Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a new musical built from John Berendt's true-crime book about a killing in Savannah, Georgia. Jason Robert Brown wrote the music and lyrics, Taylor Mac wrote the book, Rob Ashford directs and Tanya Birl-Torres choreographs. The show had its world premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2024.

Berendt's 1994 book, his first, stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 216 weeks, was a 1995 Pulitzer Prize finalist in general nonfiction and won the 1995 Boeke Prize. Clint Eastwood turned it into a film in 1997.

On September 30, 2024, producers announced a Broadway debut for 2025, but that run did not take place. As of October 2026, no Broadway theater has been booked, and the official website shows only a teaser, with no theater, dates or cast. The songs, staging and running time described below come from the Chicago production, and the Broadway version may differ.

The musical is set in Savannah in the 1980s and grows out of a real case. On May 2, 1981, Jim Williams, a rich antiques dealer and preservationist, shot Danny Hansford, his young lover and helper, inside Mercer House, Williams's home, and said he had acted in self-defense. Berendt's book follows Williams through four murder trials.

On stage, the murder charge against Williams sets things in motion. As the trial unfolds, secrets the town has kept for years surface, and the fallout pushes The Lady Chablis and other residents to change their city.

The Lady Chablis, a real transgender cabaret performer who has a secondary part in the book and played herself in the 1997 film, sits at the center of the musical. No actor plays Berendt: the audience takes the author's place, and the characters speak directly to the house, each trying to convince you that their version is the true story of Savannah. Other characters include Minerva, Jack the One-Eyed Jill, the Preservation League Ladies and Emma Dawes, a big-voiced society woman in the Nancy Reagan mold.

Brown wrote an original score, though that was not the first plan. An earlier version of the project, dating from 2012, was meant to use songs from the Johnny Mercer catalog. The creators later concluded that Mercer songs on their own could not carry the plot, and Brown, who reportedly said no at first, was brought on to compose new material. Mac has said that Brown worked sounds of the 1980s into the music.

The Chicago song list had 10 numbers in the first act and nine in the second, among them:

• "Bonaventure" opens the evening with Minerva, Jim Williams, The Lady Chablis, Emma Dawes and the company.
• "Jim and Danny" is a duet for Williams and Hansford.
• "The Empress of Savannah" is a solo for Jack the One-Eyed Jill.
• "Reasonable Doubt" gives Williams a second-act number with the company.
• "Butterflies," for The Lady Chablis and the company, closes the list.

The look is firmly period: Mac has said the costumes and hairstyles lean into the 1980s. Bird Girl, a 1936 sculpture by Sylvia Shaw Judson, is the image on the book's cover and on the musical's posters. The Chicago set is reported to have used the fiberglass replica of the statue made for the 1997 film, on loan from the Cliff Dwellers Club.

In 2012, producer Anne Hamburger brought in playwright Alfred Uhry to adapt the book for the stage. Ashford joined in 2013, with a tryout planned for late 2014 and a Broadway opening in the first six months of 2015. A 2014 reading featured Tony Goldwyn, Leslie Uggams and Jessica Molaskey, and that version was then shelved.

Mac and Brown were announced on February 28, 2023, and an invitation-only industry reading followed on May 12–13, 2023. The team made repeated trips to Savannah, asked locals such as Stratton Leopold for notes and consulted Williams's nieces, who look after Mercer House. Berendt did not write the script, but he met Mac several times and shared stories that never made it into his book.

In Chicago, previews began in the Albert Theatre on June 25, 2024, and the show opened on July 8, 2024. The run, first scheduled to end on August 4, was extended through August 11, 2024. J. Harrison Ghee played The Lady Chablis, Tom Hewitt played Jim Williams, Sierra Boggess played Emma Dawes and Austin Colby played Danny Hansford; Molaskey, from the 2014 reading, played Alma Knox Carter.