, pointing out that it can be performed on stages across the United States without having first bowed on or Off-Broadway.
Kerrigan and Lowdermilk are excited to see the first non-professional productions of Ernxst come to life. Concord was integral in providing resources to the songwriters so that the music could be transposed for different voice parts, and Lowdermilk explains there are “hundreds of combinations that you can have in terms of the keys, so it really is possible to cast it for whatever bodies you have in the room.”
With Ernxst, those auditioning have no need to “type” themselves in or out of playing a role, since it all comes down to embodying the character’s core qualities. “My two kids have been obsessed with this album since they heard the first mixes of it,” says Kerrigan. “Listening to them talk about what parts they want to play and have that not be a gendered thing is so cool and so new. I can hear, especially in my 10-year-old’s voice, this excitement that there is no limit.”
While many may see this musical concept as a first of its kind, “This isn’t as revolutionary to [children] as it is to us,” says Kerrigan. “They’re just like, ‘Oh, I can play any role. This is so exciting.’”
This new process for getting a musical off the ground is “kind of backwards,” admits Kerrigan. “But I think that backwards might be the way forward, in some ways. It’s so hard to do a professional production and get something that feels original and a little edgy to be produced.”
“We took this as an opportunity to potentially make something that we can stand by and that we would love to see on a professional stage,” she adds, “but also that isn’t held back by not being on a professional stage.”
“Kate and I are always scheming how we can get some of these larger projects off the ground,” says Lowdermilk, adding that they’re “grateful” Concord is finding alternative ways for that to happen because, in 2026, “it’s no small feat.”
Photos Credit: Rebecca J Michelson/Micah Joel Productions, Courtesy of Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk
