Critical DMs: The next great Minnesota songwriter musical

In Critical DMs, we open the group chat and let you in on the ideas, obsessions and oddities circling the MPR News arts team.

This week, Max Sparber and Jacob Aloi ask:

If Prince gets Purple Rain, who gets the next Minnesota musical?

The answers include graveyards, crossroads and a shocking sighting over the IDS Center.

Jacob Aloi: So Max.

"Purple Rain the musical" officially opens on Nov. 5th, and it got me thinking...

What other Minnesota musicians/bands deserve a stage musical based on their music?

Max Sparber: Yeah, we've had Prince and a singer/songwriter from Hibbing, Bob somebody.

It's time for our local talent to storm the musical stages.

Aloi: Bob Dylan has actually had his music featured in two Broadway musicals.

The better known is “Girl from the North Country,” which I reviewed a few years ago, and his music was also used as the basis for a 2006 dance musical developed by Twyla Tharp called “The Times They Are a-Changin’”.

But I agree, there's a lot of talented Minnesotans who deserve a musical!

Sparber: The waters around us really have grown.

Aloi: I really feel like there are two genres of musicals built around an artist's preexisting music—musicals about an artist's life, and jukebox musicals with original stories.

Sparber: True, let's compress them into one for the sake of simplicity.

A supergenre: musicals about musicians’ music.

That's a catchy name, I'm trademarking.

So who are you thinking?

Aloi: Hard question!

Sparber: Yeah, how do you stop at just one?

Aloi: I think there are a lot of artists who should write an original musical—Minneapolis rapper Dessa, with her background as a poet and her super catchy hip hop sound, I think, could be really cool on stage.

But as for someone whose existing music would translate really well to the stage? I have to go with Jeremy Messersmith.

Sparber: True. Indie darling Messersmith already sounds like he's writing for the stage.

Aloi: Yeah, he has this really great folksy sound.

Sparber: And strong storytelling!

Aloi: And I think a lot of his stuff also has this haunting, nostalgic sound to it … almost spooky at times.

Sparber: So that could set the tone for the musical.

Aloi: Yeah, I'm especially drawn to “A Girl, a Boy and a Graveyard.”

Sparber: Yeah, sweetest song ever written about a Frankenstein.

Aloi: I feel like a Messersmith musical could be similar to shows like “Once” or “Hadestown.” Singer-songwriter focused, with a love story at the center of it.

Sparber: Who is a monster built out of corpse parts.

Classic tale.

Aloi: I imagine a story about a working-class musician, looking to find his way — and because Messersmith has these ghostly themes in his work, maybe we get some supernatural moments.

Sparber: The Ghost and Mr. Messersmith.

Aloi: It definitely could have some Edgar Allan Poe vibes.

Messersmith has another song called “The New York Times Crossword Puzzle,” which could serve as the main character’s “I want” song.

Sparber: There we go. Once you have a want song, you have a story.

Aloi: And once our hero explains he's willing to “sell out” for fame, maybe he meets Mr. Scratch at the crossroads and gives up something important to finally get some recognition. Maybe he loses his love, maybe he gets wrapped up in the world of fame. Who knows!

Sparber: Well, we must have his phone number somewhere. I think you've got a pitch.

Aloi: What about you, Max—who do you think deserves their own musical?

Sparber: So my choice is a composer/musician who is not typically associated with Minnesota, because he is from Kalamata, Greece.

He’s one of the most wildly successful musicians of all time in his genre. Maybe it's ancient music? Or science fiction music? Is it new age?

That genre.

Aloi: Sort of ethereal?

Like it could be in Lord of the Rings or a meditation mix on YouTube?

Sparber: Yes. He has had at least 16 number-one albums, 40+ platinum and gold albums, and his Live at the Acropolis video is the second best-selling concert video of all time.

Take that, Aeschylus and Sophocles!

I speak, of course, of Yiannis Chryssomallis — Yanni.

Aloi: International superstar! What's the Minnesota connection?

Sparber: He was a psych major at the University of Minnesota and started his music career here.

Aloi: His music is very otherworldly.

Sparber: Spooky space noises, African drumming, haunting vocals.

Aloi: Yeah, it's a creative blend — lots going on!

Sparber: And the story I would tell is both authentically Minnesotan and very Yanni.

This is deep, forgotten Minnesota lore.

Aloi: So it'd be based on a real event?

Sparber: Yes. In October 1978, a local hobbyist named Carlyle Osterberg decided to place lasers at the top of the IDS building.

He got funding from the Minnesota Arts Commission.

And he got Yanni to play music for it.

Lasers zapping into the sky while ethereal synth music plays!

Aloi: Sounds like quite the event, an evening spectacular even!

Sparber: Yes, except it wasn’t.

The lasers weren’t strong enough to be seen by anybody.

Yanni is making ancient chords on his synthesizer while nothing happens in the night sky.

But — and here’s the hinge — something did happen. Something even more spectacular than lasers. Something supernatural.

Aloi: And what is that something revealed to be?

Sparber: Well, this is the 70s, so it can only be Elvis, Bigfoot or UFOs.

In this case, it was UFOs.

Seven other people reported seeing UFOs that night.

And here’s the twist: one of them was me. I was 10. I saw flashing lights pass over my house in St. Louis Park while walking my dog.

Aloi: Wow!

Sparber: It's a profound feeling to know that me, Yanni and aliens shared a moment in history.

A moment that must become a musical.

Aloi: What do you envision it looking like?

Sparber: Lasers, obviously.

Aloi: Screens, projections, fog machines, the whole shebang?

Sparber: Probably just lasers. On the ceiling of a planetarium.

It can be the new Laser Floyd.

Aloi: This is the new tourist destination show.

Sparber: I'd pitch it to the History Theatre, but I'd have to use a pen name.

Aloi: What pen name would you use?

Sparber: Meremy Jessersmith.