Good Day Uncut: 1776: The Musical

Philadelphia, we are uncut. Alright Philadelphia, got a good one for you today. Of course I'm on stage, where else would I be guys? But today we're on South Broad Street at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. We got full costume, we got the whole production, we've got an orchestra. Guys, this is your Performing Arts High School on stage to play for you. This is 1776. Cast, take it away. This is 1776, we're thankful to God Adams. And we'll go through all the blocking and then we'll stop when you're ready. First run through with the orchestra. We're gonna play. Our new conductor here. Here we go. ...conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two become a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress, and by God I have had it with this Congress. For ten years King George and his Parliamentary goal was to come in and get away from these fair and legal taxes, stamp tax, township tax, sugar tax, tea tax, and when we dared stand up like men, they stopped our trade, seized our ships, blockaded our ports, burnt our towns and spilled our blood, and still this Congress will not grant any of my proposals on this independence, not even so much as the courtesy of open debate. Good God, what in the hell are they waiting for? Sit down, John. Forgot to eat, John. Sit down. Sit down, John. Forgot to eat, John. Sit down. There's a hole in the window. Look out. There's a hole in the window. I didn't see. There's a hole in the window. Yes. Sit down. Look, we're independent. Sit down. I say vote, yes. Vote. Vote, yes. Vote. Vote for independence. There's a hole in the window. I say vote, yes. Sit down. Vote for independence. Will someone shut that door? Dear God. For one solid year, they have been sitting here. For one year, doing nothing. I do believe you've made a curse on North America. Yes, a curse that we here now rehearse in Philadelphia. A second flood, a simple famine. Plagues of locusts everywhere. Or a cataclysmic earthquake. I'd accept with some despair. But no, you say North Congress could not win. I say this with humility in Philadelphia. Where were your responsibilities in Philadelphia? If you don't want to see us, and you support our leadership. If you don't want the voice of independence, see for yourself. That God saw, that he could. But it never will. You see, we twiddle, twiddle, and resolve. We saw, we piddle, twiddle, and resolve. Nothing's ever solved in Philadelphia. Fugitive, puny, foggy, filthy. Philadelphia. Attention to the petition of Mr. Obama. Very good, guys. And we'll move to the second part of the song, the duet between Adams and Abigail. And before we jump in, why don't we introduce a couple of people? Please do, yes. Guys, this is Philip Brown, the director. Hey, guys. And this is John Adams, Jackson, Preiser. And where's Waldeese? Waldeese, come on up. So we have two Thomas Jeffersons from two separate casts. And we have two Adams here. We have two Adams from two separate casts. We have cast A, Jackson, and cast B, Waldeese. And so they alternate shows. All right, guys, quick word on that. You're playing, again, who are you playing? John Adams. All right, how do you like it so far? I love it. How educational has it been? Very educational. I've learned a great deal about this character from doing research and also living in his skin for the past couple months. It's been great. Well, introduce yourself. Make sure everybody knows who you are. I'm Jackson Preiser. Pleasure to meet you, Jackson. Nice to meet you. You seem to have your feet planted in this stuff. You're having a good time. Yes, I am. Good for you. Young man, tell us about yourself. Well, I am Waldeese Fernandez, obviously John Adams as well. I have learned that John Adams is just very, very, very passionate and very angry through, I mean, a lot of things, through all of his arguments in Congress, through his letters with Abigail, which I've researched about. Well, he's got the whole chorus standing up behind him screaming, sit down, John, shut up, John. I wonder if Abigail was ever like, sit down, shut up, John. Oh, for sure. All right, just a quick reflection on the production so far. You all are just getting underway. And today, actually, guys, going to be a little bit of an advertising blitz on our part here on Uncut just to let you know that this show is running down here at CAP. How has it been so far? Oh, it's been wonderful. I mean, it's so much energy in the cast. It's so spirited. And, you know, I actually only recently took up the role of John Adams, so it's been exciting. Been an uphill climb, right? Yes. I mean, a lot of learning to do. You've been cramming. Yes. All right, it looks fantastic, guys. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you so much. Listen, guys, we've got a ton more to come. 1776 is running down here at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. I'll give you all the show dates and times coming up when we get back from a quick commercial break with more Uncut. All right, Philadelphia, back on the main stage here at CAP. We have not one but two incredible 1776 casts, all of them students here, all of them working this summer. You want to talk about Gen X or Gen Z? They're all in here working and banging out some history, guys. More 1776 casts. Director, take it away. Thank you. I would like Rutledge to introduce this next segment. This is Rutledge, and introduce yourself. Can you come up, please? Hello, I'm Edward Rutledge, representing South Carolina for the Second Continental Congress, and I would like to show you all a little snippet of the love letters ongoing between Mr. John Adams and Abigail Adams of Massachusetts. Thank you. Please, take it away. You guys know where we're going from? So this is the end of Twiddle Diddle. This is Abigail makes the entrance, and she starts singing. We don't ever get full orchestra on this show. There's like 1,000 moving parts. This is way cool. Here we go. All