Eisa Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda have created a musical based mostly on the cult basic The Warriors.
Jimmy Fontaine/Atlantic Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Jimmy Fontaine/Atlantic Information
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, and playwright Eisa Davis, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, have created a brand new Broadway musical — which isn’t truly on Broadway.
As a substitute, it is a idea album, meant to be listened to in a single sitting. That concept took place as a result of Miranda needed to write down one thing about The Warriors, the 1979 cult-classic film about members of a Coney Island avenue gang who’re making an attempt to get again residence to Brooklyn after they’re accused of assassinating a pacesetter advocating for peace.
It is one in all his favourite films. And he could not cease serious about how he may do his personal love letter to it. Then he introduced Davis on board — and so they began serious about the Seventies.
“We have been impressed by the idea albums from the ’70s that we love,” Miranda stated, “the place you’d sit in your lounge ground and browse the liner notes to your vinyl. And we needed to create that feeling.”
The album tells the Warriors’ story through the use of music that crosses genres, together with hip hop, rock, ska and salsa; it is sung by a forged that features everybody from artists like Lauryn Hill, Nas, Ghostface Killah and Billy Porter to Broadway stars Phillipa Soo, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Amber Grey.
“We simply received this dream workforce” of musical artists, Miranda stated. “So it was very liberating, all the time filled with pleasure.”
Mixing it up
The ladies of the Warriors
Jimmy Fontaine/Atlantic Information
cover caption
toggle caption
Jimmy Fontaine/Atlantic Information
Miranda and Davis flipped the gender of the Warriors in order that, of their model, the gang is all girls. This implies a central romance is one between girls as effectively.
“The gender flipping allowed us to angle in on the sexism and homophobia within the movie and be sure that we left that in ’79,” Davis stated. “We’re in 2024 right here.”
Miranda and Davis say they haven’t any plans for Warriors to return to Broadway, however that “We would like to see a stage adaptation of this down the highway.”
There doubtless will not be a film model, although, as a result of, as Miranda says, “That already exists.”
Ciera Crawford edited the audio and digital variations of this story. Chloee Weiner blended the audio.
