CancelledAnimal Spirits

ANIMAL SPIRITS: a new musical about economist John Maynard Keynes, whose groundbreaking theories transformed the 20th century. Young Maynard and his brilliant bohemian friends, including Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, and Duncan Grant, lived lives of wild parties, polyamorous intrigue, and passionate debates about art, love, and – after their friends started dying in World War I – politics. Maynard wrote a devastating critique of the leaders of the Allies, which predicted the rise of fascism and established him as a public intellectual.

Maynard employed his skills as an economist to advise governments and amass wealth, which he used to support struggling artists. He was bisexual, and spent much of his life in romantic relationships with men until he fell in love with and married the dazzling Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova. During the Great Depression, he taught the world how government scan intervene in the free market to the benefit of all.

His circle of friends was smashed by the brutality of World War II, but Maynard invented new economic ideas that let Britain survive the German onslaught and help defeat Hitler. For his final act, he negotiated a new system of international rules that prevented the rise of a third world war and spread prosperity. But in the end, did he hold fast to his deepest principles, or did he betray them?

This staged reading will feature 10 of Boston’s finest musical theater voices accompanied by piano, bass, drums, and guitar.