In 2019, 17-year-old Emy McGuire stumbled across a haunting ballad, "The Legend of Anne Bonny," by European songwriter Karliene. The song, part of an entire album about the infamous Irish pirate, struck "like a lightning bolt."
“I knew instantly it had to be a musical,” McGuire recalls. Until that moment, she had never considered writing one. But she felt that the story of an unapologetic woman forging her own path through history deserved a stage.
That burst of inspiration soon turned into a years-long creative voyage. McGuire dove into researching Bonny’s life and the turbulent final years of the Golden Age of Piracy, all while juggling high school coursework.
By the time she was studying at New College of Florida, she had written ten songs for the project, which caught the attention of fellow student and theater major Pluto Boll in 2021. Hearing McGuire’s early demos, Boll began crafting full arrangements and urged her to keep going. In January 2023, McGuire, Boll and McGuire’s brother, Nathan, camped out in her dorm, working from morning to midnight to finish the musical for her senior thesis.
"We're all just in my dorm, camping out on air mattresses, waking up every day, going to the piano and staying at the piano all day long, just writing," McGuire says. "I would write scenes and I would bring them to Pluto and Nathan and be like, 'Read this with me.' And then they'd say, 'Fix this,' and then I would. It was a really fun one-month gestation period."
When professors warned her the piece was too ambitious to mount as a student production, as is tradition at New College, McGuire "did it anyway." She recruited classmates, staged the show in an amphitheater classroom and filled all 100 seats each night.
After graduation, McGuire returned to Colorado and submitted the musical to Shifted Lens Theatre Company’s 2024 Fresh Looks Festival, where artistic director Lexie Lazear saw its potential for a full staging.
"I thought it was catchy and moving, and it felt very close to ready for production," Lazear recalls. "The reading went really well. Everybody loved it. I heard from multiple people, 'Oh, this belongs on stage. I can't wait to see it.' After we did the stage reading, and it became sort of obvious that there was a possibility that we could produce it, I reached out to both of them with a few high-level notes."
Now, after years of rewrites, expanded roles and sharpened songs, The Legend of Anne Bonny will have its first fully produced run at the People’s Building in Aurora, from August 23 to September 6, in a co-production between Shifted Lens and Two Cent Lion Theatre Company.
The new musical follows Anne, an ambitious 18th-century housewife who escapes her confined life aboard the ship of a wanted man. At sea, she navigates dangerous captains, a vengeful pirate-hunter, the looming end of the pirate age and a romance with a mysterious crew member who isn’t the man he appears to be.
"The central characters are Anne Bonny, Mar Reed, Jonathan Barnett and Jack Rackham, and they are all based on real people," says McGuire, who wrote the musical's book and lyrics and collaborated on the music. "Jack was the English pirate captain who was famous for having two women on board, and those women were Anne Bonny and Mary Read (Mar Reed in the show), and Jonathan is the English privateer who caught them in 1720."
McGuire, who also plays Mar Reed in this production, says one of the biggest evolutions since the first staging has been shifting the focus from a Jack Rackham–centered plot to a story anchored equally by four characters. “Before, it was mostly Anne’s story with others in the background,” she explains.
Boll, who helped write the music and serves as the show's music director, agrees: “One of the things we really wanted to bring out was the romance between the two main female characters. Mar Reed was such a small character in the first iteration of this story, and she has grown so much in the revisions. Mar has grown the most as a character, and the show feels much more about their relationship now."
The early student production used taped maps and makeshift props, whereas the Aurora staging creates a richer, more abstract visual world. Lazear, who is also the costume designer and co-producer, has focused on capturing the sweep of the ocean without actually building a ship.
"A lot of directorial vision at this level of theater comes with figuring out how to make it really special with less money," she says. "My goal has been to find a way to make it feel as epic as possible and still feel as intimate, as a lot of these moments are. So it's been sort of balancing the epicness of the tale with the real humanity of the story."
That scale also comes through in the music, which blends folk influences, sea shanties and sweeping ballads. Boll's orchestrations reduce an eight-piece vision to a five-piece live band, featuring two keyboards, violin, cello, percussion and the occasional ukulele. McGuire calls the music "a hybrid between Anastasia and Hadestown.”
