Gina Michele DePalo is not your ordinary sophomore George Washington University student from New York. At the age of 15, she became a professional performed playwright. She began writing lyrics for theater when she was 14 and after spending a year developing a musical with her current writing partner, Zach Zadek, she is now the credited lyricist and writer of “6-a new musical,” the first project DePalo and Zadek collaborated on when they were 15 years old.
“I think 6 very much became the show that Zach and I wanted to see. You have to write what you wish existed, what you want to be talked about. So, we made a show about real people with real problems, and we didn’t want to be high school and we didn’t want to be petty. We wanted this to matter.”
The show features a six-person cast, which correlates with the show’s main concept: the six degrees of separation theory. The show takes place on a Subway train in New York City. As the tale unfolds, the audience slowly discovers the many secrets and plot twists involving each of the characters.
“The idea is that all these people have drastically influenced one another’s lives and have absolutely no idea, but we wanted it to be about more than that. We wanted it to be about purpose; about the power of relationships and about being messed up and owning that. It’s about a lot of the things we think about every day,” said DePalo of the show.
The show has been performed three times thus far, once for a high school and two times regionally. It has been submitted to the New York Musical Theatre Festival and Fringe Festival. It was a top 12 finalist out of 500 applicants for the New York Musical Theater Festival.
Aside from writing for musical theater, Gina is also heavily involved in theater at GWU as an Associate Producer for Forbidden Planet Productions. She also works as a STAR tour guide, writes for the GW Prospective Student Admissions blog, and works as an intern for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
DePalo is a psychology major and plans to pursue a PhD in psychology. She eventually wants to practice clinical psych working with adolescents, with a focus in mental illness and ultimately establish her own private practice in Manhattan.
“I have a lot of dreams for myself, but my real passion besides writing theatre is helping people live the quality of life they deserve, so I plan to spend the rest of my life doing that.”