right, excellent. The Dickinson debate. Let's have Waldez come in, and Dickinson, let's step up here, and we are right in the heart of a major debate between Adams and Dickinson about independence, but I'll let Lonnie come and introduce himself and his character. Take it away, Lonnie. Go ahead. Hello, I am John Dickinson of PA. Sorry, I had the camera pointing the wrong way. Hello, I am John Dickinson of PA, and at this next scene you will see is a highly anticipated argument between Dickinson and John Adams. Please enjoy. Thank you. Please, take it away. Excellent. So let's take the second part of the argument, which might be... Let's take it from the top of the argument, from the top of the debate, so that we can move it along. Well now, Mr. Adams, you've got your way at last. The matter may now be discussed. I confess I'm almost relieved. There's a question I've been fairly itching to ask you. Why? Why what, Mr. Dickinson? Why independence, Mr. Adams? For the obvious reason that our continued association with Great Britain has grown intolerable. To whom, Mr. Adams, to you? Then I suggest you sever your ties immediately, but please be kind enough to leave the rest of us where we are. Personally, I have no objections at all to being a part of the greatest empire on Earth, to enjoying her protections and sharing her benefits. Benefits? What benefits? Cruel repression? Crippling taxes? Abolished rights? Is that what it means to you, sir? Is that all the affection and pride you can muster for the nation that bore you? For the noblest, most civilized nation on the face of this planet? Would you have us forsake Hastings and Magna Carta, Strongbow and Lionhearted, Drake and Marlborough, Tudors, and the antagonists? For what, sir? Tell me, for what? For you? Some men are patriots, like General Washington. Some are anarchists, like Mr. Paine. Some even are internationalists, like Dr. Crane. But you, sir? You are merely an agitator, disturbing the peace, creating disorder, endangering the public welfare. And for what? Your petty little personal complaints. Your taxes are too high. Well, sir, so are mine. Come, come, Mr. Adams. If you have grievances, and I'm sure that you have, our present system must provide a gentler means of redressing them, short of revolution. That's what he wants. Nothing short of it will satisfy him. Violence, rebellion, treason. Now, Mr. Adams, are these the acts of Englishmen? Not Englishmen, Dickinson. American. No, sir. Englishmen. Okay, we can cut there, and that's when Franklin, come on in, our Ben Franklin. Wait, Ben Franklin's here too? Holy mackerel. Ben Franklin's from our A and B cast here. Come on in, gentlemen, introduce yourselves. All right, so you gentlemen are both Ben Franklin as well? Yes. All right. I am Jaden Duveen, and I'm A cast Ben Franklin. A pleasure to meet you. Thank you, Jaden. I'm Ronson Butler, and I'm B cast Ben Franklin. All right, Ronson. We've got to go to a break, so if we could do it in about a minute, okay? Thanks, gentlemen. Please take it away. This is crazy. To have one Ben Franklin is nuts. To have two of them is. So let's go from right before the fight. This is great. And so are you calling me? Let's go. Let's kick the ass. Are you calling me a man? You frivolous. You and your Pennsylvania proprietors, all considerate men. You stick to the rear of every issue so that if we go under, you'll remain afloat. Are you calling me a coward? Yes. Coward. Madman. The enemy is out there. No, Mr. Rodney. The enemy is here. England. England is closing in. Stop cutting off our attention. Colonel McKean. It's the cancer. He should go home. Yes. Oh, a man should die in his own bed. I'm here, Caesar. John, I leave you with the divide, Delaware. Forgive me. I'll take you home, Caesar. This is incredible. I got to go to a little break. Where can we come and see this fantastic show down here at CAP? You got dates and times at all? I have dates and times. You can come to CAPA. We run from Wednesday through Sunday. We have two matinees, pardon me, three matinee shows on Fridays 3 p.m., Saturdays 3 p.m., Sundays 3 p.m. The rest are evening shows at 7 p.m. You can go to celebrate1776.org and get your tickets there. There you go, guys. 1776 down here at CAPA. They've done the homework, every single one of the kids. They've got two casts worth of it. Let's go to a quick break and come back here with a little bit of context. We'll be right back. Nine each. All right, back, guys, down on South Broad Street in rehearsal with the cast and crew of 1776 here at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. Tom Richards, you've recently written a book. What's it called? The Unfinished Business of 1776, Why the American Revolution Never Ended. Now, you're a historian. This is about the actual revolution, not the musical 1776. Yet you're here, though, and I feel like you're probably a good guy to ask. This is a musical that was written for the bicentennial 50 years ago. Enterprising Broadway folks were like, what if we actually have a show? And it succeeded. It did well. They made a feature film out of it. But here we are again another 50 years later because why not? I could see this happening every 50 years until we run out of time. Yeah, the musical is relatively timeless. The debates about the founding, the debates that John Adams were having with John Dickinson, like you just saw, these are debates that Americans should know of every generation. It shows that politics is messy. Compromise is hard. History is incredibly complicated. But it also shows they came together to do something special. That's the funny thing about history, too, is we always seem to forget and we begin to look at history books of the people that we read about and think of them as these figures instead of the flesh and blood humans that they were and that you and I are now. Guys who trip on their shoelaces, forget that they park in tickets. They're humans. They make mistakes. A musical like this, especially