Sword fights are central to the storytelling, serving as both spectacle and a metaphor for power. "We started our rehearsals with a whole week of sword training," Lazear says. "Before we even started doing fight choreography, we practiced basic sword techniques to make the choreography go more smoothly. There are lots of fights. The way that power plays are expressed in the show is through the sword fights."
For Lazear, having the writers in the room has allowed the creative team to shape scenes in real time.
“If I need an extra eight counts for a dance, they can make it happen right there,” she says. “I've never built a fresh musical like this. I've been in world premieres, but as an actor a long time ago, but never like this. It's been really cool to collaboratively find where things land the best for all the different pieces in the room because theater's a team sport, and this has been one of the most collaborative processes I've ever had.”
Looking ahead, the company is considering ways to preserve and share the music beyond Aurora. McGuire says they may produce an EP of select songs, a tool to help the show travel to other theaters nationwide. Lazear, whose husband is an audio engineer, notes that the resources are already in place to make that possible.
"The hope is to record a few sick EPs so that you can then shop around to other theaters, because I think this is a great show and people should produce less of the same things over and over again," Lazear says. "Let's see more new stuff. There's communities all over the country that I think could rock the crap out of this show."
The team hopes Anne Bonny will appeal to anyone eager for something new. With tickets priced on a sliding scale of $15 to $40, both Two Cent Lion and Shifted Lens also aim to make the production accessible to more than the typical theatergoing crowd.
“There’s this unique energy to a premiere and to new work,” McGuire reflects. “Everyone feels as though we have something to prove, you know? This is a story that hasn’t really been told, especially in this way, and we’re the ones who get to show that it is worth being told, which has to be proven because it’s the first time.”
Though McGuire's first professional staging is a significant milestone, it is not the final destination.
“I want this to go as far as it can possibly go," McGuire says. "The thing I have most in common with the characters I write is ambition. I want The Legend of Anne Bonny to go to Broadway; I want it to be huge. And I think it could be if I keep pushing myself and the people around me keep lifting the story up in the way that they have been doing. I think that this is just the beginning.”
The Legend of Anne Bonny runs Saturday, August 23, through Sunday, September 6, at the People's Building, 9995 East Colfax Avenue, Aurora. Tickets are on a sliding scale from $15 to $40. Learn more at www.thepeoplesbuilding.com/the-legend-of-anne-bonny.
“I knew instantly it had to be a musical,” McGuire recalls. Until that moment, she had never considered writing one. But she felt that the story of an unapologetic woman forging her own path through history deserved a stage.
That burst of inspiration soon turned into a years-long creative voyage. McGuire dove into researching Bonny’s life and the turbulent final years of the Golden Age of Piracy, all while juggling high school coursework.
By the time she was studying at New College of Florida, she had written ten songs for the project, which caught the attention of fellow student and theater major Pluto Boll in 2021. Hearing McGuire’s early demos, Boll began crafting full arrangements and urged her to keep going. In January 2023, McGuire, Boll and McGuire’s brother, Nathan, camped out in her dorm, working from morning to midnight to finish the musical for her senior thesis.
"We're all just in my dorm, camping out on air mattresses, waking up every day, going to the piano and staying at the piano all day long, just writing," McGuire says. "I would write scenes and I would bring them to Pluto and Nathan and be like, 'Read this with me.' And then they'd say, 'Fix this,' and then I would. It was a really fun one-month gestation period."
Pluto Boll, music writer/director, and Emy McGuire, who wrote the book, lyrics and music for The Legend of Anne Bonny and plays Mar Reed, during a recent rehearsal.
Toni Tresca
After graduation, McGuire returned to Colorado and submitted the musical to Shifted Lens Theatre Company’s 2024 Fresh Looks Festival, where artistic director Lexie Lazear saw its potential for a full staging.
"I thought it was catchy and moving, and it felt very close to ready for production," Lazear recalls. "The reading went really well. Everybody loved it. I heard from multiple people, 'Oh, this belongs on stage. I can't wait to see it.' After we did the stage reading, and it became sort of obvious that there was a possibility that we could produce it, I reached out to both of them with a few high-level notes."
