SYNOPSIS

LBJ THE MUSICAL

A Power Play

By The Dinkin Brothers

ACT1: THE TOWER

In the oval office in the last days of his presidency, with protesters audibly surrounding the White House, Lyndon Baines Johnson is visited by the ghosts of his past and put on trial. In the midst of a deep despair he is forced to defend his life and his legacy. (“Hey Hey Hey”). With Robert Kennedy as chief prosecutor, the audience as jury, and a “Supreme Supreme Court” of MLK, RBG and JFK himself, Johnson stands accused by RFK, the protesters, his senate opponent Coke Stevenson, his aide Bobby Baker, his maid and cook Zephyr Wright, and his wife Lady Bird Johnson herself. To prove his point, RFK takes the audience backwards in time to Johnson’s childhood (“Landslide Lyndon”) and begins his arguments in an effort to condemn the 36th president. In Johnson City, Texas, we meet Samuel Ealy Johnson and watch how his father’s humiliation led to Johnson’s own shame and need to win every battle, dominate every situation and his insatiable appetite to rise to the highest levels of power. (“The White House and Me”) In a revealing montage of Johnson’s uncanny ability to manipulate and abuse power (“Tower of Power”), the audience is treated to a song and dance encapsulating Johnson’s meteoric rise from his college days in the Black Stars, to his early days in DC’s Little Congress, to his grabbing at his first political office opportunity and being elected to US Congress at age 29. Now a congressman desperate for funding, Johnson meets the Brown Brothers, who need a construction project approved through congress. With a little help from the corrupt former Texas Senator Alvin Wurtz, they strike a deal (“Dark Money”) and the stage is set for Johnson to further ascend the tower of power.

ACT 2: MR. TEXAS

The trial continues, and we are treated to another flashback. This time the young congressman is in love. And though he fawns over Lady Bird (“Lady Bird”) he saves his most slavish and sycophantic energies for the powerful men he meets in Washington (“I’m Your Boy”) including House Speaker Rayburn, Senator Richard Russel and even FDR. As the years in congress pass, Johnson is frustrated with his lack of legislative success. He becomes abusive to Lady Bird ignoring her frustrations and needs (“Watercolors in the rain”). Together they set out to change things and do better, but LBJ, defocused and fearful by President Roosevelt’s death, races to Harry Turman’s Oval Office to curry favor only to be rebuffed. (“Professional Son”). Johnson’s constant lies and betrayals to Lady Bird are on full display now as he sets his sights on Texas’ Senate seat. His health in trouble, plagued by kidney stones, hospitalizations and marital strife, he runs himself ragged flying a helicopter all over Texas determined to beat Coke Stevenson (“Mr. Texas.”/“The Ballad of Coke Stevenson”). The Brown brothers reenter the picture and Johnson’s unscrupulous thirst for power is revealed (“Votes for Sale”) just as his affair with Alice Glass is uncovered by Lady BIrd (“Why does he lie”).

ACT 3: KINGPIN

Confident now that he’s made his case and condemned LBJ to a dark judgment, RFK, yields the floor to Johnson. Johnson takes us back to 1948. Elected now to the Senate, Johnson treats the audience to a whirlwind course on the use and misuse of power as he plots his rise (“Kingpin of the Senate”), his power shored up by a budding relationship with young congressional aide Bobby Baker. Johnson defends himself, insisting that his entire plan to rise to power was to, once elected, actually do some good. In (“The Jokes on You”) Dick Russell, senator from Georgia and LBJ scheme a plan in which LBJ will convince the liberal wing of the Democratic party that he is in favor of civil rights, in order to get the support for his run for Presidency. Meanwhile, he’ll water down the civil rights bill of 1957 so it’s ineffective. Once they elect him President, he’ll show his true colors, as a blue blooded true man of the South. Or will he? Schooled by Zephyr Wright, shamed by Eleanor Rosevelt, but defended by MLK, we begin to see Johnson’s complexities on full display. After losing the 1960 Democratic primary to JFK, Johnson is surprised to receive the offer of VP from his rival. But only minutes after Kennedy's gesture, RFK arrives at Johnson's hotel room to rescind the offer. (“Between Brothers”). Sensing that he is losing ground in the courtroom, RFK resumes his prosecution with a searing look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, his brother’s heroism, and Johnson’s relative cowardice. (“13 Days ‘til Armageddon”). Johnson’s popularity is at a nadir when a scandal emerges around Bobby Baker. (“Squeaky Clean”) and it looks like Johnson will be dropped from the reelection ticket when John Kennedy is suddenly assassinated. Shattered and devastated reliving the trauma, the entire courtroom joins together to grieve and remember those days asking: who will glue us back again? (“Shards”).

ACT 4: AT LAST

The Courtroom now turns its eye on Johnson’s presidency and opens with a celebration in the Oval Office, with Johnson, on the toilet, issuing orders at light speed to his aides and lackeys. (“The Throne”). We see the first glimpses of what will prove Johnson’s biggest mistake as we listen in on a Joint Chief’s briefing on Vietnam (“Imminent Threat”). Meanwhile, on March 7th, 1965, John Lewis and over 600 protestors set out to march 54 miles between Selma and Montgomery Alabama, they are beaten as they try to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge. The cost in lives grows with each senseless murder and on March 9th, Martin Luther King Jr. pauses the march and turns to LBJ for help. On March 15th, he addresses the nation, pledging his commitment to the cause: “Their cause must be our cause too….It is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.” He then mobilizes the US army and nationalizes the Alabama state guard, deliberately humiliating Governor George Wallace. MLK leads 2000 marchers where they are joined by 50,000 supporters. LBJ addresses the nation and calls for a federal voting rights bill. It is a shining moment for the cause of civil rights and for LBJ. (“The Bridge”). In a final assessment of all that LBJ did for Civil Rights in America, the courtroom hears again from Zephyr Wright, who lauds the work he did for voting rights and civil rights, but who ultimately condemns him for his hubris in promulgating the unconscionable horrors of Vietnam. (”The Pen”).

ACT 5: AT WAR

The court turns its gaze to the Vietnam War and we are again treated to the inner workings of the Joint Chief’s as American forces in Vietnam spiral darkly downward into the quagmire. (“The Offensive on Tet”). Johnson allows the court to see him in his darkest moment, confronting the horrific death toll in Vietnam, he realizes that in order to win the greater battle for peace, he must halt the bombing of North Vietnam and so, announces this change in course, along with his shocking decision not to run for re-election. (“Sometimes you Gotta Lose to Win the War”). The court then flashes forward to the night RFK is assassinated. As difficult as giving up his plans for re-election were, and as painful as imagining his chief rival RFK in the oval office, LBJ is relieved knowing that RFK will work to end the War in Vietnam, and ensure LBJ’s legacy of serving those least off in American society would carry on. But when RFK is struck down LBJ is shocked, realizing Nixon will likely now win the presidency, erasing so much of his legacy. LBJ reaches out to Bobby’s ghost and begs him to return. Old scores are settled, as we relive the night Bobby Kennedy and MLK’s ghosts first haunted Johnson in the Oval Office. (“Come Back Bobby”). Johnson has made his case. He turns to Lady Bird and concedes that the verdict is in the hands of history, and together they fly off (“Where we Fly”) leaving the audience to make their own judgment. (“Hey Hey Hey (reprise)”)