Theater can do more than entertain.
The story behind Gunpowder Productions — our mission, our founder, and the belief that young people belong at the center of the stories told about them.
A Nevada nonprofit built on a simple belief
Gunpowder Productions is a newly established Nevada 501(c)(3), approved August 10, 2026, dedicated to creating and supporting original theater and musical works that give voice to young people, underserved communities, and stories shaped by social and economic inequity.
We use theater, songwriting, education, and community collaboration as tools for artistic expression, youth development, literacy, empathy, and social impact. Theater can help communities tell difficult stories, create meaningful dialogue, develop young people's voices, and bring audiences into direct engagement with issues affecting their neighbors.
Our work is particularly interested in stories involving youth opportunity, economic inequality, racial and social justice, homelessness, incarceration and re-entry, community violence, educational inequality, discrimination, access to the arts, underserved communities, and the resilience and transformative power of creative expression.
Drew Pulver
Gunpowder Productions was founded by theater producer, educator, songwriter, and creator Drew Pulver. His work combines theater-making with youth education and a longstanding belief that young people should have meaningful opportunities to create — not simply consume — art.
Drew currently teaches Song Creation & Theater at Doral Academy Pebble, where students develop original songs, scenes, and theatrical material. The philosophy behind Gunpowder Productions emerged directly from this educational and artistic experience.
The origin of Revolutionary
One of Gunpowder Productions' principal projects is the original musical Revolutionary — and its origin is deeply personal. AJ, a former student of Drew Pulver's and a mixed-race young thespian, experienced profound socioeconomic hardship and loss. He did not know his incarcerated father, and his mother was killed. Drew ultimately became AJ's guardian.
Drew and AJ wrote lyrics together — making AJ not merely the inspiration for the work, but a direct creative collaborator in its development. AJ's story eventually became the inspiration for Revolutionary. But the creation of the musical took another unexpected turn: Drew's middle-school theater students challenged him to tell AJ's story. Their insistence that this young person's experience deserved to be heard became a catalyst for the musical's development.
"Young people are not merely audiences for stories about social issues. They can be powerful creators, interpreters, advocates, and storytellers themselves."
Revolutionary represents both a theatrical work and the beginning of an artistic philosophy that now shapes everything Gunpowder Productions does.
Learn about Revolutionary →Stories that begin with hardship, and end with connection
Gunpowder Productions believes socially engaged theater is most powerful when it combines artistic excellence with authentic human experience. We do not seek to reduce people to the hardships they have experienced. Instead, we seek to illuminate:
Agency & Creativity
People as authors of their own stories, not just subjects of someone else's.
Resilience & Dignity
Complexity and hope, rather than a single flattened narrative of hardship.
Community & Opportunity
The human capacity for change, and the connection that follows.
Meaningful creative authority
Gunpowder Productions believes young people should be given meaningful creative authority. Youth development occurs when students are trusted not merely to perform adult-created material, but to identify questions, choose subjects, conduct research, write, compose, revise, collaborate, make artistic decisions, solve production problems, communicate publicly, and reflect on the impact of their work.
See this in action →