Love and Conspiracies: Flat Earthers: The Musical Is a Queer Romeo and Juliet for the Digital Age

As its title may suggest, Flat Earthers: The Musical is a comedy. It’s a Romeo and Juliet love story, except its lovers – Ria and Flick – tumble into love online, and realise they have very different beliefs: one is a Flat Earther, the other a Globe Earther.

It plays with, rather than pokes fun at, conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, co-writer Lou Wall was taken aback when they got chatting to a random audience member at an early workshop production of the musical in Melbourne, which was mostly attended by supportive friends and family.

“This gentleman came in and was sitting in the foyer waiting, and I love a good chat. [I] thought he was someone’s dad from the cast, so asked who he was there to see. He said, ‘I love the premise. I’m a Flat Earther.’ And I was gobbed. Obviously Mormons go to The Book of Mormon but … he was a real sweetheart and really enjoyed it, which was shocking and surprising and a bit scary.”

Described as “a West Side Story -meets-QAnon queer pop spectacular”, Flat Earthers promises “irresistible bangers with iconic conspiracies” when it opens at the Hayes Theatre on October 16.

It’s a co-production with Griffin Theatre Company (currently renovating its Kings Cross home). The creative team behind it also worked together on the hit 2017 pop lesbian musical Romeo is Not the Only Fruit. Jean Tong (Heartbreak High, Safe Home) and Lou Wall (ABC’s WTFAQ) have co-written the book and lyrics, and Wall contributes to songwriting alongside James Gales (who co-produced five songs on Jessica Mauboy’s Yours Forever), also the music producer.

“After Romeo wrapped we met up and said, ‘Well that went well, let’s do another’,” Gales says.

Over coffee in a Lygon Street cafe in late 2018, the group discussed what they wanted to see on stage next. Truth and post-Truth were hot topics, as was the internet and its increasing ability to polarise and create echo chambers.

“ Flat Earthers started out as a joke,” says Wall. “I said something about how people present on the internet compared with how they are in real life,” adds Gales. “And Lou said something about conspiracy theories and what if we did Flat Earthers: The Musical? So we had the title, then spent the ensuing years trying to write something that lives up to it.”

At its core, Flat Earthers is about queer love on the internet – but it also delves into conspiracies and whether or not you can live with someone who has radically different views to you. The play is directed by Griffin’s artistic director Declan Greene, and has a cast of nine. The original electronic score is by Gales, with live piano by music director Jude Perl.

Wall describes the musical world of Flat Earthers as “fairy floss internet meets club bangers plus music theatre”. Gales says Eurovision is a good touchpoint. “There are moments that are really soft bubblegum pop, then there’s a lot of dance stuff – Daft Punk harder-edged stuff.”

Like Flat Earthers and Globe Earthers, the musical’s creative team understands the world is a diverse place, and generally the richer for it. While queer musicals are still the exception not the rule it hopes they will become more mainstream.

“I think there’s a lot of people writing them but music theatre, especially in Australia, is incredibly hard to get up. It’s taken us almost six years,” Wall says. “I’ve seen a bunch of new music theatre developments and almost all of them feature queer love stories. But … funding bodies and subscriber bases in Australia [are] quite old and a little more conservative, so commercial productions in particular have to cater to that. Hopefully we can forge a new market. We’ll see.”

Flat Earthers: The Musical runs at Hayes Theatre from October 16 to November 9.

hayestheatre.com.au