Maggie Flynn is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 with a book by Hugo Peretti

Hugo Peretti

Hugo E. Peretti was an American songwriter and record producer.Born in New York City, Hugo Peretti began his career as a teenager, playing the trumpet in the Borscht Belt in upstate New York...

, Luigi Creatore

Luigi Creatore

Luigi Creatore is a American songwriter and record producer.From a musical family, Creatore began his career as a writer. After serving with the United States military during World War II, in the 1950s he became a writer then partnered with his cousin Hugo Peretti to form the songwriting team of...

, and George David Weiss

George David Weiss

George David Weiss was an American songwriter and former President of the Songwriters Guild of America.-Career:...

 (in collaboration with Morton DaCosta

Morton DaCosta

Morton DaCosta was an American theatre and film director, film producer, writer, and actor.-Career:Born Morton Tecosky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, DaCosta began his career as an actor in the Broadway production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth starring Tallulah Bankhead in 1942...

) and music and lyrics by Peretti, Creatore, and Weiss.

Based on an idea by John Flaxman, it was inspired by a true story set in the New York Draft Riots

New York Draft Riots

The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...

 of 1863. The title character, an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 woman providing asylum for orphan

Orphan

An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...

ed children of runaway slaves, is on the verge of marrying a Union Army

Union Army

The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...

 colonel

Colonel

Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 when her vagabond husband Phineas Flynn (who abandoned her to pursue a theatrical career and whom she had presumed was dead) returns to the scene. The cast of characters is a mélange of Confederate

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

 insurgents

Insurgency

An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...

, prostitutes and drunks

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

, bigoted

Bigotry

A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs...

 socialite

Socialite

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

s, circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 performers and a passel of African American kids

Child

Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...

 endangered by the local political situation.

Production

The Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 production, directed by DaCosta and choreographed by Brian Macdonald

Brian Macdonald

Brian Macdonald, CC is a Canadian dancer, choreographer, director of opera, theatre and musical theatre.Born in Montreal, Macdonald was an original member of the National Ballet of Canada...

, opened on October 23, 1968 at the ANTA Playhouse

August Wilson Theatre

The August Wilson Theatre, located at 245 West 52nd Street in New York City, is a Broadway theatre.Designed by architects C. Howard Crane and Kenneth Franzheim and constructed by the Theatre Guild, it opened as the Guild Theatre in 1925 with a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and...

, where it ran for 82 performances and 6 previews. The cast included real-life spouses Shirley Jones

Shirley Jones

Shirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of television, she starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma! , Carousel , and The Music Man...

 and Jack Cassidy

Jack Cassidy

John Joseph Edward “Jack” Cassidy was an American actor of stage, film and screen.His frequent professional persona was that of an urbane, super-confident egotist with a dramatic flair, much in the manner of Broadway actor Frank Fay...

, who was nominated for the Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for Best Actor in a Musical, and Robert Kaye as Col. John Farraday. Among the orphans were newcomers Irene Cara

Irene Cara

Irene Cara is an American singer and actress. Cara won an Academy Award in 1984 in the category of Best Original Song for co-writing "Flashdance... What a Feeling." She is also known for her recording of the song "Fame", and she also starred in the 1980 film Fame.She married Hollywood stuntman...

, Giancarlo Esposito

Giancarlo Esposito

Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito is a Danish-born American film and television actor and director.-Early life:Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark to an Italian father and African-American mother. His mother was an opera and nightclub singer from Alabama, who once appeared on the same...

, and Stephanie Mills

Stephanie Mills

Stephanie Dorthea Mills is an American R&B and soul singer, and a former Broadway star.-Career:Mills began her career appearing in her first play at the age of nine. Two years later, Mills won Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater a record six times...

.

Critics found the basic situation of Jones and the children threatened by political unrest to be too similar to The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...

, albeit told in an unrelentingly darker manner, and efforts to equate the New York Draft Riots with contemporary protests against the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 heavy-handed and counter-productive. "It is worth noting that two of the first night critics came up with the same line, calling Maggie Flynn the best Broadway musical since Her First Roman

Her First Roman

Her First Roman is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Ervin Drake, based on the 1898 George Bernard Shaw play Caesar and Cleopatra.-Original production:...

— thereby honoring a desperately lousy mishmash that opened three days earlier."

An original cast recording was released by RCA Victor and re-released on CD by DRG in 2009.

Plot

During the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, Maggie Flynn, a young Irish woman living in New York City, marries Phineas, charming but a scoundrel, who leaves her to join the circus. Maggie runs an orphanage for black orphans, and soon is engaged to Colonel John Farraday, a steady and faithful beau. However, Phineas, now called "The Clown" returns to win back his wife. They become caught up in the New York Draft Riots of 1863 and the orphanage burns down.

Songs

Act I

• Never Gonna Make Me Fight
• It's a Nice Cold Morning
• I Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way
• Learn How to Laugh
• Maggie Flynn
• The Thank You Song
• Look Around Your Little World
• Maggie Flynn (Reprise)
• I Won't Let It Happen Again
• How About a Ball?
• Pitter Patter
• I Won't Let It Happen Again (Reprise)

Act II

• Never Gonna Make Me Fight (Reprise)
• Why Can't I Walk Away?
• The Game of War
• Mr. Clown
• Pitter Patter (Reprise)
• The Riot
• Don't You Think It's Very Nice?
• Mr. Clown (Reprise)
• Maggie Flynn (Reprise)