Ron Howard to Introduce WE CHOSE TO GO TO THE MOON on PBS

PBS will present We Chose To Go To The Moon, a new “living documentary” about America’s space race. Blending live music and storytelling in a vivid on-stage experience, this special theatrical event, created, written, and narrated by writer and historian John Monsky, will premiere Tuesday, November 10, at 8:00 p.m. ET. The special also features an introduction by Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard.

Directed for the stage by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, Galileo), this immersive theatrical experience tells the dramatic tale of America’s race to space and decision to land a man on the Moon in one of the most ambitious scientific and exploration achievements in history. Bringing together a 45-piece orchestra and band – including a rare theremin – along with Broadway vocalists, breathtaking photographs, and narrative drama, the production creates an emotional history unlike any previous telling of mankind’s journey to the Moon. The program also features flags that have traveled to the Moon and back and have witnessed some of our nation’s most emotional and patriotic moments, making history themselves. 

Filmed at Carnegie Hall in April 2026 by the Academy Award-winning RadicalMedia, against the backdrop of the Artemis II mission around the Moon, We Chose To Go To The Moon includes vignettes and vocal performances by Skylar Astin, Brent Comer, Claybourne Elder, Elizabeth Gillies, Taylor Louderman, and Joy Woods. Neil Armstrong’s son Mark Armstrong and granddaughter Kali Armstrong also perform a moving special tribute to the astronaut.

Monsky tells the story through the perspectives of the people who lived through this extraordinary moment – astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Ed White; the everyday Americans who got the rockets off the ground including Mission Control trailblazer Poppy Northcutt and NASA’s “Hidden Figures” mathematician Katherine Johnson; and the families behind America’s ambitious space program such as Janet Armstrong and Betty Grissom. We Chose To Go To The Moon transports audiences from quaking launch pads at Cape Canaveral to the tension-filled rooms of Mission Control and into the living rooms where families watched their loved ones disappear into the sky as the world watched history unfold in real time. The show also chronicles the troubled Apollo 13 mission, also the subject of Ron Howard’s beloved 1995 film.

Set against a cultural soundtrack of music from the era, Ian Weinberger (Chess, Hamilton) conducts top Broadway vocalists and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in music from the era—popular, patriotic, and protesting, including, “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Rocket Man,” “Space Oddity,” and “Sound of Silence.” The performance reaches a crescendo in the fulfillment of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade.

We Chose To Go To The Moon will stream simultaneously with broadcast and be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app, which is available on iOS, Apple TV, Android mobile and tablets, Android/Google TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV and tablets, Comcast, Samsung Smart TV, VIZIO and LG Smart TVs.