Now, after years of rewrites, expanded roles and sharpened songs, The Legend of Anne Bonny will have its first fully produced run at the People’s Building in Aurora, from August 23 to September 6, in a co-production between Shifted Lens and Two Cent Lion Theatre Company.
Anne Bonny (Savannah Vendovatti), Calico Jack (Jysten Atom) and the ensemble in The Legend of Anne Bonny.
Toni Tresca
"The central characters are Anne Bonny, Mar Reed, Jonathan Barnett and Jack Rackham, and they are all based on real people," says McGuire, who wrote the musical's book and lyrics and collaborated on the music. "Jack was the English pirate captain who was famous for having two women on board, and those women were Anne Bonny and Mary Read (Mar Reed in the show), and Jonathan is the English privateer who caught them in 1720."
McGuire, who also plays Mar Reed in this production, says one of the biggest evolutions since the first staging has been shifting the focus from a Jack Rackham–centered plot to a story anchored equally by four characters. “Before, it was mostly Anne’s story with others in the background,” she explains.
The Legend of Anne Bonny cast practices a swordfight between Mar Reed (Emy McGuire) and Anne Bonny (Savannah Vendovatti).
Toni Tresca
The early student production used taped maps and makeshift props, whereas the Aurora staging creates a richer, more abstract visual world. Lazear, who is also the costume designer and co-producer, has focused on capturing the sweep of the ocean without actually building a ship.
"A lot of directorial vision at this level of theater comes with figuring out how to make it really special with less money," she says. "My goal has been to find a way to make it feel as epic as possible and still feel as intimate, as a lot of these moments are. So it's been sort of balancing the epicness of the tale with the real humanity of the story."
That scale also comes through in the music, which blends folk influences, sea shanties and sweeping ballads. Boll's orchestrations reduce an eight-piece vision to a five-piece live band, featuring two keyboards, violin, cello, percussion and the occasional ukulele. McGuire calls the music "a hybrid between Anastasia and Hadestown.”
Sword fights are central to the storytelling, serving as both spectacle and a metaphor for power. "We started our rehearsals with a whole week of sword training," Lazear says. "Before we even started doing fight choreography, we practiced basic sword techniques to make the choreography go more smoothly. There are lots of fights. The way that power plays are expressed in the show is through the sword fights."
For Lazear, having the writers in the room has allowed the creative team to shape scenes in real time.
“If I need an extra eight counts for a dance, they can make it happen right there,” she says. “I've never built a fresh musical like this. I've been in world premieres, but as an actor a long time ago, but never like this. It's been really cool to collaboratively find where things land the best for all the different pieces in the room because theater's a team sport, and this has been one of the most collaborative processes I've ever had.”
Looking ahead, the company is considering ways to preserve and share the music beyond Aurora. McGuire says they may produce an EP of select songs, a tool to help the show travel to other theaters nationwide. Lazear, whose husband is an audio engineer, notes that the resources are already in place to make that possible.
The Pirate Ensemble in The Legend of Anne Bonny during a recent rehearsal for the new musical.
Toni Tresca
The team hopes Anne Bonny will appeal to anyone eager for something new. With tickets priced on a sliding scale of $15 to $40, both Two Cent Lion and Shifted Lens also aim to make the production accessible to more than the typical theatergoing crowd.
“There’s this unique energy to a premiere and to new work,” McGuire reflects. “Everyone feels as though we have something to prove, you know? This is a story that hasn’t really been told, especially in this way, and we’re the ones who get to show that it is worth being told, which has to be proven because it’s the first time.”
Though McGuire's first professional staging is a significant milestone, it is not the final destination.
“I want this to go as far as it can possibly go," McGuire says. "The thing I have most in common with the characters I write is ambition. I want The Legend of Anne Bonny to go to Broadway; I want it to be huge. And I think it could be if I keep pushing myself and the people around me keep lifting the story up in the way that they have been doing. I think that this is just the beginning.”
The Legend of Anne Bonny runs Saturday, August 23, through Sunday, September 6, at the People's Building, 9995 East Colfax Avenue, Aurora. Tickets are on a sliding scale from $15 to $40. Learn more at www.thepeoplesbuilding.com/the-legend-of-anne-bonny.
