Beat by Beat Press is the world’s fastest growing publisher of original, high-quality children’s musicals.
But it started as something much smaller.
In 2005, Denver Casado & Betina Hershey met in the Tony award-winning BMI Musical Theatre Workshop (where shows such as A Chorus Line, Avenue Q and Next to Normal were developed.)
As they developed professional projects off-broadway and regionally, they also co-directed a musical theatre program for kids.
They soon began to realize there was a serious lack of original, high-quality musicals for elementary-age kids to perform. It seemed that every school and community group was performing the same dozen or so titles over, and over, and over again.
So they decided to do something about it. Using their training from the workshop, they began to write original musicals each year, specifically tailored to the kids in their program.
Since they were working with kids while writing the shows, they knew what was important to include in a children’s musical: lots of parts, easy staging, broadway-quality music, and tons of humor for kids and adults.
Over the years, these original shows became hits in the NYC community. Schools and theaters began approaching Denver and Betina asking how they could perform the shows themselves.
In partnership with some of Manhattan’s best theatre companies, Denver & Betina began to workshop, edit, and fine-tune each musical so they could be easily produced by schools and theaters around the world.
Today Beat by Beat consists of a family of award-winning writers and arts educators in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, all passionate about creating a refreshing new catalogue of high quality musicals, plays, and songs for young actors.
We hope you’ll take a moment to look around, listen to some music, and feel inspired to share our musicals with your community.
MacMillan Leslie is an alumnus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Mac is a director, actor, improviser, and performance coach. He has performed all over the greater Boston area with fringe and equity companies. He has also worked as a fight choreographer and performs musical improv all over the Boston area.
Taylor Kirkwood is a passionate Boston based Musical Theatre Music Director, educator, pianist and composer. Taylor has MD’d for Stoneham theatre (now Greater Boston Stage Company), Boston Theatre Company, Watertown Children’s Theatre, The Driscoll School’s annual play, UMass Dartmouth’s Theatre company 20centFiction, The Umbrella Theater, and Brookline’s Artbarn Community Theater to name a few. Taylor has MD’d more than 70+ shows with young actors. In 2023 Taylor won an international video game scoring competition sponsored by Berklee College of Music’s virtual instrument provider “Orchestral Tools.” Taylor also has his own private piano lesson practice, plays the organ for the Pilgrim congregational Church in North Weymouth, where he also serves as a music director and choir director. “I love this company and what we stand for! So happy to be here and always looking ahead to how we can help each young artist grow and take risks in a safe supportive environment. We make it a priority to ensure every artist is seen and making their own individual contributions to the process, and has the best experience possible.
