24. Exit Music (For a Play)

Yeah a cheap Radiohead joke.  Sue me.

This song opens with a Chester Thompson drum fill lifted straight from his Frank Zappa days, and then unfolds into a piece that once served as the finale in version 1.0 of the show. That original ending had to go…but letting it go was very much a kill your darlings moment. I loved this tune too much to lose it entirely.

So instead of disappearing, it came back as exit music.

Eitan takes a guitar solo. Victoria answers with a viola solo. The band gets to stretch out, and the audience gets sent out the door with a final blast of sound. After the catharsis of “Travel the Stars” and (hopefully) a loud, joyful curtain call, this moment is meant to feel like release.

A celebration.

A few final thoughts:

Ending the show with Vincent’s death felt like handing the audience the inevitable. They’d leave knowing exactly what they already knew when they walked in. Nothing gained, really aside from a few hours spent in the dark.

But ending with the creation of the painting changes the exchange.

Instead of inevitability, we offer hope. And walking out of a theater with hope (especially now) feels like a far more radical gift.  In the current climate…it feels punk rock to offer hope.

Vincent started as a fairly standard biographical idea with some music attached. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being that. It became a statement to artists. A reminder.

You’re not alone.
We all struggle.
We all want validation.

But we don’t NEED it to create.

Set design by Vincent Gunn