Being a geek often comes with collecting special interests, the same way you’d collect small adorable monsters in a card or video game. As someone whose special interests include musical and cute things with big trusting eyes, I’ve been following the off-Broadway musical BALLS: The Monster-Catchin’ Musical Comédy on social media for a while now.
So, color me as delighted as some of my favorite little cuddly buddies when I saw that the show’s creators, Brandon Zelman and Harrison Bryan, were going to host a NYCC panel on Friday, October 10, 2025.
And as press, the natural transmogrification from my base level press self was reaching out to see if they were offering interviews. And yes, yes they were.
What Is BALLS: The Monster-Catchin’ Musical Comédy?
Since I live a few hours away from Manhattan, I have to rely on descriptions and social media to explain what looks like the most delightful parody since Puffs. According to Bryan, the plot of Balls is:
A world inhabited by these wild monsters where a professor who lives his life so afraid of them that he creates an invention to trap them in tiny balls to make the world safer. In doing so, he and his grandson discover the pitfalls of the world, and some monsters fight back against the inequality of a society that trapped them so they could fight other pets for fun.
Thematically, Zelman describes the show as being about:
Finding your place in the world, then recognizing the parts that are harmful, and maybe ways that you’ve contributed to that harm. It’s about trying to make the world a better place, not just for you and your immediate self but for those less powerful.
Of course, along with the plot and theme, both creators are excited that the show balances a tonal line between lampooning a beloved franchise and writing it a love letter. The show lives in the extremes of adult comedy and nostalgic innocence.
At its core, the show prioritizes the typical protagonist of the hungry adventurer who wants to be the best adventurer in existence while writing a narrative about an NPC (non-playable character). Bryan explains that:
Any great musical is expressing itself with a certain vulnerability that I think is definitely reflected in our two central characters, in their songs, in their need to sing. The Professor, who, again, is an NPC and his antagonist grandson, who is also an NPC, are characters who typically lack a voice in these types of games and remain under exploited in the shows. The way our show opens is that an audience member names the protagonist. That’s actually how little agency these NPCs have. They don’t even get to name themselves.
The mix of giving voice to these otherwise voiceless characters and giving the audience agency explores these larger themes around how people interact with games and each other.
Building a Musical Theatre Experience Around Videogame Music
As someone who loves video games and music enough to be in a video game-focused symphony orchestra, I wanted to know how Zelman and Bryan navigated creating a cohesive musical production around these two divergent music styles.
Once the two creators completed the book and lyrics, they assembled an elite team of composers to create an eclectic sound, similar to how different areas of an adventure game come with their own vibes. They brought on orchestrator and music arranger Lena Gabrielle who had worked on Emojiland. Using her background with another show that used chip tune sounds, she built a musical experience that combines eight-bit sound with contemporary musical theatre. As Bryan explained:
Lena, our orchestrator, really inspired me with an observation about how when you press pause in a video game, you exist in this sort of loop. She had the vision of what if, in some of our scenes, it was like we were pausing the action, and it was like we were in a video game pause sequence.
This approach curated a lot of the show’s underscoring. Zelman followed up noting:
The music is honestly so much better than one would expect from a satirical monster musical. I was rehearsing with Harrison yesterday, and we were living in a transition longer than it ever takes in the play. We were listening to some music that we never actually get to in the show. There are these hidden gems all over the musical score.
What Is It Like to Build 151 Collectabuddies?
I asked Zelman and Bryan, “what do you wish people would ask about that you don’t get to talk about enough?” After a brief moment, they both lit up and started talking about the process of fully designing and executing all of the characters. Beginning with 151 original Collectabuddies, they had to design and draw them from scratch. While some are projected into space, others came to life as tangible puppets.
The puppets involved five different builders, often with the two creators staying up until 3am or 4am trying to figure out where to put pounds of cardboard and burning, literally, through 12 hot glue guns.
Equally important, the Collectabuddies transmogrify, changing from one form into another. According to Zelman:
It was a really weird process coming up with these because we wanted some of them to feel like satirical ideas and some of them to be original ideas. Some of them had narrative purposes and demands in the show. At the end of the day, you lay all of those ideas out. We also have a personal goal of making 151 of these bad boys. How do we marry those things? And it was like a whole dance of just trying to get all of these different ideas that serve all of these purposes to make sense, and then to exist between their digital avatars and their physical avatars.
Bryan followed up, explaining:
Hopefully, as we grow and expand, people will start to recognize all 151 original Collectabuddy monsters in unique ways. People will have different favorites. There’s multiple ways to relate to these characters. We are creating a universe of BALLS that we hope can exist in multiple creative mediums.
What Can People Expect from the NYCC Panel?
If the panel is as delightful and energetic as Bryan and Zelman, then attendees are in for a lovely surprise. When asked to describe what we can all expect, Bryan responded:
We’re aiming for a panel like no one’s ever seen. We are really stretching the limits of a traditional “Q&A”. We’re doing giveaways, musical sequences, comedy, puppetry, an interactive RPG battle, a water fight. There’s going to be original artwork and a unique, special Comic Con exclusive trading card gifted to every attendee. We’re striving to create a really memorable hour, that teases the full show, and that features the original voice of Ash Ketchum and Professor Oak. Hopefully, this sets us up for a new wave of audience engagement and excitement going into our final performance of the year.
If people want to keep the games and joy rolling, attendees can join them at the After Party at Sugar Mouse in the East Village that they describe as “an incredible nerd culture nightlife and gaming venue.” Tickets can be purchased here
The final performance of BALLS this year will be on Oct 17, 6:30pm ET at CAVEAT NYC. BALLSmusical.com for more.
