'Twas a Year Full of New Line, 2024

'Twas a year full of New Line, still soldiering on
Down this long, winding road, toward a long promised dawn;
'Cause when times feel this ugly, confusing, distraught,
And people fear things might get worse than they thought;
Then that is when we who tell Stories must rise,
And share those good tales full of glories and size,
Of poetry, popcorn, and beautiful lies.

The truth, it's not easy, especially now,
To keep us afloat and to hold to our vow
Making musicals that entertain and inform;
To remind us how much we're the same, come the storm;
And to help us see all of those things we can't see
When we're rushing through life, and we can't find the key,
When a hushed, darkened theatre's the best place to be.

Now, sometimes a show's just too weird not to do;
And the question's not should we?; but if not us, who?
The Great Ol' White Way is no longer the spot
In which every great musical must be begot.
No, our art form is thriving on stages and screens
Spanning ocean to ocean, and what all that means
Is that we can find gems like the Sweet Potato Queens.

But darkness descended -- the fictional kind --
With our Gothic, romantic pop opera, designed
To renew and re-focus the Dracula tale,
From epic-sized horror to more human-scale,
From heroes-and-villains to lovers and pain,
About love that is sacred and love that's profane,
About op'ning a heart before op'ning a vein.

It was timely in 2004, we all knew,
But American Idiot wasn't yet through.
For it debuted on Broadway in spring 2010,
And it somehow seemed even more relevant then!
Now, crafting our version, near twenty years on,
Has revealed to us insights our zeitgeist has drawn;
Then as now, life's no sprint; it's a damned marathon.

But no matter how gloomy this night might appear,
The good news is New Line will always be here
To guide us, to grapple with gobsmacking times,
Through characters, stories, and music and rhymes;
For art is a map of the world and the soul,
And it helps us to steer when life's out of control,
And it keeps us connected.
And it makes us feel whole.

Stay Sane and Safe, and Have a Happy New Year!
Long Live the Musical!
Scott

P.S. I started these year-poems on a whim way back in 2013. If you're a glutton for punishment, here are my poems from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023. (Yes, I skipped 2021.)

P.P.S. To buy tickets to our 2025 shows, Broadway Noir, Rocky Horror and Rent, click here.

P.P.P.S. If you'd like to contribute to New Line Theatre (you know you would!), just click here.