TECH WEEK

Champion’s sequel hits the ground running as backstage chaos threatens to swallow Curie: The Musical whole.

With less than one week until opening night, the set has already collapsed, headsets are dead, and stage manager Ella has quit in a fury. Champion rotates among a diverse cast comprised of theater techies with considerably more confidence this time, and the characters who felt interchangeable in Setting the Stage (2025) step fully into the light. Tech lead and foster kid Levi, who’s navigating a “showmance” with Rosa (starring as Marie Curie), earns genuine sympathy; props master Sebastian’s tender growth, along with his tentative connection with mohawked Vincent (who has a drag alter ego), offers the book a warm emotional throughline. The magnificent rainbow-haired chaos agent (and soundboard operator) Willow’s escalating prank war with the cast propels the plot with delicious momentum. Champion captures the particular madness of tech week with pitch-perfect authenticity: the fraying nerves, petty feuds, and the way a shared impossible deadline can result in the formation of unlikely alliances. The novel’s central lessons—that “a team is only as strong as its weakest member” and that strength requires honoring what makes each person different—lands without feeling preachy. A cliffhanger ending will leave theater kids absolutely frantic for the trilogy’s conclusion.

Readers will tear through this one and immediately start counting down to book three.