Broadside Musical - Meet the Directors

Kelly McAllister
Director

Robert Kelly McAllister is a writer, director, performer, and educator, and a member of the Writers Guild of America. His plays have been published and produced throughout the United States and internationally, including a three-year run of Burning the Old Man at Prague's Divadlo Na Zábradlí. He teaches playwriting through DCPA Education and is co-founder of McSquared Productions, whose short film adaptation of Burning the Old Man premiered at the SOHO International Film Festival. In New York, his stage work includes Boxer in Animal Farm with Synapse Productions and Cassius in Julius Caesar with Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot. He has performed in all three of his previous Edinburgh Festival Fringe directing credits: Eigg (2023), Banned (2024), and Absurd Hero (2025), which received a four-star review from The Scotsman, and is thrilled to return to Edinburgh with Broadside the Musical, in which he also appears as John Adams.

Tanner Kelly
Music Director

Tanner Kelly is an award winning director, nationally recognized educator, and a Henry-nominated music director/sound designer around the Denver Metro area. He is a five time Henry nominee, including nominations for musical direction, outstanding production of a musical, and sound design. He also received a 2024 OSCA award for outstanding direction of a musical for Sweeney Todd. Tanner is the Artistic Director/Conductor of the Aurora Singers, the Musical Theatre Director at Regis University and is the Performing Arts Coordinator for PASB in Mapleton Public Schools. Tanner has directed, music- directed and/or played in the pit with companies such as Breckenridge Backstage, Town Hall Arts Center, Vintage Theatre, PACE, Performance Now, Stagedoor, Sasquatch, Veritas, Evergreen Players and Shifted Lens. He holds a music degree from the Lamont School of Music at DU, a teaching degree from MSU Denver, and has a Master of Music Education degree from AS

Heather Westenskow
Choreography

Heather Westenskow (Choreographer/actor) is extremely proud to be a part of this production! A Denver-based choreographer for nearly 15 years, her credits include over 80 different productions. She has worked all over the Denver area with professional theaters and theater companies, as well as all levels of education. She also gets hired outside of Denver and Colorado for remote projects. Heather loves the arts and participates as an actor, director, and choreographer. Heather has been nominated for multiple choreography awards at the Bobby G’s in Denver, Broadway World Denver, and the Vintage Awards. This will be her fourth year traveling to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she has choreographed and performed in shows for the last 3 years. Heather is currently writing her own musical and plans to share her vision soon. She wants to thank April for all of the fun collaborations, and her family for always supporting her!

Jacob Frye
Stage Manager

Jacob Frye is a life long theater fan, whose illustrious career started as the understudy for the Mayor of Munchkin City in 2nd grade, and is now cumulating to his second EdFringe production - Broadside! He has also performed in Disaster and Shrek (among others), and is more often than not, in his underwear (or less!) with the Rocky Horror Denver shadowcast. Jacob is also directing for the first time, and is EXTREMELY fortunate to have the opportunities that have been presented to him over the past year. Outside of theater, he has recently hit bodyweight on bench press, completed GTA: San Andreas on the Playstation 2, and started building his own Magic the Gathering decks. He hopes this show stokes your fire to stand up and fight for whatever makes your heart swell!!