Galileo Galilei is among the most recognizable rebels of the late Renaissance. Now, a new Broadway musical puts a rock-and-roll spin on the radical life of the “Father of Modern Science,” whose ideas clashed with the powerful Roman Catholic Church and helped propel the Scientific Revolution. “Galileo,” starring Raúl Esparza and Joy Woods, follows the famed astronomer as his research on the heliocentric model challenged prevailing Aristotelian wisdom that the Earth sat at the centre of the cosmos. The show is set to begin preview performances Nov. 10 at New York City’s Shubert Theatre before opening Dec. 6. Director Michael Mayer, who has worked on the production for nearly a decade, knew instinctively that Galileo, born in 1564 Italy, had the energy of a modern-day rock star: Historians have described him as defiant as well as arrogant and subversive. “I said, ‘I think this should be a rock musical,’” Mayer said. “He literally rocked our world.” Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who serves as a co-producer for the musical, more bluntly describes Galileo as “a bit of an a**hole.” But his egotism, perhaps more than his research alone, ultimately led to his fall from favor with church authorities, who banned his writings for more than 200 years and relegated him to house arrest in Tuscany, said Tyson, who is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “Had he been more politic about it,” Tyson said, “he might not have met the fate that he did.” He died in confinement in 1642, but Galileo’s ideas endured and spread. Two centuries after his death, the Catholic Church lifted its ban on his works as it became irrefutably evident that the combative astronomer had been right all along. Tyson, Mayer and Esparza said they hope that bringing Galileo’s story to Broadway will prove particularly prescient in today’s political climate. “It is a man who is standing up for what is objectively true against dogmatic forces that would suppress those truths,” Tyson said. “This is something that we need in these times.” Galileo’s grand and controversial life From his home in the city of Padua in northern Italy, under the shadow of a Catholic Church increasingly concerned with enforcing orthodoxy, Galileo became one of the most adept users of the newly invented telescope. Based on his observations with a homemade telescope, in 1610, he became the first to suggest that Jupiter had moons. After observing how light moved across Venus’ surface, Galileo became even more zealous in his belief that Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus had been correct when he hypothesized in the early 1500s that the planets, including Earth, revolve around the sun. But as Galileo began to share his findings, he drew the attention of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, sometimes called the “Hammer of Heretics.” The cardinal made it clear to Galileo that a heliocentric model contradicted scripture and ordered him to abandon the topic. Bellarmine is absent from the Broadway show, which introduces a few fictionalized church leaders. A lovelorn portrayal of one of Galileo’s daughters, Virginia — played by Woods — also takes some creative liberties. While her character is a bright scientist who plays an active role in Galileo’s research, the real-life daughter of the astronomer was living in a convent by age 13, where she developed expertise as an apothecary. But the production also draws heavily on real events, including experiments that Galileo carried out as he began to question nearly 2,000 years of accepted wisdom about the laws of motion. Using an incline plane, for example, Galileo demonstrated that objects accelerate as they fall. Years later, after Galileo’s first confrontation with the Roman Inquisition barred him from spreading Copernican theory, he found a powerful ally in Pope Urban VIII — portrayed by Jeremy Kushnier in the musical. Believing he had the pope’s support, he published one of his most famous works: “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.” He wrote the text in Italian rather than Latin so his ideas could be read by the masses. The text was supposed to be a presentation of the arguments for and against a sun-centric model, but Galileo once again drew the church’s ire by including the character “Simplicio,” who parroted talking points used by the pope himself — leading to an abrupt rupture in his relationship with Urban VIII. “He cannot help himself,” said Esparza, who is making a highly anticipated return to Broadway after 14 years. “I think he thinks he’s smarter than everybody in the room.” Facing the Roman Inquisition in 1633, Galileo was accused of heresy, a charge that had led others to be burned alive. He renounced his positions on heliocentrism. A starry stage To bring the story to life, Esparza noted that the production team brought on Ethan Tobman, the creative director for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, to design stunning effects that transform the Shubert Theatre into an immersive digital starfield, reminiscent of a planetarium. “It’s almost vertigo-inducing, and I love that because if you’re doing a show about technology, you want the audience to experience something they’ve never seen before,” Esparza said. The business of Broadway is notoriously fickle, and figuring out which magic combination of subject matter and musical style will resonate with an audience can be a daunting undertaking. But Galileo’s life is rife with lessons about curiosity, sacrifice and compromise that Mayer and Tyson hope will move audiences. His story is one of science history’s most famous tales, Tyson said. “How come this hasn’t been a musical? How come no one did this decades ago?” - Jackie Wattles, CNN
