Poster for the 2023 Broadway run
Gutenberg! The Musical! is an Affectionate Parody of musicals and historical fiction written by Scott Brown and Anthony King. Two playwrights think that a sentence and Wikipedia search is enough they need to tell a musical story about the creator of the printing press.
The play first opened off-Broadway in 2006 directed by Alex Timbers and has been performed in many regional and community theatres. It opened on Broadway in 2023 once again directed by Alex Timbers with Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells starring.
Tropes for this include:
- Actor Allusion: A few towards Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad in the Broadway production.
- Elder Price and Elder Cunningham (played by Kevin Clay and Cody Strand) appeared as guest producers. Rannells and Gad originated these roles in the first production.
- During Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's cameo, he jokes that the musical is no Frozen II or Trolls Band Together. Gad starred in the former, while Rannells appeared in the latter.
- Affectionate Parody: The play is shown as a reading of musicals, and does have many of the cliches involved with them.
- Artistic License – History: Heavily lampshaded by Bud and Doug. According to the article they found on Johannes Gutenberg “little is known” about his life. So the writers put basically whatever they wanted in Gutenberg’s story including a lovestruck apprentice named Helvetica, an evil Monk trying to stop Gutenberg, and Gutenberg being burned at the stake. Bud and Doug try to justify this by saying some of it could have happened.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The evil Monk convinces Helvetica to help him destroy the printing press, locks her up when she's served her purpose, and leads an angry mob to kill Gutenberg.
- Brick Joke: The man whose baby dies in the prologue returns suddenly during "What's the Word?" grinding the whole number to a halt.
- Burn the Witch!: An angry mob whipped up by the Monk seizes Gutenberg and burns him at the stake.
- Celebrity Cameo: The Broadway production has a Running Gag in which the "producer" character is played by a different Broadway or movie star every performance. Past producers include Nathan Lane (who introduces himself as Max Bialystock), Ashley Park, Ben Platt, Jonathan Groff, Idina Menzel, Jake Gyllenhaal, Will Ferrell, Gaten Matarazzo, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
- Dark Secret: Played for laughs; midway through the performance Bud and Doug offer to each disclose a secret about themselves as an ice breaker. This leads to Bud admitting to being a virgin and Doug believing he killed his mother. Neither of them knew each other’s secret prior to this.
- Evil Is Hammy: Monk is cartoonishly evil and performed with a ridiculous and completely inaccurate Southern US accent.
- Never Learned to Read: The lack of literacy among the population is a Running Gag, and a motivating factor within the show for why Gutenberg wants to invent the printing press.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: After a lighthearted comedy and pastiche, the musical ends abruptly when Helvetica is sentenced to eternal torture and resigns herself to never returning home or marrying the man she loves. This leads to Gutenberg getting burned alive by an angry mob on seeing his printing press damaged. The playwrights insist, however, that despite this dour resolution, the printing press idea lived on, and eventually the Bible was printed for the masses. Dreams and ideas don't just die with their originator.
- Bud and Doug's own story concludes with a Deus ex Machina ending when the Broadway producer in the audience gives them a contract.
- Reality Subtext: In-Universe, one of the things the play changes about Gutenberg's life is having him be burned at the stake by an angry mob, with the initially-unsuccessful Printing Press later being Vindicated by History, clearly reflecting Bud and Doug's anxieties about their theatre careers.
- Running Gag:
- “You’re probably sitting there thinking to yourself…”
- Bud kicking his leg behind him and giving a childlike explanation of a literary device he’s used.
- Specifically the line "But Doug, what is..." prompting an explanation of a literary or theatrical term (metaphor, eleven o'clock numbers, etc).
- "The roof is made of dirty thatch."
- Show Within a Show: The premise of the show is that the audience is watching a reading of the musical written by Bud and Doug.
- Sinister Minister: Parodied by the Monk, who is somehow simultaneously The Fundamentalist and also a satanist who hates God.
- Stylistic Suck: The musical is about as good as you'd expect from two amateur playwrights with ball caps to indicate the roles they are playing, doing all the parts with minimal props, and admitting they did no research.
- Villain Song: Monk has three: "Haunted German Wood" explains his backstory, "Stop the Press" is about him persuading Helvetica to destroy the printing press, and "Monk With Me" is him attempting a We Can Rule Together with Gutenberg.
