Something Unpredictable

I had programmed an entirely different 2024-2025 season for New Line. In retrospect, I see now that my mistake was in thinking about seasons the way we used to think about seasons, before the Great Plague of 2020. We were going to do The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bad Cinderella, and The Life. That would have been a very strong, very cool season, but it was a season for a normal (alternative) company in normal times. It was not the season we needed right now.

New Line survived the pandemic and we're slowly returning to pre-pandemic audience attendance, fundraising, etc. But despite the promises of Starlight Express, I've been very skeptical these last several years that there is really a light at the end of this tunnel.

It was New Line's Associate Artistic Director Chris Moore who urged me to repeat one of our biggest past hits this season, to put some much needed money in the bank. But what neither Chris nor I realized at the time, was that shows are usually big sellers precisely because they speak to a moment in our culture and history -- even when they're not literally about that moment.

American Idiot was written in 2004 about the events of 2001-2003. But when we produced it in 2016, during the Presidential election, we were all shocked -- me, the actors, the audience -- at how much the show was about that moment in 2016. And now we're producing the show again in 2024, and you'll be amazed at how much this story now is about 2024. Even though Billy Joe Armstrong wrote these songs twenty years ago, even though Michael Mayer fashioned these songs into a stage musical fourteen years ago, the show is about now.

Ultimately we decided that, for the first time in New Line's history, we'd put together an entire season of repeats of our biggest hits. And just as it was with American Idiot, it was the same The Rocky Horror Show and Rent, in this time of conservative freak-out over all things related to sexuality and a stronger-than-ever push from the political right to Other-ize all non-white, non-straight, non-binary Americans. Rocky's satire, so specifically about the freak-out over the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, suddenly takes on pointed new meaning in this world newly afraid of trans people, drag queens, and new kinds of family. Ten years ago, we didn't think we still needed queer-affirming culture, but we need it today, as much as we needed it in the 1970s and 80s. Rent isn't just relevant again; it's necessary again.

Life's hard. Theatre can help us.

It's an oversimplification, but it's not hard to see the Republican/MAGA Party as mostly terrified white folks, and the Democratic coalition as everybody else in America. Just look at the numbers -- Republicans have lost the popular vote in every Presidential election since 2004. And almost all the big agenda items on the Democratic side have broad majority appeal among Americans.

In American Idiot, Johnny, Tunny, and Will are battling against the forces of conformity and complacency and shallow patriotism in 2002. But when we see these characters again, now in 2024 -- without any literal references to 2002 -- we now see them battling all those same forces in 2024. Twenty years after Armstrong wrote these songs, it's still easier to be an "idiot," to accept what you hear, believe what you're told, vote with your tribe, than to stand up and yell Not This Time.

American Idiot doesn't give us a tidy, orderly resolution at the end. Our three heroes have gone out into the world, done battle with the "idiots" (including themselves) and come home a little wiser. But only a little. They're not really happy or content when our story ends, but they know themselves better now. The culture can't turn them into idiots now. They see that life isn't an adventure, like they thought; it's a journey. And a lot of unresolved shit stays unresolved in the course of a human life. But if you know who you are and you can see your path, you'll be okay.

Sort of by accident -- or was it? -- we ended up with a totally different season than I had first planned, a season that is far more relevant to this moment in our shared history and culture than the other shows would have been. Our country, our community, and many of us were badly broken by the pandemic. A lot of those breaks have not yet healed; some of those breaks have been re-injured. Without consciously intending to, Chris and I put together a season about The Others and about healing. That's the season we need.

Theatre -- well, all the arts -- are medicine. Theatre helps us grow, helps us heal, helps us connect, helps us understand. And just as a doctor has to prescribe the right medicine to match the illness, we too have to find the right shows that will help us all, on both sides of the lights, to do that healing. I think we've done that this season.

Still, I do worry sometimes that this period is so complex and so hard to unravel, that it's a lot more difficult to heal ourselves and each other than it used to be. I've always felt like what we do at New Line really matters and contributes to the world and our community. But now I wonder, can theatre still heal us? Can we still come together to tell a story and connect in meaningful ways, just as we've done for thousands of years?

Or is the darkness too strong and too pervasive today?

We shouldn't underestimate the power of the Dark Side. The MAGA movement is built entirely on a foundation of fear. And we can't quote Master Yoda enough these days -- fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. We can't just turn away from that darkness; we have to confront it. And to confront it, we have to understand it. That's why we tell stories.

In these turbulent times, I think the only real answer to our problems is genuine human connection. And that's one thing we all know the theatre does incredibly well, especially in a small blackbox space like the Marcelle. We have to stop fearing each other and start connecting to each other. That's the only sane way forward.

Theatre can help us.

In the last song of American Idiot, Armstrong's lyric describes the human journey as "another turning point, a fork stuck in the road." It's all about choices. Choosing to connect instead of fear. Choosing to find value in The Others instead of fear. Choosing to go forward, not backward. Choosing to embrace all of life, the good shit, the bad shit, the crazy shit, the surprising shit, the glorious shit, the stupid shit, all of it. Choosing to follow your own path and not someone else's.

Choosing to heal. And to heal others.

How do you measure a year in the life? All of us are trying to figure that out all over again, here in this New World that Jason Robert Brown warned us about way back in 1995:

But then the earthquake hits,
Then the bank closes in;
Then you realize you didn't know anything.
Nobody told you the best way to steer
When the wind starts to blow.

And oh, you're suddenly a stranger;
You life is different than you planned.
And you have to stay
Till you somehow find a way
To be sure of what will be;
Then you might be free.

A new world crashes down like thunder;
A new world charging through the air;
A new world just beyond the mountain,
Waiting there, waiting there...

A new world shattering the silence;
There's a new world I'm afraid to see;
A new world louder every moment:
"Come to me, come to me..."

These are still very scary times. But JRB reassures us that we will find our way out of the darkness, one way or another:

And oh, you're suddenly a stranger
In some completely different land;
And you thought you knew,
But you didn't have a clue
That the surface sometimes cracks
To reveal the tracks
To a new world.

Theatre can help us crack it open. 

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

P.S. To buy American Idiot tickets, click here.

P.P.S. To check out my newest musical theatre books, click here.

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