Theatre / Caroline, or Change

Nothing ever happen underground in Louisiana
Cause they ain't no underground in Louisiana
There is only underwater.

— Caroline Thibodeaux, "16 Feet Beneath the Sea"

Caroline, or Change is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by Tony Kushner.

Caroline Thibodeaux is a maid working for the Gellman family in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1963. Struggling to support her four children with her weekly pay of $30, Caroline is exhausted and adrift as the Civil Rights Era swirls around her. Meanwhile, Noah Gellman, the family's eight-year-old son, has become attracted to Caroline in the wake of his mother's death from cancer. When Noah's stepmother institutes a rule that Caroline can keep any money that Noah loses in the wash, the relationship between Caroline and Noah undergoes a drastic shift...

Caroline, or Change premiered on Broadway in 2004 and was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and won Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Anika Noni Rose's performance as Emmie. It was revived in 2021 and was nominated for three Tonys, including Best Revival of a Musical. It also won the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical upon its premiere in London.

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Tropes:

• Anthropomorphic Personification: Several actors in the show play appliances in the Gellman household, including the Washer, the Dryer, and the Radio, which is played by three actors. Justified in-universe: to keep herself sane during the hot Louisiana days, Caroline imagines them as people.
• Arc Words: "Change" is one for the musical as a whole. Caroline's songs in particular often bring up the ideas of "underwater" and "consequences."
• Bittersweet Ending: Caroline gives up on ever being anything more than a maid, and her relationship with Noah is permanently strained, but the final number is sung by Emmie, who reveals that she helped take down the Confederate statue and vows she and her siblings will create a better future.
• Brutal Honesty: When Noah asks, in "Why Does Our House Have a Basement," if he and Caroline can ever be friends again after their falling-out, Caroline simply replies, "weren't never friends."
• BSoD Song: "Lot's Wife."
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Noah never calls Rose "Mom."
• Central Theme: Change - in both the literal, dollars and cents sense, and the metaphorical and societal senses.
• Christmas Songs: Played With, as a handful of the songs early in Act II borrow melodies from old Christmas carols.
• Condescending Compassion: Whether it's actually this (in Rose's case) or if it comes from a more genuine place (in Noah's, at least initially), Caroline views every attempt by the Gellmans to help her as this.
• Crisis of Faith: Caroline has one during "Lot's Wife"; Stuart gave up on his Judaism after his first wife passed away.
• Dark and Troubled Past: In "1943," the audience learns that Caroline's husband became an abusive drunk after his experiences in World War II.
• Deep South: Mr. Stopnick has nothing but contempt for everything south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and he isn't shy about it either.
• Distant Duet: "Moon, Emmie and Stuart Trio."
• Doesn't Know Their Own Child: Stuart has grown so distant from Noah in his grief that he can't even remember how old he is, or that he gave up playing the cello over a year before the show began.
• The Dog Bites Back: "1943" reveals that Caroline eventually fought back against her abusive husband and left him black and blue. She still regrets it.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Caroline refuses to accept handouts from the Gellman family - neither Rose's offers of food, nor Noah's "accidentally" forgotten pocket change. When Rose tells Caroline she can keep any money she finds in Stuart's clothes, Caroline snaps and threatens to hit her with her iron.
• Either/Or Title: One which hints at the double meaning "change" has within the show.
• The Eleven O'Clock Number: "Lot's Wife."
• Evil Sounds Deep: The foreboding Dryer is traditionally played by a bass.

  Noah: Did God make the dryer?

  Caroline: No, the Devil made the dryer. Everything else, God made.

