Sitting in the audience at MCC Theater鈥檚 The Wrong Man, the new musical starring Tony Award nominee Joshua Henry as a man wrongly accused of a violent crime, it鈥檚 easy to draw connections to our world today, as the show shines a spotlight on racism, domestic violence, and, most potently, America鈥檚 broken criminal justice system. But that鈥檚 not how it started.
Fourteen years ago, songwriter Ross Golan found himself thinking about Eminem鈥攕pecifically his murder ballad 鈥淪tan.鈥� 鈥淚 was really into Merle Haggard and I was really into Tupac and I was really into Johnny Cash and I was really into Tom Waits鈥攖hese great storytellers, who, in one song, would make you empathize with a murderer,鈥� Golan told the audience at a talkback after an early performance of his new musical. 鈥淎nd I thought it was interesting that there was no one who was writing a murder ballad where the guy didn鈥檛 do it. So it started with that.鈥�
Golan鈥檚 innocent murder ballad spun into a full concept album. In that time鈥攊n which Golan rose to fame writing pop songs for the likes of Ariana Grande, Lady Antebellum, and Maroon 5鈥攈is story gained contemporary resonance. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 happened in the world of Netflix and serialized podcasts and streaming services with The Night Of and Making a Murderer and you have Serial, that didn鈥檛 exist when this was being written. It really helped shine a light on what鈥檚 become known about privatized jail systems鈥he is gaining a lot of steam鈥︹� he explains. Though Golan had simply been experimenting with the perspective of a narrator, 鈥渋t鈥檚 fascinating to see that people are now looking at this story through the lens of 2019, and it鈥檚 taken on new meaning.鈥�
Thanks to director Thomas Kail, choreographer Travis Wall, orchestrator Alex Lacamoire, and the cast, even that meaning within the show contains challenging layers.
On the original cast album, Golan sang the role of Duran, the titular wrong man. Now, Henry plays the lead role seven performances a week with Ryan Vasquez as his alternate. (Vasquez regularly plays the Man in Black, and Anoop Desai takes on that role when Vasquez plays Duran.) Different men of different color in the roles changes the experience and causes audiences to contemplate ugly truths at the intersection of race and criminal justice, as well as the consistent, inherent sadness at any wrong man鈥檚 fate.
Those nuances are intentional, and director Kail wants the final product to be malleable enough to hold differences and complicated questions. 鈥淭he hope is if you make a show it gets done all over,鈥� said Kail. 鈥淭his is not about a show going to Broadway, this is about a show being done in talented communities by many, many actors.鈥�
As The Wrong Man continues to morph, it鈥檚 the origin of the story鈥攖he innocent murder ballad鈥攖hat grounds Golan. As Kail put it: 鈥淲ith Ross, [changes are] never a problem, [they鈥檙e] a question: Is this telling the story we want to tell?鈥�
The Wrong Man is currently playing the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theatre Space through November 24.
