A NEW MUSICAL

BY MICHAEL VEGAS MUSSMAN & PAYTON MILLET

No AI was used in the making of this show.

WORLD PREMIERE

  • The Players Theatre

    in the West Village of Manhattan

    Fully-staged performance

    Summer 2025

    Details coming soon!

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Why this story?

Why Now?

Alan Turing & the Queen of the Night is a queer fantasy, a defiant, shameless celebration of a great man and the woman he idolized.

Witness a gay icon reimagined. Our version of Alan Turing throws off his well-mannered, nerdy persona. Instead, we honor his defiant soul -- and the eccentric woman who taught him to live in a cruel world.

Mixing Turing’s gripping life story with the enchanting world of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, our show invites you to a night at the opera and asks what lengths you’d go to recover lost love?

As a boy, Alan Turing falls for his fellow boarding-school student, Christopher Morcom. In a cruel twist of fate, Christopher dies before the two can profess their love. Turing writes a letter of condolence to Christopher’s mother, and Mrs. Morcom soon invites Alan to her home. So begins a life-long friendship, where at many junctures Turing looks to the strange, whimsical woman for advice.

However, Turing’s fascination with Mrs. Morcom grows beyond the confines of reality. Deluded by grief and inspired by her unshakable passion, Turing begins to conflate Morcom with a figure of similar prowess: The Queen of the Night from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Lead by the glorious queen of his own mind’s invention, Turing embarks on a transformative journey through the opera’s enchanting world.

Years later, in our less than-enchanting-world, Alan struggles to crack the Nazis’ Enigma Code. Facing impossible odds, he recalls the Queen and her unwavering persistence. Inspired, Turing creates a trial-and-error machine that can work without rest - the very first computer. But what worth is all his genius, if it cannot reunite him with his lost love?

plot synopsis

  • "What a fun and innovative way to combine the story of Alan Turing with the beauty of the Magic Flute! Very compelling!"

    — Elise Dewsberry, New Musicals, Inc

  • "I love thinking about this show. It sticks with me. And it is entertaining from beginning to end. These are huge feats!"

    — Gabriel Ethridge, singer

  • "I wanted more!"

    — John Coppola, director

  • "Haunting"

    — Doug DeVita, playwright

Meet the Team

  • Michael Vegas Mussman

    Playwright, Lyricist

    Palm trees to skyscrapers. Silicon Valley, San Diego, Brooklyn.

    Disappointed Puritan, from Eden to Armageddon. Widowered. Plays about gays and dead people, scribbling and espionage.

    “Turing / Queen,” “Brunch with the Boys,” “Ghosts,” “In Security.” “Nobody: Me:”

    Right words, right order.

    Dedicated to Patricio.

  • Payton Millet

    Composer, Lyricist

    Payton Millet is a Brooklyn based composer and lyricist. Having started writing musicals at the age of 15, Payton spent much of their youth in Mountain View, California dreaming of a career in New York theater. After graduating with High Honors in Music from Wesleyan University, they struck out to make this dream a reality. In addition to student productions of many of their collegiate works, they have found success in off-broadway festivals most recently with a 2022 production of Heartbreak County (book by Ramsay Burgess) at Soho Playhouse. Some recent and ongoing projects of theirs include music and lyrics for Season 2 of Don’t Suck (a queer web series by Tyler Martin), the original score to Jesus of Suburbia (a short film by Ciara Hergott), as well as an ever-growing pile of unfinished personal projects. In their spare time they enjoy playing with their cats, Spoon and Concrete.

CONTACT

Directors and producers, we want to hear from you!