One of the buzziest musicals of 2025 will only be performed once. There will be no set, no costumes, and the only musical accompaniment will be a piano. Even so, some theater folks are talking about it as the event of the season.
Firehouse Theatre has offered its “First Drafts and Bagels” series for years. It gives local playwrights the opportunity to stage a reading of their work, to help uncover rough spots that only emerge when what’s on the page gets spoken aloud in front of an audience.
Held at noon on Saturdays, these low-stakes affairs are mostly attended by theater insiders. But when the announcement went out last November that the series would include the musical “Safety,” tickets were snapped up alarmingly fast. The event was sold out by Dec. 3, 2024.
The cast assembled for the reading was certainly part of the draw. It includes perennial local favorites like Grey Garrett, Desirée Roots, Landon Nagel, Jacqueline Jones, and more.
But the creative team developing “Safety” is the main draw. Irene Ziegler, who wrote the musical’s book, has been a fixture in the Richmond arts scene for decades, first as an actress appearing in movies and TV as well as local stages.
She branched out as a writer in 1996 with her one-woman play, “Rules of the Lake,” that she ultimately published as a collection of short stories. She has gone on to write a novel and several plays since.
The music and lyrics of “Safety” are being written by John Winn, another local fixture whose jazz combos have included Neighborliness and the John Winntet, which regularly appears at Reveler. Winn has composed music for independent film, Shakespearean stage productions and rock bands.
Ziegler and Winn happen to be neighbors, a fact that facilitated their collaboration. “John wanted to write a musical theater piece so he came over to my house – we live only three doors apart – and suggested that we collaborate on a project,” recalls Ziegler.
Ziegler was working on a play that was frustrating her because she couldn’t make the last couple scenes come together. “Irene said it might be a good candidate for putting music to,” says Winn. “And in talking about where to put songs in, I think that gave it a new energy.”
The subject matter of “Safety” doesn’t necessarily seem a natural fit for musical theater. It’s the story of a woman who purchases a gun to protect herself and her mentally challenged mother but who finds herself facing new challenges when an overly helpful gun seller insinuates himself into her life.
“It’s a dark comedy and John and I both like that genre,” says Ziegler. “That was another reason why we worked well together.”
“It’s definitely not a song-and-dance type musical,” says Winn. “I like those a lot but I really prefer darker things.”
In the development process, Winn took inspiration from “Sweeney Todd,” reading the script of the play it was based on side-by-side against the musical’s libretto. “It was really helpful to see what Sondheim chose to musicalize and how he did it,” he says.
The final component that convinced the duo to participate in the “First Drafts” series was director John Moon agreeing to be involved. “John is a wonderful director,” says Ziegler. “When he came aboard, I thought, ‘I would trust him with my life, I can certainly trust him with my play.’”
Though excitement about the project is palpable, both Ziegler and Winn stress that it’s still a work in progress. “The response has been flattering,” says Ziegler. “But my hope is that people don’t come in thinking that they’re going to get anything very polished.”
“I have great confidence in the folks involved and I’m indebted to them,” she continues. “It’s going to go smoothly or it’s going to be a train wreck. I have no idea what to expect.”
“Safety” will be performed once at Firehouse Theatre, 1609 West Broad St. on Saturday, Jan. 18 at noon. Advance tickets are sold out. A very limited number of walk-up seats will be available on a first come, first served basis, beginning at 11:30 a.m.
