Jasper in Deadland: The Anatomy of the Perfect Opening Number

So, I want to preface this by saying this is a propaganda post. I love this show, and I went through several ideas of topics to talk about (Other titles were Jasper in Deadland: The Best Show You’ve Never Seen, Romance Writing for Dummies, How to Effectively Pull off Multiple Protagonists, and The Perfect Teen Protagonist.) I denied most of the other ideas for spoiler potential, as I think that no abridging I can possibly give will ever be better than the original show.

To introduce the show a bit, the best parallel I can give is if Hadestown was a rock opera set in modern times. If you’ve ever heard the songs “The Ballad Of Sara Berry” or “Leave Luanne”, or heard of the musical 35mm, Jasper In Deadland was written by the same person, Ryan Scott Oliver.

So, in order to explain why Jasper in Deadland’s opener is the best in modern theatre, I first need to define what a good opener is made of. There are generally three schools of thought.

1st type of opener: The character/relationship definer. This type of opener focuses on defining important things about the main character(s), their friends and family, and/or the tensions present in these relationships. The best example of this (that I can think of off the top of my head) is Does Anybody Have a Map from Dear Evan Hansen. Typically, the success of one of these numbers comes from giving enough exposition to have the play continue without any more blatant info dumps. The success of one of these numbers can typically be gauged with a list of truths. For example:

-Evan is supposed to be writing positivity letters to himself, but isn’t

-Evan needs to build his confidence

-Evan is pessimistic

-His Mother doesn’t believe he is trying.

-Evan broke his arm

And so on. The benefits of this type of opener is that you have an excuse to explain things to the audience (as the show has just started), so you might as well take advantage of it and get as much done as possible. Also, most shows live or die by the relatability of their characters, and this is a great way to start audience immersion early.

2nd type of opener: The Plot/Conflict/World-Building set-up. Much the same as the first type, just for shows that rely less on their characters. Effectiveness is still measured with the list of truths. This type has the benefit of appearing more forward (ie, plot development is seen as more pressing than character development) while also leaving the door open to keep character developments until later, which benefits certain types of stories. Examples of this include Double Talk from City of Angels and Welcome to the Renaissance from Something Rotten. It’s also popular for sci-fi and fantasy (as they often require extensive setup for their worlds).

3rd type: The Concept/Tonesetter song. Used pretty often for shows that break the forth wall or have a distinctive sound to them. The best example of this is Prologue from The Great Comet, which is both parts of this. The cheekiness of the song explains that the show is a really complicated novel adaption that the audience will have to really pay attention to understand, as well as demonstrating the ability of the actors that are featured and introducing the audience to the Russian folk music style the show uses.

At this moment, you’re probably thinking “But wait, Prologue is also a type 1 opener!”, to which I would say, yeah, it is. Shows can mix multiple types of openers, in fact, the entire reason for this spiel is to point out that Jasper in Deadland mixes all three types: It provides a character introduction for the two main characters, explains Jasper’s current situation, and delivers an explanation for what the show is, as well as displaying the show’s unique pop-rock style. This immediately caught my attention, as the genre of Jasper in Deadland doesn’t usually lend well to the 2nd or 3rd type of opener, but they certainly make it work.

The rest of this description is going to be me analyzing the first 8-9 minutes of the show (up to the end of the first song) with the list of truths. If you want to go and watch the show now before I spoil the opening, here you go: https://youtu.be/daSbwaREPT4

I’ll also be timestamping my observations with the above video

Type 1 details:

-Jasper has terrible grades (:27)

-Jasper’s father is a drug addict (:30)

-Jasper has been skipping school (:35)

-Jasper was on the swim team, but he was removed from the team for skipping their practices (:45)

-Jasper’s goal was to get into college with a swim scholarship (:50)

-Jasper has trouble keeping friends because of how much he hangs out with Agnes (:55)

-Jasper is not in the “same league” as Agnes (1:00)

-Jasper’s mother is leaving him (1:05)

-Agnes’s father doesn’t like Jasper (1:08)

-Jasper thinks Agnes is perfect and that he doesn’t deserve to be friends with her (1:55)

-Agnes loves Jasper (2:07)

-Agnes calls him out for being scared of their relationship (2:28)

-Jasper doesn’t have faith in their relationship working out (2:55)

-Agnes was Jasper’s first friend when he moved to the new town (first memory)

-Jasper is a risk taker that makes a habit of jumping off a cliff every morning (second memory)

-Agnes doesn’t want to jump with him (second memory)

-Agnes is keeping secrets (5:50)

-Agnes has problems that Jasper can’t know about (6:00)

-Jasper describes them as “best friends” (6:23)

Type 2 details

-Agnes tells Jasper she loves him, and he doesn’t respond (2:07)

-Agnes is going to jump off of the cliff (2:28)

-Jasper goes looking for Agnes (2:35)

-Jasper discovers Agnes jumped off the cliff, and jumps after her (3:13)

-Jasper couldn’t love Agnes (7:13) -...which caused her to leave (7:18)

-Jasper agrees to go find her (7:30)

Type 3 details/interesting tidbits/references

-Jasper falls into Deadland. This is the main concept of the show, and although it isn’t explained what that means yet, they do point out that it is happening (3:25, a bit hard to hear)

-Establishes the motif of memories and literally explains what Jasper in going through to the audience (3:47)

-Agnes is a role played by multiple people. This isn’t super important, but it helps with some trickery later down the line. (3:47)

-Agnes compares them to Orpheus and Eurydice, Antony and Cleopatra, and Romeo and Juliet, all of which are relationships that famously end poorly. (6:50)

-The background singers sorta define Deadland as “Life after life” (8:00)

-Generally being an all around fantastic pop-rock song with unconventional melodies and motifs, as well as providing serious commentary that is grounded in a central relationship (throughout).

So yeah, the main point I wanted to prove with this was that the first 8 minutes of the show are incredibly dense in terms of the information it provides, but it never feels like you are learning from a textbook. The music is catchy as all hell, and the show provides a fantastic character study, and the plot is legitimately fantastic, easily my favorite musical plot ever. I really wanted to make this, as it is a show that flew under the radar and got nowhere near as much credit as it deserved.

If you want to watch it, there is a high school production, and an abridged post-covid official production. I would highly recommend the first one.

So yeah, if y’all watch it, please come back here and comment here. I’d love to talk about this show with others.

TLDR: Watch Jasper in Deadland, it’s fantastic