How Andy Mientus' 'Scrappy Little' Musical Burn All Night Turned into a Cult Favorite

It's been almost three years since the apocalyptic musical Burn All Night made its world premiere at American Repertory Theater's OBERON space in 2017. With a book and lyrics by Andy Mientus along with Van Hughes, Nicholas LaGrasta, and Brett Moses, who created the music, Burn All Night is an unflinching look at being young on the eve of global catastrophe. Audio recordings of the musical, which featured current Mean Girls star Krystina Alabado as the leading lady, have never been released... until now. Mientus, along with Alabado, Hughes, LaGrasta and Moses, appeared on Broadway.com's #LiveatFive: Home Edition to talk about the musical's timely theme and what encouraged them to release Hit Record: Demos from Burn All Night.

Mientus drew from personal experience when it came to writing Burn All Night, and the inspiration began when someone at a party told him they all were going to die. "I was at a party in college and there was this guy being really pessimistic and anxious," Mientus said to Paul Wontorek. "I was trying to be optimistic telling him everything will be okay and he said, 'It doesn't matter because I'll be dead in four years because the world's ending on December 21, 2012.' He truly believed this. There was this image of us all sitting on this floor with like Solo cups and talking about the end of the world and this guy's being so flip about it. Smartphone and social media and filtering everything was new, too. I saw those things together in my mind which led me to write a series of scenes about these various concepts and characters I was encountering in my life."

Soon afterward, Mientus met Hughes in the bathtub at his 22nd birthday party (true story!) and the two instantly clicked. Mientus quickly brought him on board to help find the show's music. "We wanted the music to be like the way that we felt about Hedwig when we first heard it," Hughes said. "Where it felt like actual music that you would listen to out of a context of a story. We wanted to play with modern genres and bands that we liked like Arcade Fire, The Knife, Grimes, things that we would listen to while going out. That's when we started writing songs for the piece."

After looping in LaGrasta and Moses and securing Jenny Koots as director, the show playing a successful run ar A.R.T's immersive club space in 2017. "I will never forget that last night's audience," Mientus said. "By that point in the run, we had really reached who we were trying to reach and word had gotten out about the show. It was like packed to the gills with people that were there to party. One of the songs has this hook that just repeats and repeats and repeats so you can learn it. By the end, everybody was jumping up and down and singing, which was always my dream for the show. All the trouble that goes into making a new musical, that moment was truly proof of concepts. A cherry-on-top, full-circle gratifying moment."

Although the world premiere run was short, Burn All Night earned itself a legion of passionate fans. "It certainly wasn't perfect, but we did definitely make a lot of fans of the show," Mientus said. "People really responded to it and, it became this little cult thing. Now that we're all stuck inside fighting over frozen chicken in the supermarket, I was really reminded of the show. I reached out to the guys and said, 'Hey, let's put something out.' So, we selected a handful of songs that represented this present moment, and we're releasing them for free. We hope that it gets people really involved with it so we can do something again down the line and that it lets people just dance and sing along in their apartments. This show has always been a scrappy little thing, so I'm excited to have it out for people to hear."

Hit Record: Demos from Burn All Night is now available to stream for free here.

Watch Alabado and Mientus talk about stage door encounters and more in the full episode below!