The Glorious Ones

THE GLORIOUS ONES is a backstage musical about the lives, loves, ambitions, and art of the performers in a 16th-century commedia dell'arte troupe in Italy of the late Renaissance. Based on the novel by Francine Prose, the musical tells how the troupe came to be and how it captured the public's adoration with its bawdy comedy, before changing artistic fashion altered its way of life. Its seven archetypal characters are -- the charismatic leading man, the sly harlequin, the quack "dottore," the old miser, the voluptuous leading lady, the devoted dwarf, and the elegant Moon Woman.