Will Wilson Saves the World: A New Musical

Synopsis

Will Wilson Saves the World opens with the pivotal thematic conflict: In the year 2005, a hospitalized 80-year-old man recalls his greatest personal tragedy: losing his dearest childhood friend. The greatest atrocity of its kind during World War II: The Massacre At Malmedy took place following the infamous 1944 campaign: The Battle of the Bulge. This was the Nazis’ last, desperate attempt to destroy Allied forces on the Western Front, facilitating the mass murder of over 80 American Prisoners of War in Southern Belgium. Stationed  with the 7th Armored Division of the US Army, the massacre near fatally injures Will and mortally wounds his lifelong companion: Victor Salinas.

In the narrative foreground, Will Wilson’s beloved granddaughter has become a lawyer for the US Department of Justice, hunting and prosecuting escaped Nazi war criminals. Her passionate pursuit includes seeking justice for the escaped Nazi SS officer Armand Lang, who shot her Grandfather and killed Victor more than 60 years ago. As her (and her coworkers’) stories unfold, they thematically intersect with Will’s past (1920’s-present). Born on a Kentucky farm, into a family of twelve children to an abusive, alcoholic father, Will loses his mother at a young age, overcomes polio, serves in and narrowly survives World War II, and loses his own firstborn son at the age of two to a rare childhood cancer…Yet somehow, he manages not to become a product of the brokenness, and repairs his world. Through the intersection of their life experiences, they learn that life, despite the most dire of circumstances, is about making choices.

The action loosely follows the oral history and life experiences of Lyndsey Chance's (Book/Lyrics) maternal grandfather William M. Wilson, born 2-5-1925.