in the hands of these young people, there's just a lot of power here. What do you think of it so far? Are you a big musicals guy? I like musicals. I like this one particularly because of its history focus. Well, it could have been a simpler musical. That's right. I think one of the things that's really great about this musical is that the Founding Fathers come across as not these people up on a pedestal who are doing amazing things and all getting along. They're coming across as fully human. I think that's powerful for the kids to see because they've always been taught or at least assumed that this is this amazing generation and things have gotten worse or something like that. But really what it is is people have to make compromises, people have to have debates and have arguments, and this is something that is old as America itself. So they're really connecting with the past and recognizing the humanity in these people. All right, guys. He's Tom Richards. Tell them the name of the book one more time. The Unfinished Business of 1776. There it is. Pick it up on Amazon. Thomas, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to see you and thanks for your time. Amazing stuff and really great to have him here. Phillip, it was good to have Thomas here for that concert, but really just a treat to be with you and your cast today. Thank you for coming in. This is probably something you all figured you all were going to do several years ago, right? Yes, this is all the dream of former Governor Rendell. He wanted to see high school students on stage performing 1776, learning the craft of the performing arts while also learning our history and getting excited about our history. And he had a vision to see all the Philadelphia schools, the school district of Philadelphia involved in the show. And so this is the first ensemble cast that's made up of multiple schools in the city of Philadelphia performing this show. So it's been a vision of his for many years, and here we are. We had a wonderful kickoff gala celebration and had the former president here, Joe Biden, and that was a massive event. And the kids were just in awe that a president would come and watch them perform. And I can't say enough that the spirit of these young people, it's special. This is what America looks like. This is truly celebrating 1776 and the vision of our founding fathers. If they, 250 years, could see into the future and see this performance and see what these kids did with their story, they would be amazed. It's perfect. Philip Brown, director of this wonderful production of 1776. Philip, thank you so much. Guys, they can only do it in high school anymore. You've got a full band down in the orchestra pit. You've got young people rehearsing on a Thursday. This is about as good as musical theater gets. You need to be here, and they're running all the way through August. We'll be right back with one more number from these amazing Kava kids down here in South Philadelphia. We'll be right back. Heavy discussions here at Independence Hall, the grounding founding fathers of the United States here bandying about the ideas. Will they sign? Won't they? It is all, guys, part and parcel of 1776, this wonderful production here at the Philadelphia High School of Creative and Performing Arts. Cass, one more time. Take it away. It's a masterpiece, I say. They will cheer every word, every letter. I wish I felt that way. I believe I can put it better. Now then, attend as friend to friend our declaration committee. For us, I see immortality in Philadelphia City. A farmer, a lord, and a sage, a big Gauti in the lake. I think it's quite bizarre to think that here we are, playing midwives to an egg. Egg? What egg? America, the birth of a new nation. If only we could be sure what kind of bird it's going to be. Time has a point. What kind of bird should we use as a symbol of our new nation? The eagle. The dove. The turkey. The eagle. The dove. The eagle. The turkey. The eagle is a majestic bird. The eagle is a scavenger, a thief, and a coward, not to mention a horrible bird. And the turkey? A source of substance for our settlers. A native of America, not to mention a very brave fellow who would not flinch at attacking an entire regiment of Englishmen single-handedly. Therefore, the national bird of America is going to be... The eagle! The eagle. We're waiting for the chirp, chirp, chirp of an eaglet being born. We're waiting for the chirp, chirp, chirp on this humid Monday morning in this Congressional Incubator. We're waiting for the scratch, scratch, scratch of that tiny little fellow. We're waiting for the egg to hatch on this humid Monday morning in this Congressional Incubator. God knows the temperature's hot enough. Bratastone! Or will it hatch an egg? The declaration is going to be a triumph. I tell you, a triumph. And thank you, guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Guys, this is the cast and crew of 1776 down here at Philadelphia High School of Creative and Performing Arts. Amazing stuff. I want to thank all of you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you, guys. So much for being on our show today. Phillip, please, once again, let them know when we're running, how you can get tickets. So we are running from now through August 15th. In this theater. In this theater at CAPA, Creative and Performing Arts High School here. And we are running from Wednesday through Sunday. We have three matinee shows. We have a matinee show on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 3 p.m. The other shows are at 7 p.m. You can go online at celebrate1776.org and buy your tickets there. And please tell everyone to come out to support this wonderful cast, this incredible student orchestra that we have, who are playing beautiful music, and celebrate our great career in Toronto around on stage. A lot of good Fox 29 content coming up. Meanwhile, I'll give you another beautiful live uncut tomorrow on a Friday. You all be well and stay safe.