NIETZSCHE – The Musical Premiere to be Presented at Off-Brand Opera

Off-Brand Opera will present the world premiere of NIETZSCHE, a new musical by Kimerer LaMothe and Geoffrey Gee, appearing at the A.R.T./NY Mezzanine Theatre, October 10-12, 2025. NIETZSCHE - The Musical traces the tangled, passionate personal relationships that shaped the life and legacy of one of the most influential and controversial philosophers in the western world: Friedrich ("Fritz") Nietzsche (1844-1900).

While many know the name, few know about the people who helped Fritz become who he was: his mother Franziska, who wanted him to be a Christian pastor; his mentor Richard Wagner, who discouraged him from writing music; his beloved Lou Salomé, who chose her independence, and his younger sister Elisabeth, who married an antisemitic activist and moved to Paraguay to found a colony for the pure Aryan race.

Fritz's love for these people - and their love for him - brought him face to face with challenges that threatened to destroy him. Yet time and again, Fritz reached for a way to say yes to life - all of it.

Striving for philosophical and historical accuracy, NIETZSCHE reveals Fritz as a man of his time, keen to rebut the antisemitism, xenophobic nationalism, and religious extremism that continue to trouble western culture today. Fritz's story and life's work have never been more relevant.

In writing NIETZSCHE, Kimerer LaMothe, Ph.D. (book, lyrics, music) drew on over thirty years of research into the philosopher's life and work. She is a dancer, scholar of religion, and award-winning author of six books, including Nietzsche's Dancers (Palgrave Macmillan), the only comprehensive analysis of dance imagery in Nietzsche's corpus. As LaMothe confirms, "Nietzsche's words have guided me through some very dark moments. The more I learn about him and his work, the more convinced I am that the best way to communicate his life-affirming philosophy is through music and dancing."

Pianist and composer Geoffrey Gee, LaMothe's longtime collaborator, has orchestrated an expressive, engaging score for this musical, featuring a range of styles from pop and rock to classical jazz. As Gee states, "Kimerer's melodies and lyrics are inspiring, funny, poignant, and chock-full of meaning. My role is to build a musical world in which they can communicate directly into the hearts of the audience."

In describing their collaboration, LaMothe explains: "It's like magic. Geoffrey takes the melodies I sing into my iPhone and fleshes them out through his own musical sensibility, until it's not clear where my work ends and his begins. Every song becomes a third thing - ours."

NIETZSCHE features a cast of seventeen talented performers from the New York City area, including Will Paddock as Fritz, MaKayla Baxter as Elisabeth, Kyra Gee as Lou Salome, and a dancing chorus. Music director Erin Kennedy will conduct a pit orchestra of seven, with Gee on keyboards.

LaMothe affirms that this musical is for everyone: "If you know nothing about Nietzsche, his story will move you. If you know a little about Nietzsche, you'll come away with a new perspective. If you know a lot about Nietzsche, please engage us in a long conversation about his work and its relevance for our time. Whoever you are, our hope is that you leave the show with a sense of what we find at the heart of his philosophy: a resounding love for life."