Steven Sater on Nero musical and adapting JFK’s death as a tragedy

Steven Sater is bringing his long-delayed musical about the Roman emperor Nero to the stage, nearly two decades after its initial production, while also adapting Aeschylus to dramatize the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Two Decades of Waiting for Nero

Before Spring Awakening collected eight Tony Awards in 2007, dramatist and lyricist Steven Sater spent years facing financial and professional uncertainty. Sater and composer Duncan Sheik expected their next project to be Nero, a musical about the Roman emperor who murdered his mother and others. Following a production in San Francisco in 2006, the show spent nearly 20 years in workshops and presentations for prospective investors before securing its second full professional production.

I think maybe my work is too expensive for subsidised theatre and too risky for commercial theatre, Sater said, noting that while audiences respond to his work, producers may harbor doubts. Potential backers frequently questioned whether audiences could identify with a figure like Nero. Sater believes that concern has been met by casting Andrew Barth Feldman, known for his star turn on Broadway in Dear Evan Hansen, in the London production. Sater describes the character as a charismatic performer in the mold of Shakespeare’s Richard III.

The return of the musical has been overshadowed by the death of Duncan Sheik at age 56. Sater joined a New York revival of Spring Awakening for its first read-through via Zoom, an experience that brought him to tears as he recalled working with young performers alongside Sheik two decades prior. From London, Sater also watched an online tribute to Sheik at the Dramatists Guild Foundation Gala featuring Touch Me, a song from Spring Awakening that Sater identified as Sheik’s favorite. Sater heard the number not just as an exploration of sexual desire, but as a lament reflecting Sheik’s unique perception of sadness and tragic fate.

Parallels Between Imperial Rome and Modern Politics

Nero arrives in London this autumn alongside another production drawing on the Roman historian Suetonius: Caryl Churchill’s Triumph, in which a press secretary briefs journalists about an emperor reminiscent of Donald Trump. Sater acknowledges the perceived parallels between modern America and Rome’s imperial decline, though he connected the two eras long before recent headlines. In 2003, after President George W. Bush landed in a fighter jet on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared the Iraq war won with the words Mission Accomplished, Sater called Sheik and declared that Rome is burning! suggesting a show about Nero. More than twenty years later, with plans to demolish part of the White House to build a golden ballroom, Sater views the musical as frighteningly of the moment.

Sater’s career as a literary lyricist began after he suffered multiple fractures and burns at age 20, following a jump from a third-floor balcony to escape a fire. Strapped to a board that rotated him every two hours, he used page-turners operated with his teeth to teach himself Ancient Greek before pursuing graduate studies in literature. Alongside Nero and Spring Awakening—adapted from Franz Wedekind’s 1891 German expressionist drama about adolescent sexuality and suicide—Sater has written a musical inspired by Aeschylus’s Prometheus Unbound, collaborated with James Bourne of Busted on a show inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde, and contributed lyrics influenced by Racine’s Phèdre.

While clearing out his mother’s house after her death, Sater uncovered period Life magazine covers about the death of JFK, inspiring him to return to a subject he first dramatized as a student. He is currently writing a theatrical dramatization of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, structured verse by verse after Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, featuring Jackie Kennedy delivering a Cassandra speech to foresee the future. I’m afraid we’re looking at the death of American democracy, Sater said. And so it is related to Nero in that way. It again felt so of this moment.

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