A Message from EAMON FOLEY

I started my career performing on Broadway starting at the age of nine. I grew up mentored by prolific directors and choreographers and learned about the depths that theater could go to move audiences’ minds and hearts. But all I listened to was musical theater. And then, when I was 13, a fellow cast member introduced me to other genres of music music. Now by this time I was commuting in and out of New York City from my home in Connecticut about an hour and a half each way every day. I spent my commutes listening to Muse over and over, and a story started springing out of the music. It was the story of a young man thrust into the chaos of The Vietnam War, and the changes he went through in the surreal, horrific landscape that challenged all of his ideas of his own identity and sense of morality. Within that, a star-crossed love story also came to light between him and a fellow soldier. I could see this show forming in my mind’s eye, as even before I started performing on Broadway, I knew I would one day be a director-choreographer. I had also begun training in aerial arts, and I felt that the soaring quality of the music begged for this show to lift off the ground.

When I attended Princeton University, I had the opportunity to create a senior thesis both for my major, which was anthropology, and for the theater department. I chose Princeton because I knew that at the end of my four years I would find a way to bring this show to life. I linked this show to my anthropology thesis by doing ethnographic research with Vietnam War veterans. All of our interviews culminated in a similar sentiment. Vietnam was a surreal landscape where soldiers could experience the most beautiful and most horrific things they had ever seen in the span of a minute. Their experience challenged their ideas of their own country, the differences between men, and forced them to question their ideas of right, wrong, and self. Many veterans brought up John Wayne, and how they went there thinking they would become “heroes,” only to find out that their idea of what it meant to be a hero was wrong.

The Princeton production was a smashing success. We had lines leading out of the theater that could have doubled our capacity. It was the talk of campus, and I knew that we had not only made something beautiful and exciting and unique, but that we had tapped into a zeitgeist that could attract new audiences to the theater. We were telling a powerful story in an electrifying new medium set to music that not only fit perfectly with our story but also made people take notice. The aerial dance communicated the war’s intensity by giving the choreography a superhuman quality. We created a piece of theater that lived up to the epic scope of Muse’s music.

Footage from this production launched my career, and I have been lucky enough to achieve my dream of directing and choreographing unique theater pieces across the world. But the goal has always been to come back to HERO. I’ve been dreaming about this show for over half my life, continuing to hone the story as Muse has released new music since I first started thinking about it twenty years ago.

Thank you,

Eamon Foley