Credit a new musical featuring the songs of Bruce Springsteen to a new car. Well, a new car coupled with the creative yearnings of Adam Max, who wrote the work "The Promised Land" in the summer of 2013.
Max and his wife had just bought a new car, and with it came a subscription to satellite radio. Max always enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, although he wasn't a rabid fan. But he found himself listening to the satellite-only "E Street Radio" station -- which features the music of The Boss -- at all hours of the day.
FAQ
“The Promised Land”
WHEN — 7 p.m. Saturday and again March 21
WHERE — WaterWay, 4074 SW H Street, Bentonville
COST — Free
"I was inspired by the emotion of his songs. I knew there were these connections that had yet to be made," Max says.
In the span of a couple weeks, Max developed a skeleton for a musical theater production based on the songs of Springsteen but also featuring a narrative arc that spans the gaps between them. A reading of the musical takes place twice in the coming weeks in Bentonville, with shows on Saturday and March 21 at WaterWay, a converted barn space that usually serves as a coffee shop-church combination.
The story involves two young men from New Jersey -- that's where Springsteen was born -- seeking to make a better life for themselves. It stitches together songs just as other musicals such as "Mamma Mia" and "Movin' Out" but has important differences, too, Max says. Where those "jukebox" musicals do offer note-by-note replication of the original songs by Abba and Billy Joel, respectively, Max has reimagined songs to fit the mood of "The Promised Land." For instance, "Dancin' in the Dark," originally a pop rock song, is now a ballad performed by a female cast member. Max says about a third of the 30-plus songs in the script are "sacred" and unaltered, meaning the other 20 or so got some kind of treatment. The songs span the length of Springsteen's notoriously expansive catalog, including works both old and new, popular and obscure.
Max has yet to contact any representatives tied to Bruce Springsteen for permission to continue with the concept, and that's one of the reasons the upcoming shows are stripped-down readings. But contacting Springsteen is the next step after the first productions.
Max says he and production partner Alex Wyatt will make a request of Springsteen and his representative following the edits that result from this month's staged readings.
Correction
A previous version of this story had the wrong first name for Alex Wyatt. The error has been correct.
"We absolutely believe in this thing," Max says.
-- Kevin Kinder
kkinder@nwadg.com
NAN What's Up on 03/06/2015