• The Generation Gap: Emmie's growing political consciousness causes no small amount of friction between her and Caroline.
• Grief Song: Almost all of Stuart's numbers are these.
• Imagine Spot: "Caroline Takes My Money Home" and "Roosevelt Petrucius Coleslaw" are Noah's imaginings of a dinner at Caroline's home.
• Innocently Insensitive: Ruthlessly averted in the case of Noah, who knows exactly how much his words will hurt Caroline when she refuses to give back the twenty dollar bill.
• Interclass Friendship: Noah desperately wants one with Caroline. The feeling isn't mutual.
• It's Pronounced "Tro-PAY": Rose never pronounces Caroline's name correctly, which is a subtle way of showing her bigotry and lack of understanding.
• "I Want" Song: "I Hate the Bus" for Emmie.
• Large Ham: Mr. Stopnick, Rose's father, especially during "A Twenty Dollar Bill and Why"
• Leitmotif: Caroline has one in the form of the melody she hums at the beginning of the show; it's heard again in "Why Does Our House Have a Basement," played on Stuart's clarinet.
• Location Song: "16 Feet Beneath the Sea" helps set the time and place of the musical for the audience.
• Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number: "Roosevelt Petrucius Coleslaw," which features Noah, the Moon, and the whole Thibodeaux family, and "The Chanukah Party," which features the Gellman family, Caroline, Emmie, Lottie, Stuart's parents, and Rose's father.
• Meaningful Name: The Gellman's house is located on 913 St. Anthony Street, and Saint Anthony, among other things, is the patron saint of the poor, which certainly connects to Caroline's plight.
• Memorial Statue: A statue dedicated to a Confederate general (referred to in the show as "that ol' copper nightmare man") stands outside the courthouse in Lake Charles. It's torn down in Act II.
• Musical Chores: The first few songs in the show are sung as Caroline does laundry for the Gellmans.
• My God, What Have I Done?: "Lot's Wife," where Caroline realizes that the laundry money had done nothing but cultivate greed and hatred within her, and begs God to release her from her earthly desires once and for all.
• Oh, Crap!: Noah has a big one when he realizes that he left the twenty dollar bill in his pants pocket, and that Caroline is likely to find it.
• One-Man Band: In some productions, the actor playing Stuart also plays his clarinet in real time, rather than miming along with the orchestra.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Stuart more or less says this during "There Is No God, Noah."
• Parental Substitute: Noah views Caroline as one of these.
• Parents as People: Stuart's grief and Rose's feelings of inadequacy (and jealousy towards Caroline) are both thoroughly explored over the course of the show.
• Pet the Dog: Caroline clearly doesn't think much of Noah, but she does allow him to light her daily cigarette.
• Rage Breaking Point: Noah and Caroline both reach theirs in, fittingly, "Caroline and Noah Fight," leading both to say unforgivable things to the other.
• Replacement Goldfish: A lot of the tension between Noah, Caroline, and Rose is that Noah views Caroline as a replacement mother figure, and not his new stepmother.
• Religion Rant Song: "There Is No God, Noah" is a very muted example of this.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Mr. Stopnick, an old-school Jewish socialist, insists that nonviolence won't get the civil rights movement anywhere. Emmie challenges him on this, but Mr. Stopnick takes it in stride, saying that their debate was the first real conversation he's had since he got to Louisiana.
• Running Gag: It's minor, but Caroline makes multiple references to a crush on Nat King Cole.
• Small Name, Big Ego: A more innocent example than most in the case of Noah, who believes he's as important to Caroline as she is to him. "Caroline Takes My Money Home" is an Imagine Spot where the Thibodeaux family thanks Noah over dinner for the money he keeps leaving in his clothes.
• Setting Introduction Song: "16 Feet Beneath the Sea."
• Struggling Single Mother: Caroline, who is trying desperately to raise her four children on just $30 a week.
• Sung-Through Musical
• Toppled Statue: In Act II, it's discovered that the Confederate statue which stood outside the courthouse has been torn down by protestors, who included in their number Emmie Thibodeaux.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It's up to interpretation how much Rose is aware of what her new rule will do, but her decision to let Caroline keep any money she finds in the laundry is the source of much of the conflict between Caroline and Noah.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Tony Kushner, who wrote the lyrics and the book, has said that the show is based on "an incident from [his] childhood, grounded in memories of [his] early life."
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Noah, who is alienated from his grieving father and distrustful of his new stepmother. It's why he forms such an attachment to Caroline.

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And I am mean, and I am tough
But thirty dollars ain't enough...