When I Became We premieres this October at New York’s Atlantic Theater, audiences won’t encounter a traditional musical or even a conventional play. Instead, they’ll experience what composer Jack D. Coen, BMus’16, calls a “play for choir,” an original theatrical work performed entirely by a 16-person choir.
“It really is meant to be experienced as a narrative,” he said. “It’s a story being told as a play in a theater, the way an actor would deliver a monologue. It just incidentally also happens to be sung.”
The production represents the culmination of more than two years of collaboration between Coen and playwright Mona Pirnot, whose previous work first brought the pair together. Coen was performing as organist for one of Pirnot’s productions when a professional partnership quickly grew into a friendship.
“We became very close,” Coen said. “She had this idea for the show, and she knew I worked in choral music. We decided to write it together. I wrote the music to her story.”
The new work explores deeply personal questions about adulthood, identity and whether to become a parent. Rather than being delivered by a single actor, I Became We tells its story through 16 singers performing as one collective voice.
The production is ambitious both artistically and logistically. With only six days of rehearsal before opening, the cast must be capable of sight-reading more than 200 pages of newly composed music while adapting to revisions that continue throughout the rehearsal process.
“The wonderful thing about being in New York is there is this incredible community of professional choral singers,” Coen said. “They really can just run into a room and sing this music.”
Even after years of development, the work continues to evolve.
“The old adage that writing is rewriting is true,” Coen said. “It’s just rewrite and rewrite and rewrite until you have something that works.”
Building national recognition
While I Became We represents Coen’s highest-profile theatrical production to date, it builds on a growing body of work that has steadily raised his national profile.
His earlier musical, the audaciously titled Jo Jenkins Before the Galactic High Court of Consciousness, won the prestigious Relentless Award in 2025, the largest annual prize for a new play in the United States. Described as “an inventive, existential sci-fi comedy about a marine-biologist-turned-actuary who must defend humanity to an intergalactic council,” the work is currently undergoing revisions in preparation for its first full production.
“I’m thrilled that Jo Jenkins won the Relentless Award, and that opened up so many doors for me, which has been incredible,” Coen said. “The fact that it’s gotten some attention has really been very exciting, and I can’t wait to see it on its feet someday.”
The plotline reflects another important dimension of Coen’s creative life: his passion for nature, including botany, scuba diving and wildlife photography. He originally considered studying biology alongside music at Vanderbilt before ultimately devoting his undergraduate years entirely to music. He later returned to science independently, completing a botany certification program through the New York Botanical Garden.
“Everything I do outside of music gravitates toward that interest in plant science and marine biology and all these things,” he said. “That’s how art works. You write about what you think about.”
That intersection of science, nature and storytelling continues to shape Coen’s work. Most recently, he completed a draft of another musical, Lonesome George, with collaborator Oliver Holt. The piece was inspired by the last known Pinta Island giant tortoise, whose death marked the extinction of the species.
Coen and Holt developed the idea after traveling and scuba diving in the Galápagos Islands and seeing the preserved Lonesome George on display. The resulting work, however, is not a conventional environmental drama. Coen describes it as a “bizarre comedy” that finds an unexpected human story within the natural world.
Finding his voice at Blair
Growing up just north of New York City, Coen developed an early love of music through Broadway performances and exceptional piano teachers. Vanderbilt appealed to him because it offered something few schools could: the opportunity to pursue a high-caliber music education while exploring other academic interests.
“I was looking into schools where I could study music composition and biology simultaneously,” Coen said. “After one semester, I was like, ‘I don’t want to do anything but music.'”
He immersed himself in Blair, majoring in music composition while also pursuing minors in piano and organ performance
“Jack was never one to back away from a challenge,” said Blair Piano Professor Craig Nies, recalling Coen’s performance of one of George Crumb’s notoriously demanding piano works that required him to play both on the keyboard and on the strings inside the piano, while simultaneously whistling and singing.
Nies watched Coen grow into an unusually versatile musician. His senior recital showcased his abilities as a pianist, organist and composer while also revealing a gift for communicating music to audiences through thoughtful commentary before performing a Bach organ work.
Looking back, Coen recognizes how pivotal his time at Blair was in developing his artistry.
“I really can’t overstate the degree to which Craig Nies shaped my musicianship,” Coen said. “Not just as a pianist. The way he thought about harmony, voice leading and interpretation clicked with me at a very early stage at Vanderbilt.”
One lesson has stayed with him ever since. While studying a Chopin étude, Nies asked Coen to compare three different harmonizations of the same melody, not to determine which was “correct,” but to understand how each harmonic choice opened different expressive possibilities.
“That understanding of music — what are the possibilities in harmonizing any melody, and what doors does each possibility open for interpretation — still dictates how I approach writing and how I approach performing,” Coen said.
Looking back, Coen believes Blair offered something even more valuable than technical instruction.
“What Blair really gave me is the time and space to hone my abilities as a musician,” he said. “Being surrounded by people who were deeply invested in music and passionate about music.”
A life of creating
Today, Coen’s daily life in New York looks remarkably similar to his student years. He spends hours writing at the piano, practicing, rehearsing and refining new work.
“The only way to really get good at it is to love the music so much that you want to keep doing it,” he said. “Blair gave me four years to fall deeply in love with music. That’s what keeps me going every day.”
As I Became We prepares for its world premiere this fall, Coen continues refining the score, casting singers and making the revisions that have become an essential part of his creative process.
The work may introduce audiences to a new kind of theater, but its origins can be traced to countless hours spent in Blair practice rooms, composition studios and performance halls, where a young musician was encouraged not simply to master his craft, but to imagine new possibilities for it.
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Performance information
I Became We
October 16–November 15, 2026
Linda Gross Theater, Atlantic Theater Company
336 W. 20th St., New York
Tickets go on sale Aug. 25 at noon ET.
Tickets