1776 Upstage Guide

Spotlight on 1776.

Spotlight on 1776 Creative.

Music and Lyrics Sherman Edwards

Based on a Concept by Sherman Edwards

Choreography Jeffrey L. Page

Costume Design Emilio Sosa

Sound Design Jonathan Deans

Hair and Wigs Mia Neal

Music Supervision David Chase

Vocal Design AnnMarie Milazzo

Book Peter Stone

Directors Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus

Scenic Design Scott Pask

Projection Design David Bengali

Associate Director Brisa Areli Muñoz

Orchestrations John Clancy

Music Director Ryan Cantwell

What is the show about?

What will it take to get two dozen powerfully passionate, exceedingly complicated, and all-too-human individuals to settle their differences, while they hold the very future of a nation in their hands? This Tony Award-winning Best Musical is tuneful, funny, and constantly surprising, especially in this revolutionary new production from directors Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus. You may never think about our country—who we are and why—the same way again.

Meet the characters.

John Adams
Delegate from Massachusetts

George Reed
Delegate from Delaware

Andrew McNair
Congressional Custodian

Abigail Adams
Wife of John Adams

Thomas Jefferson
Delegate from Virginia

Stephen Hopkins
Delegate from Rhode Island

Martha Jefferson
Wife of Thomas Jefferson

John Hancock
President of the Congress

Joseph Hewes
Delegate from North Carolina

Edward Rutledge
Delegate from South Carolina

Roger Sherman
Delegate from Connecticut

Dr. Josiah Bartlett
Delegate from New Hampshire

Robert Livingston
Delegate from New York

Col. Thomas McKean
Delegate from Delaware

John Dickinson
Delegate from Pennsylvania

Rev. John Witherspoon
Delegate from New Jersey

Charles Thomson
Secretary of the Congress

Richard Henry Lee
Delegate from Virginia

Dr. Lyman Hall
Delegate from Georgia

Benjamin Franklin
Delegate from Pennsylvania

Samuel Chase
Delegate from Maryland

Judge James Wilson
Delegate from Pennsylvania

Courier


Caesar Rodney
Delegate from Delaware

Back to the 1776 Upstage Guide table of contents

Diane Paulus

Directors

DIANE PAULUS (Director) is the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater and a Professor of the Practice of Theater at Harvard University. Broadway: 1776; Jagged Little Pill; Waitress; Pippin (Tony Awards for Best Revival and Best Director); Finding Neverland; The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (Tony Award for Best Revival, NAACP Award for Best Direction), all of which originated at the A.R.T.; and The Public Theater’s HAIR (Tony Award for Best Revival). Select other work includes Masquerade, an immersive reimagining of Phantom of the Opera (Drama Desk Special award for Overall Excellence); N/A (Lincoln Center); Gloria: A Life; In the Body of the World (A.R.T./Off Broadway); Romeo and Juliet; Becoming a Man; The White Card (A.R.T.); The Donkey Show; and Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna. Her work as an opera director includes the world premieres of The Monkey King by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang (San Francisco Opera), Crossing by Matt Aucoin (A.R.T. and BAM Howard Gilman Opera House), Death and the Powers by Tod Machover (L’Opéra de Monte-Carlo), and productions of Carmen (Glyndebourne Festival), The Magic Flute (Canadian Opera Company), Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway (ENO and the Young Vic), and the complete Monteverdi cycle and Mozart–Da Ponte trilogy for Chicago Opera Theater with conductor Jane Glover. She was selected for Boston magazine’s 2026 list of Boston’s most influential people; the 2014 Time 100, Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world; and Variety’s “Trailblazing Women in Entertainment for 2014.” In 2025 she was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In May 2027 she will direct the inaugural production at the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance at Harvard University, the new home of the A.R.T.: Life on Mars, a world-premiere production featuring the music of David Bowie.

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