Premiering tonight on PBS will be “American Heart in WWI: A Carnegie Hall Tribute.”
The program will bring America’s World War I story to life through the lens of The Great Gatsby, the legendary novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and of five actual figures from the war.
It was created, written and narrated by historian John Monsky and directed for the stage by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening).
FILE – In this Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2014 file photo, a statue of three soldiers at the World War I Navarin Memorial in Souain-Perthes-les-Hurlus, France. Located in the spot where the Battle of Champagne raged and depicts three patrolling soldiers in the guise of General Gouraud, Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt, the son of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who died in 1918 in the Tardenois, and the brother of the sculptor who fell on the Chemin des Dames. After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, its standing army of 127,500 became an armed force of 2 million within 1 ½ years. On Nov 11, 1918, allies like Britain and France were exhausted, Germany was as good as defeated and U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing had another 2 million troops ready to come over. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)
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Filmed at Carnegie Hall in April 2025, it features the 60-piece Orchestra of St. Luke’s and a cast including Adam Chanler-Berat (Next to Normal), Nicholas Christopher (Hamilton, Chess), Micaela Diamond (Parade), Gracie McGraw (BABE) and Diego Andres Rodriguez (Sunset Boulevard, Evita), with conducting by music supervisor and arranger Ian Weinberger (Hamilton, Chess).
It also features dozens of songs from the period by composers Irving Berlin, James Reese Europe, George M. Cohan and others; rare archival film of American soldiers and WWI figures; and historic flags from the period.
According to PBS, “Using F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as a framework, which marked its 100th year since publication this year, Monsky guides the audience from the war’s origins through its harrowing climax, as seen through the wartime experiences of Fitzgerald’s fictional veterans Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway, as well as five real-life figures from the war: soldier and music pioneer James Reese Europe, a civil rights trailblazer and Harlem Hellfighter; Vera Brittain, an Oxford student and young nurse who loses everything in the war; Charles Whittlesey, a shy New York lawyer who leads a melting pot of soldiers trapped under fire in the single biggest battle in American history; and combat pilot Quentin Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, in love with debutante and future philanthropist Flora Payne Whitney.
Calling the program “a bold re-envisioning of Monsky’s critically acclaimed original 2023 production, The Great War & The Great Gatsby,” PBS said it offers “fresh insights, newly uncovered research, and additional musical selections, creating a vivid and emotionally powerful journey.”
In an interview last week with Forbes.com, Monsky said he used The Great Gatsby as a framework for tonight’s production because “Gatsby is a way into the history of WWI – an echo, as both Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway are WWI veterans.”
He also said each of the five real, historical figures in the production “struck me as fascinating, as each was thrust into the middle of this war. None sought it. But they all faced it. The Brit Vera Britain gave us a picture of the early years of the war, setting the stage for the four American figures to come. The very act of fighting the war, and surviving it, seems to have changed them, just as the war changed the United States.”
Monsky added, “There is a historical experience that unites all Americans, and I think that the ‘willingness of the heart’ as told in this story, does it. Maybe this political environment forced me to dig deeper to find that defining statement about our country.
