About
“Ghost Quartet” is a song cycle about love, death and whiskey from Dave Malloy, the Tony-nominated creator of the Broadway hit “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.” A camera breaks and four friends drink in an interwoven tale spanning seven centuries, with a murderous sister, a treehouse astronomer, a bear, a subway, and the ghost of Thelonious Monk. The story draws from several fairy tales and "ghost stories", including Snow White and Rose Red, Edgar Allen Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, and One Thousand and One Nights (commonly known as Arabian Nights). There may also be some Princess Zelda references you might recognize. Cast members present the story and music as a "concept album" and accompany themselves on keyboard, violin, ukulele, guitar, mandolin, banjo, autoharp, dulcimer and 9,000 percussion instruments. The audience may also be called upon for additional percussion and whiskey drinking.
This 90-minute musical is performed with no intermission.