For most people, off-Broadway musicals and political campaigns don’t have much in common. But for three Arizona politicians who became theater producers and directed a musical about Senator John McCain, the two plays are actually quite similar.
Jason Rose, a local Republican PR legend, teamed up with Max Fose, a former McCain aide, and Lynn Londen, a businesswoman and owner of AZTV, to produce the musical “Ghost of John McCain.” The production follows the late senator into the afterlife as he finds himself trapped in the spirit of former President Donald Trump.
Rose said creating the musical was “not unlike” running a campaign – something he has done dozens of times for candidates at all levels of government.
“You have a concept instead of a candidate, you have ticket sales instead of polls, and instead of winning or losing, you have winning or losing, and along the way you get critical acclaim and reviews that hopefully are in your favor,” Rose said. “But just like everyone has an opinion on Ruben Gallego, Kari Lake or Donald Trump, there are going to be a lot of people who have an opinion on ‘Ghost of John McCain.'”
In the musical, McCain meets a “Greek chorus” of famous people who are also trapped in Trump’s head. Politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Lindsay Graham are portrayed in the show alongside cultural figures such as rapper Kanye West and former Argentine First Lady Eva Perón.
The musical will premiere at the SoHo Playhouse in New York City on September 3 and run from September 24 through November 5 – Election Day. To keep the musical relevant to the current presidential election, producers wrote Vice President Kamala Harris into the script when she succeeded President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee last month.
“This will be the first place in America where people can see Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate,” said Fose, who came up with the idea of replacing Clinton with Harris in a debate scene that had already been written. A real presidential debate was scheduled for Sept. 10 – a week after the musical’s debut – and Trump said he would attend.
Although Rose, Fose and Londen all have personal experiences with McCain and his associates, the musical doesn’t offer a behind-the-scenes look at his personality or his life, Londen said. Nor should one expect it to be like “Hamilton.”
“It’s a mix of Saturday Night Live and Book of Mormon, plus some of the smartest, most serious statements we’ve ever seen in a presidential debate,” Rose said.
In addition to running campaigns and his public relations firm, Rose is the founder of Quixote Productions, known for his other Arizona politics-centered musical, “¡Americano!” That show, a biography of a local Latino political consultant, ran in Phoenix before moving off-Broadway in 2022.
Rose had the original idea for “Ghost of John McCain” after the 2020 election and brought it to McCain’s first chief of staff and former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, who agreed to help write it. The two worked on the story until Woods’ death in October 2021.
“(Woods) was so important to telling a McCain-inspired story,” Rose said. “I thought, ‘Well, who else could be excited about this project?'”
That’s where Fose came in. He began working on McCain’s Senate staff in 1992 and later helped support the senator in his bid for the White House in 2000. After leaving politics to start his own digital media company, Fose remained close to McCain until his death in 2018.
Fose said he was excited about the concept of the musical when Rose asked him to co-produce it.
“I agreed because I loved the script,” Fose said. “I loved how we could tell John McCain’s story in a different way and also how John McCain’s story collides with what’s happening in politics right now.”
Londen recently joined the production team, but also has close ties to McCain and Arizona politics. Her late husband, Jack Londen, a candidate for governor of Arizona in 1978, was a “good friend” of McCain’s and supported his 2008 presidential bid. Londen’s brother, Tom Patterson, served in the state Senate in the 1990s and served as both majority and minority leader.
All three producers take preserving McCain’s legacy seriously and say they considered it from the beginning. But Fose said he believes the show would fit right in with McCain’s sense of humor.
“John McCain was a very intense and determined person and laughter and fun were part of his character,” Fose said. “I think he would love the show and would enjoy the funny parts as much as the serious ones.”
Meghan McCain, the senator’s daughter, expressed her disdain for the show in a post to X in April, calling it “a disgusting money-making scheme by desperate mediocre people.” Producers invited Meghan and her husband to a reading of the show, but she declined the offer. Fose said production had been in touch with other members of the McCain family and decided to move forward based on those conversations.
“I know deep down that we are not doing anything inappropriate with Senator McCain’s legacy,” Fose said. “Much has been written about Senator McCain’s legacy – by himself and by others. Much has been documented about it, and we have taken great care to respect that.”
The team knows there might be skeptics. Rose said he once told Woods the concept was “either genius or a disaster.” He believes they’ve found genius.
“People who saw it in New York and read the script said they had never heard or seen anything like it,” Rose said. “And so I think we’re all excited to see how this work of art can impact the political world.”
The team says there are currently no plans to bring the show to Arizona for local audiences as they focus on the off-Broadway debut and response to the show’s first performance. But if all goes well, theatergoers outside of New York City could see the “ghost of John McCain.”
Rose said viewers didn’t necessarily need to know who McCain was to enjoy the show because it had “universal appeal.”
“You can have no interest in politics at all and still go in entertained, amused and fascinated and come out thoughtful,” Rose said.
