WISH-LIST WEDNESDAY: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

PREMIERED: 2024 (Goodman Theater, Chicago)

MUSIC & LYRICS: Jason Robert Brown

BOOK: Taylor Mac

Official artwork for "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"

We feature another new musical this time round, as we dive into Jason Robert Brown's most recently premiered work, an adaptation of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", based on the non-fiction novel of the same name by John Berendt. Set in the 1980s, it tells a fictionalised take on the real life story of Jim Williams, an antiques dealer who is arrested and put on trial for the murder of a male prostitute named Danny in Savannah, Georgia. It focusses on the often blurred lines between both ends of the scales of morality, through means of a variety of eccentric characters, from "voodoo priestess" Miranda, to the transgender club performer Lady Chablis.

Brown and Mac first held a reading of the musical in May 2023, the former brought in to write original music when it was decided that music from the back catalogue of Johnny Mercer, originally used in the film adaptation of 1997, would not be sufficient for driving the story forward in the stage show. What resulted was an eclectic mix of pop-rock, gospel and jazz, in a score that encompasses the entire spectrum of Savannah subcultures, with everything from the elites to the working classes represented musically.

The Chicago cast of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"

The work had its first full staging at Chicago's Goodman Theater in 2024, featuring a star-studded cast that included broadway veteran Tom Hewitt as Jim, Drama Desk and Olivier nominee Sierra Boggess playing Emma, and Tony Award winner J Harrison Ghee taking on the role of The Lady Chablis. A broadway transfer is reportedly in the works, however talks of this have come to a shuddering halt, and as of 2025 there is no further information, so who knows, maybe the show's producers will opt for a London run in order to trial it. Are you a fan of Parade or The Last Five Years? Then this will surely tickle your musical theatre pickle...