Media Archive

“I think [The Great Gatsby] is one of the most potently American stories that we have. I find it to be both the most clear-eyed and hopeful of what I think the American soul is,” Majok said. “I associate really deeply with Gastby. His story, who he is, resonates really deeply with me.”

“I think The Great Gatsby reminds us of how history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. We’ve been here before—will we learn this time?” [says Pfeiffer].

“Gatsby” is not just a novel — it is America’s imagining of itself. A reflection on the glamour and the hollowness of the American Dream.

“I want people to walk away from this story thinking about how accustomed we have gotten to seeing certain bodies being on the other end of violence,” says Pfeiffer. “How can we examine that this country has been built in a way that has allowed us to treat each other like this? When do we stand up for our neighbors?”

Chavkin [describes] her interpretation as an exploration of a romantic and painful “American tragedy” that the creative team will be able to illuminate with a “visceral visions.”

“This is truly one of the best scores of the last decade and is at once incredibly modern and feels of the era too,” [actor Ben Levi] Ross said. “It’s so lush and full, and yet kind of experimental and so accessible. I don’t think any of this music is ever going to feel dated.”

Gatsby himself is a self-mythologizing hero—a rags-to-riches Horatio Alger type. But the real myth, Chavkin asserts, is the contradiction at the heart of the nation’s promise, the beckoning green light that’s called people to its shores for generations, and the broken dreams that lie in its wake.