“Our Own Heroes” Preview with Didi Stewart

The New Works Musical Ensemble presents a "sneak peak" at musical highlights of Didi Stewart's original pop/rock musical "Our Own Heroes," directed by Lydia Harrell and Rene Pfister. 

A comedy with serious undertones, the musical had its genesis during COVID-19 lockdown. One of the first 1,000 people in Massachusetts to contract COVID, Stewart began writing about her experience as a kind of therapy. But given the harrowing political conflict overtaking America, the show evolved into a satirical commentary on the dangerous divisions tearing our country apart. 

"Our Own Heroes" follows the fever dreams of Abbey, a discouraged activist infected with COVID, and her battle against a mysterious narrator who has seized control of her life story. Set in the cramped confines of our heroine's apartment, the action travels to multiple locations thanks to a series of Zoom virtual backgrounds Abbey gets sucked into. Along with the characters who haunt her dreams—a COVID ward nurse, a homeless teen, an ambitious TV reporter, and a MAGA type with a tragic past—she wanders a virtual landscape poking fun at everything from right-wing elitists to left-wing hypocrites. Given the task of changing her friends, Abbey will find that the greatest challenge of all lies in changing herself.