Book & Lyrics by Gordon Leary
Music by Julia Meinwald

Running time: 96 minutes

CAST: 9 women, 2 men

• Amanda Borden – 19. White. From Cincinnati, Ohio. Team captain. Perky, positive, All-American. Narrowly missed being on the 1992 Olympic team and she wants to make the most out of it this time around.
• Amy Chow – 18. Chinese-American. From San Jose, California. Multi-talented, she’s also a competitive diver and a piano prodigy, but she’s unbothered by it all. Quietly self-assured.
• Dominique Dawes – 19. Black. From Silver Spring, Maryland. Calm, warm, and poised. She is supremely talented but has often fumbled in major competitions, though she hopes to break that streak in her second trip to the Olympics.
• Shannon Miller – 19. White. From Edmond, Oklahoma. The most decorated American gymnast of all time. She is confident, bordering on cocky – but wouldn’t you be if you won five medals at the last Olympics? Despite all of her success, she still hasn’t joined the ranks of the all-star gymnastics legends.
• Dominique Moceanu – 14. White. From Hollywood, California. The daughter of Romanian immigrants and former gymnasts, she began training as an infant. Bubbly and innocent but very assured of her talents. Even though she’s recovering from an injury, she knows what everyone expects out of her.
• Jaycie Phelps – 16. White. From Greenfield, Indiana. In that weird age where she’s too old to be the next big thing but too young to be a seasoned veteran. She’s cool and pretty relaxed, but also unsure where she fits.
• Kerri Strug – 18. White. From Tucson, Arizona. The consummate underdog. Despite being strong and experienced, she’s still a bit timid and understated. She wants nothing more than to step out from behind the shadow of her more famous teammates – something she never got to do in the last Olympics.
• John Tesh – 44. Blow-dried, charming, and a little out of his depth. Sportscaster for the US Open, Tour de France, and Olympic gymnastics. Adult contemporary pianist and composer. Co-host of Entertainment Tonight since 1986.
• Elfi Schlegel – 32. As direct, technical, and stern as her male counterparts (not like she has a choice.) A former Canadian college and national champion gymnast who missed her chance at competing in the 1980 Olympics when Canada boycotted the games. But she’s not bitter.
• Tim Daggett – 34. Eager, positive, a gymnastics wonk. Competed in the 1984 Olympics on the US men’s team, where he scored a perfect 10 and helped the team win the first American gold medal. He’s always had historically weak ankles.
• A Vision from 1984 – A 16 year old saint. (It’s Mary Lou Retton, though.)

It is the preference of the writers that the actors playing the Magnificent Seven gymnasts are not cast in a way to present perfect facsimiles of the gymnasts on whom the characters are based. Ideally, the roles will be cast with actors with diverse bodies in their mid-thirties through mid-forties (those from the micro-generation that spans young Generation X and old Millennials, or those who are similar in age today to the gymnasts on whom the characters are based.)
It is also the preference of the authors that the actor playing a Vision from 1984 be close in age to the 16-year old Mary Lou Retton, in contrast to the actors portraying the Magnificent Seven gymnasts.

BAND: Piano, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Drums
Orchestrations & Arrangements by Julia Meinwald

SETTING: In and around the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, July 21-23, 1996

A note about the staging from the writers:
Gymnastics never needs to be done onstage. (In fact, we'd prefer if it isn't attempted!) The gymnastics can be represented in any number of ways - dance, movement, projection, animation, shadow puppets, bunraku puppets, marionettes, anything you can come up with - throughout the show.

Julia Meinwald (Music, Orchestrations & Vocal Arrangements) and Gordon Leary (Book & Lyrics; they/them) write aggressively empathetic musical theatre. Their work includes The Loneliest Girl in the World (2018 Diversionary Theatre premiere, 2016 NAMT Festival, 2015 Polyphone Festival, 2014 Ars Nova OutLoud Series), Pregnancy Pact (2012 Weston Playhouse premiere, 2011 NAMT Festival, 2011 Yale Institute, 2011 Weston Playhouse New Musical Award), REB+VoDKa+ME (2017 NYU Tisch New Musical Theatre Workshop, 2017 Yale Institute, 2016 Civilians' FINDINGS Series), Something Blue (2019 Page 73, 2019 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival), Disappeared (2009 Lincoln Center Directors Lab), and the short film Galaxy Comics (2014 United Airlines in-flight programming.) They have developed work with the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program, Ars Nova's Uncharted, The Civilians' R&D Group, Fresh Ground Pepper's Playground Playgroup, the Musical Theatre Factory, the 92Y Musical Theatre Development Lab, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Page 73's Interstate 73. Julia was a participant in the New Dramatists Composer Librettist Development Program, a resident with American Lyric Theatre, and received the 2018 Discovery Grant from OPERA America. Her other musicals include Elevator Heart (2019 THML Theatre Co, 2016 Tisch New Musical Theatre Workshop) and Jack Perry Is Alive and Dating (2011 NYMF Next Link selection.) Gordon's other musicals include Across the River (2013 Seoul Musical Festival, 2009 Daegu International Musical Festival) and Cheer Wars (2015 York Theatre, 2009 Richard Rodgers Award.) Both are 2007 alumni of the NYU/Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. gordonandjulia.com / @gordonandjuliamusicals