If You Can Make It Here… Musical by Colorado alum Graham Fuller ’08 and His Wife Debuts Off Broadway

Graham Fuller ’08 and his wife, Kristina with their two children on opening night of “That Parenting Musical,” which is appearing off-Broadway. (Photo by Rebecca J Michelson)

Back in 2017, Colorado attorney Graham Fuller ’08 and his wife, Kristina, a music instructor, started a ritual after their kids, ages 5 and 2, finally went to bed: they’d pull out a keyboard with the volume on low and start writing music. In September, the musical comedy they created based on real-life experiences, “That Parenting Musical,” had its off-Broadway debut.

It is a stunning accomplishment because, as an arts writer for the Denver Gazette aptly noted, it is exceedingly tough to break into New York City theater, period, but it is pretty much unheard of for a couple without national theater contacts do so from Colorado. However, after workshops performances in Denver and Louisville, Colo., in which both Fullers had roles, they received an invitation to perform before producers at New York’s Broadway supper club 54 Below. Two New York producers subsequently checked out the show’s world premiere in Littleton, Colo., in January 2023. That is when Fuller’s double lives as a partner and civil law attorney at Kottke & Brantz in Boulder by day and a musical theater writer and actor who sings and dances by night, converged.

“It was funny, because for a while I was trying to keep these two parts of my life separate, being a lawyer and trying to be taken seriously, versus being a musical theater writer, creating something comedic,” Graham Fuller said. “But as the show grew in recognition, compartmentalizing the two became harder and harder. Finally, one time when I was in court the opposing lawyer said, ‘I recognize you. You're from that musical.’ And at some point, I realized I can’t live two lives. I’ll have to intermix them.”

After the Colorado show was picked up by the New York producers, a new cast was hired for its run at Theatre Row in Manhattan. To help prepare for the off Broadway show opening, Fuller had to take a two-month sabbatical, which prompted some of his legal clients to press for the particulars and he fessed up. “They all thought it was pretty interesting, and understood what an opportunity it was,” he said.

The Fullers are both originally from Boulder, Colo., and have known each other since middle school. Both were involved in musical theater and sang in their high school jazz choir. However, they did not date until they were both living in New York City. Graham was eager to depart the “Boulder bubble” for New York after graduating from the University of Colorado where a business law course he took inspired him to become a lawyer and led him to Brooklyn Law School.

Among his Law School highlights: Taking Evidence class and a summer research position with Professor Margaret Berger and serving as articles editor on Brooklyn Law School’s Journal of Law & Policy. Fuller also lived in Feil Hall with the same roommate throughout the three years of school, and they remain close friends.

Kristina, who is also from Boulder, went to NYU for graduate school. The longtime friends fell in love and were engaged on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, getting married in 2009, after returning to Colorado.

During Law School, Fuller put his theater work on hold and continued to do so after starting his first position at Stone, Rosen & Fuller, a small law firm in Boulder. After four or five years, theater beckoned.

“I was missing that creative outlet, and fortunately, after two years of the firm, they made me a partner, and I had more ability to make my own schedule, if I could work it around client expectations,” Fuller said.

His wife had already started the Kristina Fuller Studio for the Performing Arts and in 2017, they co-founded 19K Productions to develop and produce new musicals including their own. In 2019, his firm merged with another firm, Kottke & Brantz, where his coworkers support his theater work, and which offers a “short commute, and a lovely way to practice law,” Fuller said.

“We tried to get back to New York every year or two because we have a lot of friends there still, and we wanted to catch a show from time to time,” Fuller said. The travel accelerated over the spring and summer, when the couple flew to New York either one at a time or as a family, along with their son, who is now 12, and daughter, who is nine.

While theater and law might seem far apart, Fuller sees them as complementary and finds writing theater a rejuvenating way to give his legal mind a break.

“It is just really easy with legal work, particularly litigation, to get bogged down in the what ifs and what could go wrong, and what am I forgetting, and all of those things. And you cannot focus on anything other than writing when you are writing a musical,” Fuller said.

As a litigator, storytelling is part of the job. “So much of what we do is outlining an effective argument, and how are we going to make our point and in what order? How are we going to support that? And that is also the foundation of what theater storytelling is,” he said.

In August, the kids had to get back for school, and after the family attended the premiere together, the Fullers returned knowing that in New York, their work is still being performed. After the rigors of opening an off-Broadway show, his job as a lawyer “feels almost like a vacation,” Fuller said. The show runs through Nov. 4.

—Teresa Novellino