Premiering tonight on PBS will likely be “American Heart in WWI: A Carnegie Hall Tribute.”
This system will carry America’s World Battle I story to life via the lens of The Nice Gatsby, the legendary novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and of 5 precise figures from the battle.
It was created, written and narrated by historian John Monsky and directed for the stage by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening).
Son of Theodore Roosevelt’s son Quentin rides a pony on the White Grounds. (Photograph by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG by way of Getty Pictures)
Corbis/VCG by way of Getty Pictures
Filmed at Carnegie Corridor in April 2025, it options the 60-piece Orchestra of St. Luke’s and a forged together with Adam Chanler-Berat (Subsequent to Regular), Nicholas Christopher (Hamilton, Chess), Micaela Diamond (Parade), Gracie McGraw (BABE) and Diego Andres Rodriguez (Sundown Boulevard, Evita), with conducting by music supervisor and arranger Ian Weinberger (Hamilton, Chess).
It additionally options dozens of songs from the interval by composers Irving Berlin, James Reese Europe, George M. Cohan and others; uncommon archival movie of American troopers and WWI figures; and historic flags from the interval.
In keeping with PBS, “Utilizing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Nice Gatsby as a framework, which marked its one hundredth 12 months since publication this 12 months, Monsky guides the viewers from the battle’s origins via its harrowing climax, as seen via the wartime experiences of Fitzgerald’s fictional veterans Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway, in addition to 5 real-life figures from the battle: soldier and music pioneer James Reese Europe, a civil rights trailblazer and Harlem Hellfighter; Vera Brittain, an Oxford scholar and younger nurse who loses the whole lot within the battle; Charles Whittlesey, a shy New York lawyer who leads a melting pot of troopers trapped below hearth within the single largest battle in American historical past; and fight pilot Quentin Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, in love with debutante and future philanthropist Flora Payne Whitney.
Calling this system “a daring re-envisioning of Monsky’s critically acclaimed unique 2023 manufacturing, The Nice Battle & The Nice Gatsby,” PBS mentioned it gives “contemporary insights, newly uncovered analysis, and extra musical choices, making a vivid and emotionally highly effective journey.”
In an interview final week with Forbes.com, Monsky mentioned he used The Nice Gatsby as a framework for tonight’s manufacturing as a result of “Gatsby is a method into the historical past of WWI – an echo, as each Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway are WWI veterans.”
He additionally mentioned every of the 5 actual, historic figures within the manufacturing “struck me as fascinating, as every was thrust into the center of this battle. None sought it. However all of them confronted it. The Brit Vera Britain gave us an image of the early years of the battle, setting the stage for the 4 American figures to come back. The very act of combating the battle, and surviving it, appears to have modified them, simply because the battle modified the USA.”
Monsky added, “There’s a historic expertise that unites all People, and I feel that the ‘willingness of the guts’ as informed on this story, does it. Perhaps this political surroundings compelled me to dig deeper to search out that defining assertion about our nation.
