about chasing grace

Moving fluidly between a treatment facility, memory, and the rehearsal room, CHASING GRACE is a meta-musical about recovery, authorship, and the cost of telling the truth out loud.

A writer sorts through the memories of her time in recovery inside a women’s treatment facility, where survival meant learning how to stay, how to listen, and how not to run. As the writer shapes her treatment experience into a new musical, memory and rehearsal collide. The women she once lived beside reappear, not as cautionary tales, but as full, complex human beings whose stories demand dignity, humor, and care.

As the musical’s workshops succeed and industry attention grows, the writer is pulled into a familiar danger zone: external validation, creative compromise, and the seductive belief that success will finally make her feel whole.

Pressure mounts to reshape the story into something more “palatable,” more marketable, and less honest. The farther she moves from the truth of her recovery, the closer she comes to losing it.

Photos from the 2023 SheNYC Festival Production of CHASING GRACE.

about us

She NYC Arts is a femme-led nonprofit organization fighting for gender equity in the theater industry and the entertainment industry at large.

We know that what audiences watch in plays, musicals, films, and TV shows helps mold the way they see the world around them – and we want audiences to see shows by women & femme artists, telling our stories through our lens.

We focus most of our support on the original creators — playwrights, composers, and producers — to get more women, trans, and non-binary people in these roles that decide which stories get told on stage and screen.

meet the writer/director

ELIZABETH ADDISON (Book, Music, Lyrics, & Director) is an award-winning multi-hyphenate whose work exists at the intersection of recovery and the performing arts. She has written three musicals inspired by her recovery journey, one of which, “Chasing Grace,” is set to have an Off-Broadway run in 2026 and will be produced by SheNYC. Recently, she was the scriptwriter on two shows at the 92Y celebrating the songs and legacy of Jonathan Larson and Holland-Dozier-Holland.  Elizabeth is a creative recovery coach, story coach, and trauma-informed facilitator with The Meghann Perry Group where she facilitates Recovery Storytelling, Embodied Storytelling and Embodied Songwriting workshops.  She is also a consultant for The Opioid Response Network (ORN) and The Resident Artist at The Grayken Center in Boston. Elizabeth travels the world performing and giving keynotes on the role creativity, play, music and theatre has in recovery. This past summer, she was in Aotearoa, New Zealand, performing with Recovery Street. Follow Elizabeth’s journey at Elizabethspeaks.com

creative team

Writer, Composer, Director: Elizabeth Addison

Line Producer: Alexa Spiegel

Production Stage Manager: Avery Wood

Music Director: Jacinth Greywoode

Choreographer: Brian Harlan Brooks

Lighting Designer: Athziri Morales

Sound Designer & Sound Technician: JP Pollinger

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Officer: Lexi McKay

Social Media Manager: Hannah Pederson

Advertising: Capacity Interactive

Press Representation: Katie Rosin & Katie Stahl, Kampfire PR

student apprentices

We’re not just making a show — we’re training the next generation of women, trans, & non-binary artists onstage and behind the scenes. We’re thrilled to partner with two organizations to give NYC-based students hands-on learning experience working on the show! 

NYU tisch school of the arts women’s & gender expansive mentorship program apprentices

Producing Apprentices: Sophia Zhao,  Nicole Stewart

Community Partnerships/Marketing Apprentices: Olivia Haney, Todd Croslis 

Creative Producing Apprentices: Juliette Markman, Louise Colin

Sound & Music Apprentice: Ollie Reece

 Performance Apprentice: Sam Regenbogen