About eight years ago, British musical theater writer Jack Godfrey was trolling the internet looking for inspiration when he came across the unbelievable true story of Larry Walters and his homemade flying machine that in 1982 resulted in a 45-minute flight that made headlines.
“I was thinking about living with a dream and pursuing a dream which was something quite important to me at the time,” Godfrey says. “I really connected with Larry, a man who had this wild dream and had a lot of people doubting him and thinking he was crazy, and yet he achieved a lifelong dream.”
Walters’ against-the-odds flight was just what Godfrey was looking for. It inspired his first professional musical, “42 Balloons.” It drew critical acclaim after a run in the United Kingdom and is now making its American debut at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Reprising their roles of Walters and his partner Carol Van Deusen are British actors Charlies McCullagh and Evelyn Hoskins, with Ellie Coote continuing as the show’s director.
“Jack has created a very generous piece of theater that doesn’t keep a lot of secrets from the audience,” says Coote, 39. “It’s really engaging and has an openness and playfulness, which I find very exciting.
Walters had been rejected by the Air Force because of bad eyesight. But he never relinquished his dream of flying. After years of research, he began formulating a plan.
The flying machine consisted of a lawn chair lifted aloft by 42 weather balloons. Walters was assisted by a ground crew of friends in his fiancée’s small back yard. He ascended 16,000 feet — the Federal Aviation Administration was not amused — only to be seen as a crackpot with a hair-brained scheme.
Afterward, the flight was featured on “Late Night with David Letterman,” on which he explained how serious he was about his plan. He kept saying “I knew what I was doing”; the audience laughed. Godfrey recreates the Letterman interview in the musical.
“There is something a little bit tragic in that he wasn’t getting the kind of respect and recognition that he felt he deserved for what he accomplished. I found that quite moving and fascinating.”
McCullagh, 29, says he admires Walters’ tenacity and sees a “magnetic draw” hidden in his personality.
“I think that Larry sees himself as an outsider,” McCullagh says. “He’s been laughed at. He’s been told no. So his charisma comes from something deep within him that is inspiring and exciting. There’s a darkness to it, and I think that’s what makes him so fun to portray.”
Dreams are something playwright Godfrey, 32, is familiar with and the reason he related to Walters’ story. Growing up, he dreamed he’d be a pop songwriter. It was when his brother, who was in film school, asked him to write songs for a musical film that everything changed.
“It was through this process, writing the songs and getting into the heads of those characters and trying to tell the story through the songs that I realized this is what I really wanted to do,” he says.
Like Walters, Godfrey was following what at times felt like an impossible dream. He doesn’t come from a family of theatergoers. Saying he was going to move to London and focus on this new career was startling.
“I come from a very supportive family, so it wasn’t that people were immediately saying don’t be ridiculous, but I think there was a lot of doubt because no one had done anything like this in my immediate circle,” Godfrey says. “I just immediately resonated with Larry’s story, and I began this crazy journey of writing this show.”
Godfrey says he wanted to embrace the challenge of creating a sung-through musical. Along with orchestrator and musical supervisor Joe Beighton, he says he also was aiming to “capture the essence of the ‘80s” with the original music.
“We have a lot going on in the show that is retro and nostalgic — a lot of big vocals, massive drum sounds, epic guitars,” Godfrey says. “We kind of created our own homage to the ‘80s through the stylistic choices we made.”
McCullagh feels that because the show is sung through it “sort of feels like an ‘80s music video.” Walters’ first big number is “very much inspired by Meatloaf. You can hear a ‘Bat Out of Hell’ and ‘I Would Do Anything for Love’ vibe running through it.”
As for the flying machine, Coote wouldn’t reveal anything about how the airborne aspect of the show will be staged, but suffice to say she won’t be blowing up 42 balloons for every performance.
“Larry is still up in the air for a good 20 minutes of the show,” she says. “So there’s a lot to play with, and we approach it in different ways. It’s been a really exciting challenge.”
The infamous lawn chair flying machine now resides in the U.S. National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
“I think it’s amazing that Larry is recognized in this way,” Godfrey says. “I think it’s something that he would really appreciate. By simply following his dream, he had an impact on the world in a way that you might not expect.”