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Cast vs. Crew

Setting the Stage

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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

208 pages, Hardcover

Published October 21, 2025

3 people are currently reading
2773 people want to read

About the author

Lindsay Champion

7 books68 followers
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.

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Author 7 books68 followers
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August 4, 2025
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!
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