Our Team

Colleen Francis

Music and Lyrics

Colleen Francis is a versatile Nashville-based songwriter, producer, and performer with a degree in Audio Engineering and Music Business from Belmont University. She creates music across multiple genres, including country, pop, hip-hop, and rap, working with rising artists and contributing to TV shows like Selling Sunset and The Young and the Restless. Under the alias Franky C, she has landed notable placements in TV, film, and advertisements for brands like American Eagle and ESPN. Dandelion is her first foray into the world of musical theater.

Jessica Francis Fichter

Book and Lyrics

Jessica Francis Fichter is a South Carolina-based director, playwright, and teaching artist, currently serving as the Executive Director of Trustus Theatre in Columbia, SC. She has directed and taught in various locations, including NYC, where she earned an MFA in Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School. Recent directing credits include Twelfth Night: Welcome to Our Table (New York Shakespeare Best Comedy 2020) and Dandelion: An Original Musical (NYMF finalist 2019). She is also the founder of Evolving Door Theatre Company.

Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga

Story, Book, Addt. Music and Lyrics

Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga is an Atlanta-based theatre artist and the concierge of the renowned Woodruff Arts Center, home to the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre. She graduated from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC in 2019 with a Bachelors in Performance and has been heavily involved in the Atlanta theatre community since her relocation in 2022. Her most recent projects have been directing Brandon Jacobs-Jenkin’s Everybody with Renegade Theatre Co. and performing as Mal in Disney's Descendants at OnStage Atlanta.

Sean Riehm

Book

Sean Riehm is a writer and actor currently based in New York City. Originally from Columbia, SC, Sean is a graduate of Winthrop University, and has been featured in numerous productions across stage and screen. He co-wrote and performed in Circus in collaboration with the artists Rebecca Bailey and Taylor Lombardino, which debuted at Never Say Soft in February 2023. His screenplay, The Sunny Express, was a 2021 Semifinalist for the TITAN Awards. Dandelion is his debut as a writer for musical theater.

Bill Zeffiro

Addt. Music and Lyrics

In November 2024, Zeffiro’s opera, Truman and Nancy, based on the graphic novel Capote In Kansas by Ande Parks and Chris Samnee, will be presented by Opera Vermont in Brandon, Vermont for its World Premiere. In the Fall of 2025, ‘Houdini Among The Spirits’ composed in collaboration with librettist/lyricist Chris Ceraso will receive its debut at The York Theatre in Manhattan. Bill is also the winner of eight Manhattan Association of Cabaret (MAC) Awards, two for Best Special Musical Material and six for Best Singing Instrumentalist Bill also wrote book, music, and lyrics for The Road To Ruin which was directed by Broadway legend Pat Birch and made the Talkin’ Broadway Top Ten Best Cast Albums. www.billzeffiro.com

Steven Gross

Orchestrations

Steven Gross has worked on Broadway, Off-Broadway, the West End, and internationally as a music director, conductor, and pianist. He is a Lortel Award nominee for his adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance and has conducted the European premieres of notable musicals like The Life and Urinetown. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from Yale University, is a Fulbright and Rotary Scholar, and currently heads the Abbott MFA in Musical Theater Collaboration Program at Temple University.