Historic uprisings have spurred many progressive moments in America — the antiwar protests of the Vietnam period, the Stonewall Uprising for queer liberation and most lately the Black Lives Matter motion sparked by the police murders of Michael Brown in Missouri and George Floyd in Minnesota.
For playwright and School of Communication professor Zayd Dohrn, these moments of unrest aren’t simply historical past — they’re core to his latest creation. In his new musical “Revolution(s),” now on stage at Chicago’s famed Goodman Theatre, Dohrn channels the vitality of these actions into the layered story of soldier and aspiring musician Hampton Falk-Weems. When he returns to the South Side of Chicago after a tour of responsibility in Afghanistan, Hampton — like his revolutionary mother and father did years earlier than — finally ends up being caught in a resistance motion overtaking his neighborhood.
Dohrn, who leads Northwestern’s MFA program in writing for display screen and stage, is understood for social and political themes in his performs. But “Revolution(s)” is Dohrn’s first-ever musical, and it’s not a typical Broadway-style manufacturing.
“It has some great music, but the kind of music hard to find in the American musical song book,” Dohrn stated.
“Revolution(s)” blends the musical genres of punk, metallic and hip-hop — assume funky rock live performance with a story. The sound for this world-premiere manufacturing comes courtesy of Tom Morello, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and co-founder of 1990’s rock band Rage Against the Machine. The two artists started their collaboration through the pandemic. As protests broke out nationwide over the police homicide of George Floyd, Dohrn discovered himself listening to Morello’s fierce, defiant anthems.
“It was matching the way I was feeling about the world and the kind of anger in it, but mainly the defiance of it,” Dohrn mirrored. “I texted Tom about combining his music with a story.”