Wyn Caudle
A&E Editor
Depending on what side of TikTok you are on or how invested you are in musical theater, you may have heard of “EPIC: The Musical.” The musical is written by Jorge Rivera-Herrans and is a loose depiction of Homer’s “Odyssey.” The musical itself is unique in the sense that the entirety of its production can be tracked online. Rivera-Herrans began releasing clips and snippets of his musical in January 2021. He initially began work on the musical in June 2019 for his senior thesis project for the University of Notre Dame before deciding to share it with the world.
What do I mean when I say that the production can be tracked online? The entire process of the musical creation has been documented online, making it a unique piece of art. One of the first auditions was for the character of Calypso in April 2021. During these auditions, Rivera-Herrans posted an instrumental version of the song “Love on Paradise,” asking for TikTok users to duet the video singing as Calypso. In a comment on the audition video posted on April 21, 2021, he wrote, “1) ANYONE can audition! 2) You CAN send it to me outside of TikTok! 3) Auditions are open till I find the voice I’m looking for!” As of today, there are 402 posts under the sound, and I am sure there are many more auditions that were sent privately. This form of audition, from my understanding, is unique to the musical and has not been done before using other forms of media. Rivera-Herrans held more auditions for other characters, and the final draft of voice actors was in August 2022.
A typical musical is written, produced and then released all at once. This is another area where “EPIC: The Musical” differs. The musical is broken up into two acts, with 20 songs in each, or 40 songs in total. Each act consists of Sagas (based off of the original sagas of “Odyssey”), and Rivera-Herrans has been releasing these steadily since Dec. 25, 2022. At this point, the entirety of act one has been released, and there are still 10 songs to be released for the second act. The most recent saga, “The Wisdom Saga,” was released on Aug. 30.
The creation and subsequent release of the sagas and musical has not come without hardship. In 2023, after Rivera-Herrans had already released the first two sagas, started his music production company. Blair Russells, the original producer of “EPIC,” was not paying him royalties, so he created the company Winion Entertainment, LLC. The cast came together and re-recorded the first two sagas of the musical from scratch in order to re-release them under the new company ownership. Due to Rivera-Herrans being his own producer, he now has the opportunity to create the merchandise that he would like without worrying about backlash, as well as have a say if the musical is adapted into a movie, stage play or something else.
Rivera-Herrans utilizes a layered form of storytelling in his songs, and shares this information with his viewers by providing them with the opportunity to play along in a game to try and notice all of the easter eggs in the songs. For example, whenever Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, sings or is mentioned, there is a viola playing in the background. The viola can be heard in the first song, “The Horse and the Infant,” and in later songs when she is mentioned. The only time that this does not happen is in “Suffering” from “The Thunder Saga,” where the audience hears an echo of Penelope’s name but no viola. This is because the person that the audience is hearing is a siren and not actually Penelope singing.
This idea is partially from Rivera-Herrans’ youth, when he watched “Peter and the Wolf,” where a similar idea is employed. There are moments like this one throughout the entire musical — each character has a motif or instrument that is associated with them. Although the musical follows the “Odyssey,” is not fully accurate to the story: some creative liberties have been taken. Personally, I think that some of these changes add to the storytelling and create a more engaging story for audiences that may not be familiar with the Greek Tragedy.
“EPIC: The Musical” follows an unusual pattern in its creation and how it engages with the media. It is a part of the change in the theater community and a suggestion for a solution that music producers are facing when it comes to audiences and their music concerning social media.