John Segalla

You might think you know all there is to know about the Boston Tea Party — but you've never learned about it quite like this.

"What I'm attempting to do is resuscitate the great American musical," says John, who is mostly a self-taught composer. A straight-A student at BCC, he studied liberal arts with an emphasis in theater and voice before completing his bachelor's degree in theatre from Russell Sage College.

At BCC, John found his voice and music theory classes to be particularly influential to his future career path.

Music theory truly opened my world to understanding music composition. I finally had the big 'aha' moment at the piano in that class. If I had not studied music theory, I would have never comprehended things like chord relationships, which are essential for composing, and I might not have ever written 'Rebel Town.' BCC was really great for me in those days.

During his time at BCC, John says, the BCC Players produced "excellent theater" in the Boland Theatre. It was in the Boland where he had the opportunity to play Bobby Strong in "Urinetown."

"And now 'Rebel Town,' another 'Town' show! Because the world apparently needed one more of those," he laughs. "After months of working under the name 'Boston '73,' the only fitting title for my new show was 'Rebel Town.'" (Coincidentally, John points out, the show is also directed by Tommy Towne). "I did play with the name 'Tossed! A Boston Tea Party Tale' for a while. But that would have been a very different show."

What led to John creating this out-of-the-box production was an interesting combination of factors, from his childhood interest in music, drama and writing to his love of history.

"As a little kid, I was really into poetry — rhyming and singing, and writing poems and short stories with rhymes. I quickly realized that storytelling was done through writing, and that good writing was at the core of all of my favorite movie musicals and stories," John says. "I remember being obsessed with the movie musical 'Doctor Dolittle,' featuring Rex Harrison. Everything about that film fascinated me and pulled me in. The lush orchestral score, the clever song lyrics and music, the puppets, the animals, the sheer grandness of that film. I was probably seven years old, but I knew it was where I belonged: in that show biz world, in some way. I just didn't know how it was going to happen."

A native of Berkshire County, John attended Monument Mountain High School in Great Barrington. Throughout high school, he performed in musicals, dramas and Shakespeare plays, and he also wrote and produced his first play, a film noir parody titled "The Call for Murder." Immediately after high school, John directed and produced "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," which was also staged at BCC's Boland Theatre.

Fast forward to his twenties. After taking a trip to Los Angeles but feeling out of place there, he spent a few years working as an actor in New York. Eventually, he realized the big city life was not for him, so he moved back to Massachusetts. He started working with a local children's theater company called the Grumbling Gryphons, where he had the opportunity to teach theater workshops and perform in several shows in repertoire.

"It was great work — very challenging, and oftentimes long days in inner-city Hartford, Connecticut, where we could make the most impact as theater artists and performers," John says. "I wanted to leave an impact on kids, and hopefully light a few sparks in the process."

After that experience, he was hired by the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum as a historical interpreter. Wearing a tricorn hat, he gave living history tours five days a week just a hundred yards from the actual site where the Boston Tea Party happened.

"You take on a persona. You play someone who really existed, who actually took part in the Tea Party. Every day you're in character selling stories and relaying history. I loved it," John says. "Once I started to sink my teeth into the history, I thought, this should really be done as theater. History is the greatest story ever told — that's where all of our stories come from, ultimately."

His time at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum ignited his interest in the Tea Party in ways he couldn't have imagined.

"I realized within a few weeks of working in Boston that the Tea Party is one of the most fascinating and infamous nights in our history books — and nobody seems to really know exactly why it happened!" John muses. "Most people only think about 'unjust taxes,' but that was only one part of what led to the event."

In reality, he explains, there had been a decade of unjust taxes in addition to a monopolization on the sale of tea after a corrupt and bankrupted Parliament struck a deal with the equally corrupt and bankrupted United East India Company. That deal allowed them to choose who would buy and sell tea in London and the Americas. Not surprisingly, these tea consignees were all loosely connected to the crown.

"It was corruption at its worst! Then, to make the story more interesting, toss in all the colorful characters who took part in the Tea Party, including the blacksmiths, merchants, dockworkers and average-Joe types of the day, alongside people like Paul Revere," John says. "From my point of view, the story simply jumped off the history book pages and begged to become theater. More than that, it was a story worthy of a musical."

As John wrote the show, he did so with the intention of creating something palatable and easy for everyone to enjoy.

"When I wrote the role of Sam Adams, I pictured Nathan Lane," John says with a chuckle. "It's a character actor role. While he's an essentially one of the good guys, he stirs the pot and ultimately pushes the Tea Party forward through his writing and through his strong sense of what was the right thing to do for the people."

There's no real villain in the story, except for perhaps the tea itself, John says. "The tea is the crisis, the 'bad guy.'"

In essence, he says, at the heart of the movement was the sentiment among the Sons of Liberty and their followers that they were good English subjects who refused to be subject to tyranny, who would not pay an unlawful tax, and who were not going to support an unlawful monopoly.

"In the case of the Boston Tea Party, there's this epic scale of the event: over 150 men boarding three tea ships in the cover of night. Add the years of political turmoil leading up to the event, plus the era itself was the time of great classical composers like Mozart," John says. "Then, of course, there's the fabulous clothing — the men's 'ditto suits,' the stockings, the tricorn hats, the opulent gowns of the mega-rich aristocrats and the modest yet beautiful handmade garments worn by the working class people. What an era, and what a story to be told!"

After the premier of the musical at BCC, John plans to take the show to Boston, and possibly to other major cities like Philadelphia or New York. But for now, he says, "Here's a chance to teach a very important lesson — standing up for liberty, for what's right, and doing it peacefully without any violence. I'm interested in telling history as accurately as possible. The Tea Party is a huge part of our shared American history. It deserves to be told in a way that is respectful and honest."