What New National Musical?

As Wikipedia notes, Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical that premiered in 2001, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics. It feels extremely relevant, here and now.

But what will be the musical of 2016, regarding the election and our inability as a society to offer our citizenry candidates that reflect this great nation? Hamilton, yes, I have heard of it, but it conveys patriotism, intellect, a celebration of diversity. Was that 2016? And what will be the musical for 2017 and perhaps beyond, that captures how we manage as a nation with a President that is enamored with authoritarian figures like Putin? Is a revival a good fallback option? Perhaps.

Any new musicals representing last year and this year would most likely have to begin with dystopian music. Imagine the opening soundtrack to Jaws, but worse — scarier. It would open with chaos, disinformation, dissonance. Hopefully, it will have a heroine and perhaps a hero or two. Clearly there would be struggle. How will it end? Musicals frequently have a happy ending.

But should it? Will we?

So hell, if we can’t seem to summon the energy as a citizenry, perhaps we just bring back Les Miserables. Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly bishop inspires him by a tremendous act of mercy, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade. That barricade will most likely be in many, many cities over the course of this next year as the 99% of us struggle to make sure our families can sustain themselves in these Darwinian times.

But no, we need to write out own story. We need to write the musical of our times and it will involve difficult choices, free will, moral dilemmas. It will be full of small stories, full of humans making decisions in their lives that aggregate into a new tributary of American history.

I’ve just proposed an idea for the nonprofit sector to collectively build a musical. It is at www.lifegranted.com. But I believe that we can do this at a much larger scale. We all have a song in us. In fact, when the NY Times recently sketched out what part of the nation watches what TV, it was noted that The Voice is most popular in red states. Yes, we all love music, and a good story. I love country music for those reasons, and as Harland Howards quips, “Country music is three chords and the truth.” We need to find more truth right now.

We all made a choice in 2016. In 2017, we should now tell the story of how we will work through it together, the troubles and travails. And hopefully the joy of human endeavor as we struggle together to make it better.