Lewis Loves Clark
2024 Festival
Director
Ryan Dobrin
Music Director
Simone Allen
Script Assistant
Christian Jimenez
For More Information Contact
tinyurl.com/lewislovesclark
Number of Acts: 2
Preferred Ensemble Size: 6
Total Cast Size: 12
Orchestra Breakdown:
piano/accordion/keyboard, bass, drums, guitar/banjo, fiddle, guitar 2
Casting Notes:
Cast size can be between 12 and 16 performers. Gender diversity is important to us and we strongly reject the tradition of casting male historical characters exclusively as men.
Genre & Style:
Comedy, Historical, Drama
Synopsis
Lewis Loves Clark is a funny, fast-paced epic about the famous Corps of Discovery expedition. Combining bluegrass, folk and pop, this tragicomedy follows Meriwether Lewis (a depressed closeted alcoholic), William Clark (just breathtakingly oblivious), Sacagawea (permanently exasperated), and York (would rather be birdwatching) as they grapple with the not-so-great unknown.
Development History
Lewis Loves Clark was first developed through the 2020-21 Dramatists Guild Fellowship. Thanks to further funding from DGF, Lewis Loves Clark was developed and revised throughout 2021 and 2022 in collaboration with dramaturg DeLanna Studi, culminating in a reading held in June 2022. Most recently, Lewis Loves Clark received the 2023 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater, providing funds for a staged reading at a non-profit theatre—funds which the writers have yet to utilize.
Fest Fast Facts
- Lewis Loves Clark was first inspired by Mike’s lifelong fascination with the Corps of Discovery expedition and his not-quite-lifelong-but-still-pretty-long habit of falling for straight men—a habit historical scholars believe Meriwether Lewis may have shared. It’s about infatuation, colonization, wanting something so badly it keeps you alive and kills you at the same time, and how that sickness is at the dark heart of the birth of America. Also: it’s funny!
- Lewis Loves Clark’s score is a blend of bluegrass, folk, show tunes, and pop. We believe our show will delight fans of Alison Krauss, Alan Menken, Steve Martin, Edie Brickell, Michael R. Jackson, Josh Ritter, and the pinnacle of country-folk-pop pining: Red-era Taylor Swift.
- Lewis Loves Clark has undergone extensive research and revision, with thanks to the Dramatists’ Guild Fellowship and dramaturg and Cherokee theatremaker DeLanna Studi. Moving forward, we hope to keep making our show the best, tightest musical it can be, with an emphasis on further dramaturgy to better reflect underrepresented voices and aspects of the Corps of Discovery story.
- Lewis Loves Clark received the 2023 Richard Rodgers Staged Reading Award, providing $62,500 to be given to a nonprofit theater company to put up a staged reading of Lewis Loves Clark in NYC (the company does not have to be based in NYC). We’d love to connect with anyone interested in helping us use those funds—and/or any opportunities to develop the piece further for a full production.
- Mike and Dylan met at age eighteen when they wrote their first musical together. It was called What the Hell?!, or, Pair of Guys Lost, and it was also about two guys taking a big road trip (in this case, through the nine circles of hell). They have been collaborators and friends ever since. Someday they hope to write a musical that is not about two guys taking a big road trip. We’ll see.
- Thomas Jefferson was convinced there were woolly mammoths roaming North America and begged Lewis and Clark to go out and find him one. Come see Lewis Loves Clark for this and more fun facts, along with less-fun facts (Thomas Jefferson: not great!), high stakes, big emotions, memorable tunes and historically accurate zero woolly mammoths (full disclosure: there was a woolly mammoth in a much earlier draft of this show).