Charles T. Betz
Book, Lyrics & Music · Original Concept
Charles T. Betz is a Minneapolis-based composer and lyricist, and the creator of Five Minutes on the Low Road, for which he wrote the book, music, and lyrics. He trained in classical and jazz guitar, brass, music theory, and jazz arranging at the University of Minnesota and the University of North Texas, and has performed across classical, jazz, rock, choral, and worship music. He completed the year-long Core program at New Musicals, Incorporated (2022–2023) and returned as a guest composer the following season, and in 2024 was selected for Nautilus Music-Theater’s Composer-Librettist Studio. Recent works include IQ: The Musical (Los Angeles, 2023), the commissioned choral-orchestral Wild and Precious (2024), and River Song (2025). He is a member of the New Musical Theater Exchange, the Minnesota Association of Songwriters, and the Playwrights’ Center. His work on Five Minutes grows out of direct engagement with near-death-experience research and the IANDS community, keeping the show grounded in the clinical literature rather than in spectacle.
Josiah Thomas Turner
Additional Book, Lyrics & Music · Dramaturgy
Josiah Thomas Turner is a writer, musician, and theater-maker. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with Annie Baker, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Kirk Lynn, and he was a Many Voices Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center (2023–2025). His honors include the Kennedy Center’s National Undergraduate Playwriting Award, the Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship, and the Planet Earth Prize, and he is a 2026 Creative Capital grantee for The Adventures of Huckleberry Jim. He currently serves as an Artistic Department Assistant at the Guthrie Theater. A multi-instrumentalist and freelance dramaturg, he contributes additional book, lyrics, and music to Five Minutes on the Low Road and provides the dramaturgical guidance that shapes its structure and stakes — work that continued through the show’s Nautilus Music-Theater workshop.
Luke O’Leary
Illustration
Luke O’Leary created the illustrations for Five Minutes on the Low Road — the tunnel-of-light hero art and the gallery pieces. Full bio coming soon.
Book, lyrics, and music by Charles T. Betz. Additional book, lyrics, and music by Josiah Thomas Turner. Dramaturgy by Josiah Thomas Turner. Illustrations by Luke O'Leary.