Nihonniboku posted:

I saw it off Broadway.

Yes, it's not a traditional musical. There is a band on stage that plays the music from the album. The actors on stage tell the story through dance, and there is absolutely zero dialogue. The story actually works pretty well.

Essentially, A group of friends gather around a campfire and share stories, such as "John Wayne Gacy Jr," (which is very sad as the dancers interpret these happy families being torn apart), "They are night zombies!" (which talks about how these men from history still haunt us), "The Man of Metropolist" (probably the most joyous dance routine, the dancers are able to facsimile Superman flying with the create use of a cape, and flying on one leg).

The main story is loosely based on Sufjan's real life. His avatar (Henry) in the show shares the story of his dad remarried to a woman from "Decatur", and they moved down there, and it sucked, but he made two best friends, Carl, and Shelby. Carl and Henry get tired of small town life, and move to "Chicago," in a beautiful sequence where they use a steering wheel, and the dancers fly around with lights to show traffic, and eventually New York. There, they learn news that Shelby is dying through "Casimir Pulaski Day," and Carl wants to return home to see her, but Henry refuses, and Carl leaves without him. Meanwhile Henry meets Douglas (implied to be Sufjan's deceased boyfriend Evans), and they fall in love with "A Predatory Wasp." Carl gets home, but it's too late for Shelby, and we witness him kill himself over and over again by jumping from "The Seers Tower."

It's a lot more effective than my crude language can evoke. Here's the "set list"

Act 1:
Three Stars
Come On! Feel the Illinoise
Jacksonville
Zombies
John Wayne Gacy Jr
Man of Metropolis

Act 2:
Decatur
Chicago
To the Works of the Rock River Valley Region
Casimir Pulaski
Prairie Fire
Predatory Wasp
In this Temple
Seer's Tower
A Conjunction of Drones

Act 3:
Chicago reprise
The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders
Epilogue (or Riffs and Variations on Out of Egypt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS7QtYFmepE