The Avett Brothers’ SWEPT AWAY musical at Arena Stage — Page 3

For those of you who have seen it, can you describe the set transition in spoilers? I saw it in Berkeley and am curious what they are doing with it in DC

New Swept Away promo video

I was able to travel to DC to see Swept Away last week, and I have to say I found it to be one special show! I was not familiar with The Avett Brothers music before this show was announced, but it is beautifully used in service to the story. Most of their songs are inherently emotional and introspective, so it did not feel like a jukebox show at all to me.
Yes, the show’s story is slight, archetypal and not exactly original, but the complete commitment of the entire creative team and wonderful cast make this a tale that casts a powerful spell. The taut 90 minute/no intermission choice works perfectly for the high stakes tension. The singing and especially the acting are superb, and the set design and lighting provide several jaw-dropping moments. The stage picture and last a cappella refrain “I have no enemies” near the climactic moment will stay with me for a long time.
The show is definitely Broadway worthy, though could be a harder sell with some of the heavy subject matter…though not any more so than Spring Awakening, Hadestown, and the like.
I’ll preface this by saying I have little idea how a show’s potential Tony chances would impact the transfer decision…but I wonder if they will want to come in this season (theater availability dependent) due to the glut of new shows already set to open this spring. If not, they should wait until spring 2025 and open closer to the awards season. Should they somehow open this season, it would be fun to see John Gallagher Jr. and Jonathan Groff nominated in the same category. Stark Sands gives a heartbreaking supporting performance…just watching his face throughout as he reacts to events around him is masterful. And I agree with those above that Adrian Blake Enscoe would be the breakout star of this show.
So if you get the chance, head to DC before January 14.

Just a note due to some things I've seen, it's not a jukebox musical. I think there's only around two Avett Brothers songs in it that were already released. Everything else was written for it.

I don't know the Avett Brothers' catalogue at all (other than what I heard in this show), but I feel like this *has* to be a jukebox musical. Very few of the songs actually moved the story forward -- a sin that can be forgiven for a jukebox musical, but not for an original (or mostly original) work.

I saw this a week and a half ago. To provide some polite dissent: the book needs a considerable amount of work, although I'm not sure what more you can do plot-wise. There is too much navel-gazing and not enough (story) movement in the first 30-40 minutes of the show. They're on a boat, so maybe it's too difficult to actively drive the story forward. The Avett Brothers' music, while lovely, doesn't do many favors in that department either; the songs are thoughtful and introspective, but this show is not written in a way that makes introspection the source of conflict and plot progression.

As others have pointed out, the acting is superb; John Gallagher Jr.'s portrayal of tortured soul covers up a lot of the blemishes of a weak book. The direction and choreography are also gorgeous; the transition scene is truly well done. But the conflict that arises in the second half of the show is set up in an incomplete, patchwork way. The emotional turmoil in JGJ's character presented at the beginning and the end didn't seem like a consistent thread throughout; it just showed up where convenient. And the ending very much had a "well, and that happened" feel to it.

akhoya87 said: "...I saw this a week and a half ago. To provide some polite dissent: the book needs a considerable amount of work, although I'm not sure what more you can do plot-wise. There is too much navel-gazing and not enough (story) movement in the first 30-40 minutes of the show..."

And the show is only 90 minutes long, so that's a whole lot of time wasted. As for the score, I liked the Americana sound, but a sameness does set in within three or four numbers.

For me the highlights were the staging, choreography, and the star-making performance by new-to-me Adrian Blake Enscoe. Also, the homoerotic tension between the characters played by Gallagher and Enscoe was a nice, welcome touch.

I saw Swept Away with my daughter this week, and enjoyed it very much - she so much that she got tickets to see it a second time this week. Although much of the music comes from previous releases by the Avett Brothers, I would not liken it to your average juke box musical. It's a heavy story, and while it is full of wonderful music, and the singing was first rate, it played more like a drama to me.

Stark Sands was excellent as the older brother - he had an unexpected moment that took my breath away. John Gallagher was very strong, esp. during "Satan Pulls The Strings" - you could have heard a pin drop in the audience and he had us on the edge of our seats. And Adrian Blake Enscoe is excellent as the younger brother, I expect we will see much more from this young man, who reminded both of us of Mike Faist. The set is well done, the lighting and sound excellent, and while we would love to see the book fleshed out a bit more with information about the main four characters up front, it was a really enjoyable evening. I'd go to see it again if it opened on Broadway in 2024 - the cast is terrific!

The Avett Brothers played a NYE concert last night and Adrian Blake Enscoe guested onstage to sing Swept Away with them- Scott mentioned having 2 weeks left in the run and said it was about to be a Broadway show...!

I noticed that Adrian's band announced shortly before Swept Away opened at Arena that they'd be touring from late January to very early March, with John Gallagher Jr. joining for most dates. Then there's one random date in upsate NY in May. Could be nothing, but thought it was interesting to have such a gap.

The next step for this show may be to record a l'il somethin', so fingers crossed. Regarding a transfer, the sentiment has always been one aiming for the fall which given the glut of shows opening this spring is likely for the best.

Updated On: 1/2/24 at 10:54 AM

I saw this Wednesday evening, and don't see how this will find an audience on Broadway.

The performances were good across the board, but the music sounded all the same to me. Had there been an intermission I would have left.

Not much else to add without giving major plot points away.

"The biggest problem is the book, though. I rarely advocate for shows to be longer, but this one desperately needs to be 2 acts (with act 1 ending with the shipwreck). There is so little character building in the first half--Gallagher's character seems to dislike Sands's, Sands dislikes Gallagher's, the captain dislikes Gallagher's--to the point where when things start to turn act 2, it felt completely meaningless because we had never seen these 4 people bond and forge a friendship or anything past antagonization. So by the end I kinda shrugged like "Well, he never liked them anyways."

I could not agree more. This was one of the few times in my life I thought to myself, "this needs to be longer." I thought it was visually stunning with excellent performances, and I liked the music - - but time spent developing the four main characters pre-wreck was too short for me to feel any real impact from the post-wreck material. The time that was allocated to character exploration was so bite-sized it could only turn out cliches and familiar formulas about brothers, captains, sailors etc. I can't say I didn't enjoy myself, but definitely did not walk away moved.

My apologies for the delay in reporting back, but I saw this in DC the week before it closed and thought it was spectacular. The whole cast gave stellar performances, but I have to give a special shoutout to Adrian Blake Enscoe as Little Brother, who was the absolute highlight of the show in my eyes. His gorgeous, angelic voice along with his intimate vulnerability and charming boyishness came together to make such a well-rounded and striking performance.

I was completely unfamiliar with The Avett Brothers going into the show, but I have to say that I enjoyed the score a lot and thought that it was smartly crafted into the plot, unlike many other shows we've gotten with non-original scores.

John Gallagher, Jr. was certainly working his behind off here, and it really shows. My partner who I saw the show with felt that his dialect became heavy-handed at times, but I didn't agree - I thought that his choices worked quite well the vast majority of the time.

The set transition, as others have said, is incredible to watch and it really took my breath away (or should I say swept me away? teehee)

I do think that the book could use a bit of work if the show has life beyond this production - I felt as though I didn't know as much about the characters as I wanted to - but overall this was a really stellar production of some really stellar material and I hope to see it in further incarnations.

Stark Sands has weirdly always been under the radar even with some high profile roles. But I've always found him to be a very engaging performer.