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Nietzsche! In Broadway World

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Check out our announcement!

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Hebron residents Kimerer LaMothe and Geoffrey Gee will present a developmental reading of their brand new musical – Nietzsche! – on the MainStage of the Fort Salem Theater in Salem, NY, August 21 at 7 PM.

Nietzsche! The Musical traces the tangled, passionate relationships that shaped the life and legacy of one of the most influential philosophers in the western world: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). While many people are familiar with the name “Nietzsche,” few know about the two women who helped make him who he was: Lou Salomé, the woman he wanted as his wife, and his sister Elisabeth, who married an anti-Semitic Christian activist and moved to Paraguay to found a colony for the pure German race.

Nietzsche’s love for both of these women brought him face to face with challenges that threatened to destroy him. Yet time and again, he reached for a way to love life – all of it. His story of struggle and affirmation carries relevance for our time.

In writing Nietzsche!, Kimerer LaMothe, PhD (book, lyrics, melodies) draws on over thirty years of research into Nietzsche’s life and work. She is a dancer, philosopher, and award-winning author of six books, two musicals, and over 100 blog posts for Psychology Today. Her second book, Nietzsche’s Dancers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), offers the only comprehensive analysis of dance imagery in Nietzsche’s writing. As LaMothe confirms, “The more I learn about Nietzsche, the more convinced I am that the best way to communicate the primary thrust of his life-affirming philosophy is through music and dance.”

Pianist and composer Geoffrey Gee, LaMothe’s longtime collaborator, has written an expressive, engaging score for this musical, featuring a range of styles from pop and rock to classical jazz. As Gee states, “Kimerer’s melodies and lyrics are inspiring, funny, poignant, and chock-full of meaning. My role is to build a musical world in which they can communicate directly into the hearts of the audience.”

In describing their collaboration, LaMothe explains: “It’s like magic. Geoffrey takes the melodies I sing into my iPhone and fleshes them out through his own musical sensibility, until it’s not clear where my work ends and his begins. Every song becomes a third thing – ours.”

The cast sparkles with talented performers from near and far, led by Jordan LaMothe as Nietzsche, Erin Kennedy as Lou Salomé, and Hannah Gruendemann as Elisabeth; and including Fort Salem Theater veteran Sue Caputo, and local artists Chris Giannitti, Michael Gallagher, and Dan Slavin.

Nietzsche! also features live musical accompaniment. Gee will lead a trio, with Sam McVicker from Dorset, VT on drums, Kai LaMothe on bass and guitar, and Gee on keyboards.

LaMothe affirms that this musical is for everyone: “If you know nothing about Nietzsche, his story will move you. If you know a little about Nietzsche, you’ll come away with a new perspective. If you know a lot about Nietzsche, please engage us in a long conversation about his work and its relevance for our time. Whoever you are, our hope is that you leave the show with a sense of what we find at the heart of his philosophy: a resounding love for life.

The reading will be performed one night only, and will be directed by Kyra Gee. A Question & Answer with the cast and creative team will follow immediately after the performance.

Tickets are free. Reservations are required. Unvaccinated audience members will be asked to wear masks.

For tickets: 518-854-9200. www.fortsalem.com

Why Write a Musical About Nietzsche? (The first three reasons.)

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Surprising though it may sound, there are many reasons to write a musical about a notorious white, male philosopher who went insane at age forty-four.

1. A relevant life.

Though Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) lived in the second half of the nineteenth century, he wrestled with the very same societal prejudices that continue to harm people around the world today, every day – including anti-Semitism, Christian imperialism, and xenophobic nationalism.

For Nietzsche, moreover, these prejudices were not simply academic. They confronted him in the words and actions of people he loved: his sister. His mother. His surrogate father, the composer Richard Wagner.  Nietzsche was appalled.

Much of his writing, especially the later works, was driven by his intense need to excavate the sources of such prejudices – to unmask the hatred, anger, and bitterness that animate them – and to do so in such a way that alternative paths appear.

He urged readers to create new values that affirm life, and, in the words of Nietzsche’s alter-ego, the fictional Zarathustra, “remain faithful to the earth.”

Now, today, we need Nietzsche’s insights more than ever.

2. A dancing life.

Throughout his writing, from his first book to his last, Nietzsche uses the image of dancing to describe the practice and the fruit of resisting hatred and affirming life.

As Nietzsche describes, he wanted to write books that would teach people to dance – that is, teach people how to cultivate a vibrant, sensory joy that overflows in a capacity to love life — all of it.

A model for this kind of dance, as he sees it, was present in the tragedies of ancient Greece, where the chorus danced and sang at key moments in the drama. According to Nietzsche, this dancing and singing evoked in the spectators a sense of their own visceral connection with the elemental rhythms of nature. Spectators were able to witness the failure or death of a hero and nevertheless, leave the theater suffused with joy and love for the ongoing generativity of Life.

What better way to advance Nietzsche’s message of affirmation than through musical theater — Greek tragedy’s singing-dancing-acting, modern-day heir?

3. An unfinished life.

Days before his mental break, Nietzsche was planning his next work – his complete revaluation of values. He never had a chance to finish it. For the next forty-six years, in a great irony of history, Nietzsche’s sister controlled his legacy, misrepresenting him and his work as sympathetic to the very anti-Semitic, imperialist, nationalist values he rejected. His story needs to be told.

What better way to reassert the truth of Nietzsche’s perspective than by providing an opportunity to experience the tragedy of his brief life as a reason to continue the work he began – and love life even more? Singing and dancing all the way!

Effecting this kind of transformation is exactly what musical theater can do.