Setting the Stage

Cast vs. Crew #1

by Lindsay Champion

SERIES LAUNCH! The full story of a junior high musical production, told exclusively from the POV of the kids backstage. It’s High School Musical, from behind the scenes…without the high school.

Every cast depends on its stage crew. But what happens when they hate each other? SETTING THE STAGE is the first act in a trilogy that tells the whole story!

Eighth grader Ella Amani has been waiting her whole life to be the stage manager of the middle school musical, and this is her year!

Somehow she'll have to find jobs for Willow, who's doing stage crew instead of detention, and Sebastian, a shy sixth grader whose sister is the star of the show. She'll have to wrangle Kevin, the clumsy new kid who was homeschooled on a boat, and Levi, her best friend, who used to tell her everything.

Still, Ella's pretty sure she can handle the crew. The cast? That's a different story. They're ungrateful, they treat the crew like servants, and when Ella finally pushes back, they start playing pranks!

Setting the Stage is a behind-the-scenes look at the drama of drama club from the crew's point of view.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Genres: Middle Grade, Theatre, Fiction

208 pages, Hardcover

Published October 21, 2025

About the author

Lifelong theater geek Lindsay Champion made her stage debut as a tiger in her second-grade musical. Since then, she's built sets, run the light board, operated the spotlight and (her favorite) stage managed. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and was the Features Editor at Broadway.com. She writes books about kids discovering and falling in love with the arts. She is the author of the YA novel SOMEDAY, SOMEWHERE and the middle-grade drama club series CAST VS. CREW.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ella's middle school is staging: "Curie: The Musical!" and it's FINALLY Ella's chance to do her dream job--stage managing. She's uber organized and has all kinds of ideas about set pieces, sound, lighting, and more. However, her job is more wrangling the crew and keeping things from falling apart, and it's harder than she thought it would be. First, there's her best friend, Levi, who lives next door. They've always told each other everything--until now. As for Levi, he's struggling with being a foster kid, always wanting his own family and worrying when his mom contacts him--will it be different this time? Willow is from NYC and is SO over this small-town crap. When she gets detention for vaping, it turns into working on stage crew, most unwillingly, for the whole prep and run of the show. Sebastian, a 6th grader, joins because his sister Rosa is cast in the lead, and Sebastian feels drawn to Levi. Is there something there? He doesn't know Levi has a crush on Rosa, but he does know that Rosa is secretly dyslexic and needs Sebastian's help to learn her lines. Plus, there are the obnoxious cast kids who torment Ella about an incident the previous year, to the point at which a prank war ensues--and it's not pretty. Will this show ever get on the road?

I love theater stories, so this one was a no-brainer for me. And so nice to see something from the backstage crew's point of view; I know they don't get a lot of credit, but the show could not run without them! Our school's crew kid are fantastic, and they might have even more fun than the cast. This story was a little diffuse because it covered so many viewpoints and had so many characters--I couldn't keep the non-narrators straight until I was reminded of what made them unique (growing up on a boat, involved in 101 activities, etc.). All the storylines were good, though, and you root for each kid to have success. The world-building is good, though I got confused about where the stage actually was--in the cafeteria, or in an auditorium. What annoyed me most was that this ended on a cliffhanger, with no one's story resolved except maybe Sebastian. I wasn't expecting that. It ends before the musical is even onstage. Maybe the next book will be about the cast? Thanks to Libro.FM for a free educator copy of the audiobook.

[Stephanie Tournas · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the social ranking of middle school drama club, the crew is the lowest echelon, under the lead actors and the ensemble. But Ella, excited to finally get the role of stage manager, knows how important the crew is to making everything work out on stage. Ella is the musical theatre groupie that this entertaining novel revolves around, along with Levi, her best friend and tech team leader, Sebastian, a sixth grader who’s new to drama club, and Willow, at first an unwilling participant in the crew, and the most hilariously misanthropic character in the book. The book’s cover art is a good portrait of all the main characters.

Each kid is so thoughtfully and thoroughly portrayed that readers will root for all of them. Chapters alternate perspective between the four so we get to know all of them equally and to learn their foibles, strengths and personal challenges. Ella seems to be in charge of her littler siblings, while managing the entire crew. Levi has a big crush on the female lead, and deals with the precarious role of a foster child with an addict mother. Sebastian has a big crush on Levi, and Willow just wants to be alone to listen to one of her favorite bands, The Glistening Maggots. The author has seamlessly incorporated the components of staging a musical, with detailed descriptions of all of the crew members’ jobs, so this is a fun read for those who love the excitement of show production, or who are curious to learn how it all works. The characters mainly cue as white, with Ella as Iranian American and Sebastian as Latine. There’s a big splashy ending, which is before the final production and then the story ends. It’s part of a projected trilogy. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and laughed often.

[Ashlyn]

In Setting the Stage, there are multiple character POV’s with their own stories. This book is set in middle school and revolves around the stage crew of a play. There are new friendships that are formed, there are old friendships that are tested, and of course there is the Cast vs Crew rivalry. The crew is upset because the cast doesn’t realize how much work they do to put into a play, and that they don’t understand that without them, the play would not be good. On the other hand, the cast just thinks that the crew are people who weren’t good enough to act, when in fact, the crew loves the work they do. This is definitely a middle school drama with all the things that middle schoolers might go through. I love how each character was unique with their own problems and insecurities. One thing that I will note is that this is book one in the series, and the plot does not resolve in this book, so it’ll be a continuation to the next book. This is perfect for middle-school readers who like contemporary books with drama or those who like watching/acting in plays.

I received this book for free from the publisher, which does not affect my review.>

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really cute, but, as a middle school teacher who works on the school musicals, I have a hard time imagining a community that would be okay with 6-8th graders starring in a musical that needs a bed set for the lead character’s “multiple romantic trysts.”

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC provided by Young Adult Books Central

https://yabookscentral.com/setting-th...

[Tweller83]

I received a free copy from libro.fm as part of the educator audiobook listening copies. All opinions are my own. #librofm #dreamscape

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book

[Desig · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book

[Lindsay]

The first book in my middle-grade drama club trilogy, CAST VS. CREW, officially has a cover! We're whipping out the fog machine, the glow tape, the spirit gum and ~*the drama*~ on October 21, 2025. Theater nerds, I have written this series especially for you: It's packed with Broadway easter eggs, musical theater references and inside jokes, with lots of BEE (Big Elphaba Energy).

Preorder links are now live on every retailer! Click here to get a copy on its release date: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...

Adding this book to your Goodreads "to read" list will spread the news to fellow theater fans. Stay tuned for more updates!