About the Show

From Music Theatre International: "Through a seemingly unrelated collection of songs, scenes and monologues, The Theory of Relativity introduces a compelling array of characters experiencing the joys and heartbreaks, the liaisons and losses, the inevitability and the wonder of human connection."

This is a "song cycle" musical, meaning you won't hear dialogue or see a collection of linear scenes that create a plot, as in an ordinary musical. Instead, you'll be introduced to a variety of fascinating people, telling their stories in songs and monologues running the gambit of tones and musical styles and eventually coming to realize, as the quote above suggests, that they are all part of the same universe and their lives are more connected than they ever realized.

The show was created by Drama Desk Award nominees Neil Bartram and Brian Hill, who asked a group of college students to share some of the biggest changes that had happened in their young lives as they grew into adulthood. Their answers were varied and sometimes surprising, and shaped what would become the characters and songs in the musical.

To learn more, visit www.mtishows.com

A Note From the Director

We began the process of this show with more questions than answers: Who will get to see our show? How will we even perform it? What if someone gets exposed to Covid? How do we do rehearsals and keep people safe? What if school gets closed...again? Is it even worth it? It's hard to imagine a more uncertain set of circumstances under which to produce a show. But it's also hard to imagine a more agreeable group of people with which to do it. Many of these students have already had one show cancelled outright due to school closure and another pushed to remote performance at the last minute. All came knowing that they were taking on something new, different, and without a clear endgame. They did it with masks and social distancing guidelines, knowing they were often doing more than many people to stay safe and protect what they value, no doubt questioning at times the logic and even the worth of the whole thing. But the process of creating this show has reminded me, and I think these students, that it is - now and always - worth it.

Our show is about the wonders, curiosities, and surprises of human connection and the importance of seeing - truly seeing - one another, despite our manifold differences. We are individuals, each with unique stories to tell, and yet our lives are intertwined in ways we can't easily see, and may never know. What better theme to explore in a time when real human connection is in high demand and isolation too much the norm, and yet the interconnectivity of our economy, commerce, and culture is so clearly on display. But it's not just connection with other people that seeing and making theatre provides. Great British director Peter Brooke wrote about a theatre that provides "true contact with a sacred invisibility." A danger of isolation is that we get lost inside of ourselves. We need to make and to support theatre art, in easy times and difficult times, in peacetimes and pandemics, for its reminder of and, at its best, roadmap toward something outside - something higher - than ourselves.

Special Thanks

To Greg McElroy, again, as always, coming through with time, talent and resources to help us create a set, and to Tower Church for the loaning of scaffolding.

To Andrew Garay, Hannah Flowers, and Ashley Hazy, for being wonderful collaborators as we tried to navigate the uncharted waters of pandemic theatre in a high school setting.

To Jared Henshaw, whose expertise pervades just about every good thing in our school, and without whom we could not have created our remote performance.

To the cast and crew, who never lost their enthusiasm for creating or let their love for theatre diminish, as easy as that would have been in a year with so many hardships and unknowns.

To my wife, anchoring our family. "Julie loves [dogs], and I love Julie."

GCHS Theatre House Staff

House Manager
Maryn Isles

Usher
Emily Williams