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Tales of the Trojan War — especially “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” by Homer — have been captivating audiences for millennia, with each generation finding new ways to interpret and be inspired by the stories of its Bronze Age heroes. “Aristos,” a poignant musical with local ties, is one of the latest works of art to breathe new life into the epic cycle.
With its original cast album recently released and a staged reading at the Pear Theatre set for May 7, “Aristos” has undergone a bit of an epic journey of its own since its origins in a Stanford University dormitory, weathering a pandemic pivot and fostering a devoted fan base along the way.
“It’s honestly been wild and overwhelming. This is something that just started with me and Aaron (orchestra and choral composer Aaron Reed) in a dorm lobby late at night, pounding away at a piano,” writer/composer Muse Lee said. “Now it’s people putting ‘Aristos’ lyrics on their fan art for their favorite shows; people saying ‘Aristos’ helped them come to terms with their queer identity and helped them come out; people saying they never liked musical theater but they like this.”
The show, with its pop/rock score and classical influences, explores the relationship between the glorious-but-doomed Greek warrior Achilles and his beloved, the prince Patroclus.
Lee first fell under the spell of these stories in childhood, scrawling “Odysseus rocks!” on binders and reenacting adventures on the playground.
“These characters have always been there with me and almost grew up with me,” he said. “The ways I would express those stories have very much grown up with me, too.”
He majored in English and was involved with theater but new to musicals when he began his “Aristos” collaboration with Reed in 2019. A Stanford class had reignited his “Iliad” love, and Madeline Miller’s novel “The Song of Achilles” was also an early influence. Reed, a physics major, came to the project as an experienced jazz pianist and percussionist but was also new to writing for musical theater. They came up with their first “Aristos” song – an Achilles/Patroclus duet – on a whim, and, realizing they had something special, decided to expand the project, putting a call out over social media to recruit interested participants.
Sydney Cook, a Palo Alto teen who was a freshman in high school at the time, first stumbled upon “Aristos” via Instagram.
“It was so exciting watching the process of a show that was actively growing and developing, which is something I’d never seen before,” Cook said. “The work they were doing was fundamentally shaping the musical.”
The team held a workshop reading at Mountain View’s HaoExpression dance studio. There, “Aristos” earned the admiration of founder Hao Bach-Thai Lueckhoff, who has remained an important advisor, and whom Lee refers to as the show’s “patron goddess.”
“I thought this should be known by a larger audience,” Lueckhoff said of the project, which caught her attention with the beauty of its music, and the strength of the writing.
A cast of local youth performers, including Cook, had been about to stage a premiere performance at HaoExpression in the spring of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic canceled those plans, but the loyal community that sprung up around “Aristos” kept the faith.
Lee, Reed and crew took the show virtual, gaining thousands of online followers, crowdfunding $3,500 to fund elements such as remote recording equipment and hiring assistant mix engineers; opening up auditions to people across the globe, regardless of experience (the album boasts a roster spanning seven nations); and working through countless hours of Zoom rehearsals, video shoots, edits and social media engagement.
“None of us really had experience with making a musical, let alone putting together a musical completely remotely and online,” Lee said. “I think that’s why we committed to doing this. We really didn’t know what we were getting into. That gave us the courage to try.”
The show itself has gone through many drafts, all of which have been open and visible to participants and fans at every stage, culminating with the album’s release.
“It’s been very much a DIY, figure-it-out-as-you-go process,” Lee said. That process was challenging, yet in some ways liberating.
“We were forced into this space with so many limitations but in some other ways I think that sort of took limitations away from us, because there is so much of theater that is historically not accessible, that shuts out different groups of people. It’s an especially sensitive topic for the group of people we’re working with, telling the story of a queer romance with so many trans participants of color, for example,” he said. “The fact that we were able to put this production online entirely remotely meant that just by the nature of the form of this we were having to take away a lot of traditional barriers to accessibility.”
For Reed, it also meant a shift from writing arrangements for the instruments he had at hand and teaching songs by ear to preparing sheet music and diving into the world of virtual orchestration, while working to combine individual remote recordings into a cohesive whole.
“It was an entire new set of skills that I had to pick up along the way, and I am a much, much better musician for it,” he said. “I brought my experience to the table and tried to adapt dynamically to what’s going on, and it’s so much more motivating to try new things and throw things against the wall when you know there’s someone who’s listening … As artists and creatives, I feel like we’ve pushed each other to grow a lot, even as we also discover ourselves.”
Lee concurred. “The love of our community and the support of all this co-learning that we’re doing with our peers and collaborators here, that’s all something that has really bolstered my confidence as an artist.”
“Aristos” has attracted attention from the academic world as well. In 2021, the California Classical Association made it the focus of its spring conference, followed by a residency and presentation at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies, where Lee was appointed a visiting artist.
Finally offering a live performance in Mountain View feels like coming full circle.
Cook, who was to play the adult Patroclus in the canceled HaoExpression production, was cast as Young Patroclus on the album and will portray the character of Briseis at the Pear.
Cook’s continued involvement is especially meaningful to Lee, who sees growth as one of the show’s themes.
“We’re seeing them finally able to be on stage and get to be a part of this show as a senior, as somebody who’s going off to college, who is so self-assured in their theater path,” Lee said. ”They know this is what they want to do, and they’re just so full of conviction and passion.”
For the “Aristos” community, the May 7 performance will be yet another way to prove ancient stories can still resonate powerfully today.
“‘Aristos,’ at its core, is a story about human connection that outlives loss, war, and even fate,” Cook said. “I don’t think there’s anything more inspiring than that.”
A staged reading of “Aristos” will take place Sunday, May 7, at 7 p.m. at the Pear Theatre, 1110 La Avenida St., Mountain View. Tickets are $10. More information is available at thepear.org.
