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There’s a new ‘Casey at the Bat’ with Stephen Murray’s mini-opera Richard Duckett Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
At the end of the poem “Casey at the Bat” by Worcester’s Ernest L. Thayer, there is no joy in Mudville. Casey, after all, has just struck out at the bottom of the ninth. There were two out, but two on. Mudville has lost 4-2. Stephen Murray, a prolifi c Worcester composer, lyricist, playwright, as well as a performing arts educator and baseball fan, isn’t looking to change the result in his new mini-opera, a musical adaptation of “Casey at the Bat.” However, scoring a hit with it would be nice. And there could be some joy, or at least hope, in Mudville, couldn’t there? “At the end of the poem you’re left with Casey being humiliated, but I didn’t let the piece end there,” Murray said of his composition, or turn at the bat. “I have Casey moving forward. There’s always going to be another game, another chance. I snuck in a happy ending in there, at least an optimistic ending. They still lose the game, I can’t change that. But there will be another game.” Murray added, “Maybe it’ll encourage people to go to Polar Park.” People haven’t seemed to need too much encouragement in that regard as the Worcester Red Sox, the new Triple-A affi liate of the Boston Red Sox, can already be designated as a hometown hit at the brand new and already popular Polar Park. Murray, who lives in Worcester, has already been there. At the time of writing this story, a song from Murray’s “Casey at the Bat” was scheduled to be sung before the Worcester Red Sox game versus the Rochester Red Wings on June 3, along with a reading of Thayer’s “Casey at the
Stephen Murray — a Worcester composer, lyricist, playwright, educator and baseball fan — has created a musical adaptation of “Casey at the Bat.” TRACY MARTINO
Bat.” The poem was fi rst published anonymously in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, under the pen name “Phin,” based on Thayer’s college nickname, “Phinney”. June 3, 2021, is also the date Murray hopes to have a rendering of his “Casey at the Bat” up and running on YouTube. Against a backdrop of baseball-related visuals including depictions of the history of baseball in Worcester, “Casey at the Bat” is performed by vocalists Todd Vickstrom, Heidi White, Paul Spanagel, Tracy Martino, Nicole Lian, Peter Arsenault, Alex Irwin and Murray. Artist Marsha Gleason of Northboro has cre-
ated a painting of Casey to celebrate the project. The ultimate goal is to have the work performed on stage in front of a live audience, hopefully in the fall, Murray said. The project is produced with the cooperation of the WCLOC Theater Company and the Worcester Historical Museum. Murray has written over 30 shows, including the romantic comedy “Making Scents,” which has been performed four times locally dating back to its premiere in 1995 with WCLOC. Among Murray’s other popular shows, some written
with a youth audience in mind, are “Kamp Kaos,” “Pom-Pom Zombies” and “Katastrophe Kate.” More recently he’s written “Help! I’m Trapped in a Musical!”, “The Enchanted Bookshop Musical,” and “Greece is the Word: The Zeusical!” Murray is also choral director, music teacher and curriculum leader at Wayland Middle School. With the arrival of the Worcester Red Sox in mind, Eric Butler of WCLOC had asked Murray if he would be interested in writing an original piece based on “Casey at the Bat.” There have been other musical adaptations, including the opera “The Mighty Casey” by 20th-century American composer Willian Schuman. However, there was a feeling that Schuman’s work “didn’t really radiate with contemporary audiences,” Murray said. As for Murray’s work, “It’s an opera in the sense that there’s no (spoken) dialogue. It has a mix of musical styles. It’s not an opera in the traditional sense of the 1800s. It’s contemporary opera,” he said. Baseball had taken root in America in the mid-to-late 1800s. The Worcester Worcesters were a Major League Baseball team from 1880 to 1882 in the National League. Thayer (1863-1940) reportedly wrote “Casey at the Bat” in the spring of 1888 at his family’s home at 67 Chatham St. in Worcester. He came from a prominent and wealthy family of mill owners, and at Harvard University was a classmate and friend of William Randolph Hearst, who hired him as a humor columnist for the San Francisco Examiner (then called The Daily Examiner). “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888” (to give the poem its full title) was apparently Thayer’s last piece for The Examiner. Thayer may have been a See CASEY, Page 5
