I wrote a musical about grammar. Really.
Think you can't have a musical with songs about grammar, dictionaries, and language errors? Think again.
You don’t realize how hard it is to rhyme the word comma until you try writing a song about commas.
Drama? Yeah, that’s dramatic, OK, check. Trauma? Too melodramatic. Mama? Not unless your singer is 5 years old, in which case they’re probably not singing about commas. Llama? No thanks on absurdist theater, Ionesco. Obama? Who wants to get political?
These are questions I’ve grappled with over the last decade as I’ve endeavored to write an original musical about grammar, language, and punctuation.
Is it possible to write a grammar musical that isn’t as didactic as Schoolhouse Rock!, as old-timey as 1776, or as corny as elementary school shows performed regularly around the country?
We’re about to find out together. The Angry Grammarian: A New Musical, presented by Pier Players Theatre Co., runs March 7 through 16 at Theatre Exile in South Philadelphia.
» READ MORE: Does bad grammar make you angry? Finally, an explanation why. | The Grammarian
No shade to Schoolhouse Rock! or 1776 — they’re great shows — but along with my writing partner, award-winning local playwright David Lee White, we were interested in a romantic comedy that played with grammar and language first, taught grammar and language second.
That’s how we ended up with ballads like “Lie With Me and Lay Me,” in which Greg and Lisa, our two protagonists, serenade each other: “Lie with me and lay me/ Your usage is so right/ Lay takes a direct object/ So make me your object tonight.” Or “Bring in Da Funk, Bring in Da Wagnalls,” a wah-wah-driven soul anthem about why, for Lisa, the hardcore descriptivism of Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary makes it superior to the Oxford English Dictionary — and how that’s a metaphor for her approach to language, love, and life.
Some of my most controversial column topics lent themselves naturally to songs. When I wrote about whether one space or two follows a period, my inbox exploded with (wrong) people who (wrongly) asserted that two spaces were needed. “The Right Space” became a song about Greg, who writes a grammar column for a newspaper (I swear this show isn’t autobiographical), searching for a soulmate who puts only one space after a period.
Similarly, few grammar topics incite as much passion as Oxford commas (a.k.a. serial commas, a.k.a. Harvard commas) … so of course I wrote a song called “The Comma With Too Many Names.” (Without spoiling too much: Greg and Lisa have a budding romance, but they disagree on the Oxford comma. Things get ugly.)
Not everyone is as obsessed with grammar as those two. Miriam, Lisa’s sister, and Web, Greg’s best friend, open the second act with “Whom Cares?” — a song in which they deliberately drop language errors in every line: “When we conversate/ You misunderestimate/ My grasp of rules, supposably/ Makes me lose my head, literally.”
It’s an absurd (not absurdist!) show. But it’s a lot of fun. Tickets for The Angry Grammarian’s nine performances are at theangrygrammarian.com.
It’s an absurd (not absurdist!) show.
Which brings me to one final bit of news: As the musical chapter of The Angry Grammarian opens, I’m closing another chapter: This week will be this column’s last in The Inquirer. After more than five years of chronicling how Philadelphia and America speak and write, I’ve decided to change things up a bit.
I plan to keep writing in a wider format — you can keep up with my grammatical rantings at theangrygrammarian.substack.com. Fans and haters alike will find plenty to respond to there.
I’m endlessly grateful for both groups.
Being able to write about writing for my hometown paper of record has been the privilege of a lifetime. To everyone who’s sent grammatical queries, linguistic challenges, and confused entreaties: Thank you. I hope to respond to more of them in the future.
Sometimes in writing. Sometimes in song.
But always correct.
The Angry Grammarian, otherwise known as Jeffrey Barg, looks at how language, grammar, and punctuation shape our world. Follow his writings at theangrygrammarian.substack.com. Tickets for “The Angry Grammarian: A New Musical“ are available at theangrygrammarian.com.