Rogers: The Musical Review: A Super Show For a Super Soldier

“I could watch this all day,” remarked an audience member after curtains fell on Disneyland’s premiere of Rogers: The Musical. Based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Captain America, the meta musical comedy stages the fictitious Broadway musical from Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye TV series as a one-act live theater production. Billed as “a timeless story about a timeless hero,” the real-life Rogers: The Musical chronicles the story of Steve Rogers, the first Avenger. (Here’s everything you need to know about Rogers: The Musical, opening June 30th and performing through August 31st at the Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure Park.) 

Rogers: The Musical is inspired by the fictional production (and social media sensation) showcased in episodes of Marvel’s Hawkeye, where Avengers archer Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) attended a musical retelling of the life of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). In-universe, the stage show took dramatic license with its interpretation of the Battle of New York — the incident that assembled the Avengers against an alien army of Chitauri in 2012 — in the show-stopping musical number “Save the City,” with deliberately campy lyrics (“Avengers unite, ’cause we’ve got to hear you say, ‘I could do this all day!’”) written by Grammy and Tony Award-winning Broadway veterans Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray).

The story of Steve Rogers is “about superheroes, romance, and time travel,” sings a trio of sparkling Starkettes in the “U-S-Opening Night” opening number, framing the narrative like the self-aware Muses in Disney’s Hercules. Spanning 80 years and multiple MCU movies but told “in 30 minutes or less,” the show breezes through the events of Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), and Avengers: Endgame (2019), but captures what Dan Fields, Executive Creative Director at Disney Live Entertainment, said is “the humor, heroism, and heart” of the once-fake musical that relives the life of Steve Rogers.

Born sickly Steve Rogers, the scrappy, bully-bashing runt is just a kid from Brooklyn who wants to do his duty and enlist in the U.S. Army during World War II. Weak in body but strong in heart, Steve is recruited by scientist Abraham Erskine and SSR Agent Peggy Carter into Project Rebirth, a top-secret government program to create “America’s New Hope”: a Super Soldier. After a dose of Vita-Rays and Super Soldier serum, Steve Rogers is reborn as Captain America, the Star Spangled Man with a plan who wages war against HYDRA in a pulpy, comic book-styled montage. Plunged into the freezing ice of the Arctic in a selfless act of heroism, Steve spends 70 years in suspended animation and awakes as a man out of time who never got that dance with Peggy. Recruited to the Avengers Initiative by Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America and the Avengers assemble as Earth’s mightiest heroes. As Steve sings: “I could do this all day!” But after fighting an endless war — destruction in D.C. (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and Sokovia (Avengers: Age of Ultron), battles in Wakanda (Avengers: Infinity War) and against Thanos (Avengers: Endgame) — Steve asks his older, time traveler self: “Can we really do this all day?” 

The stage show, created and directed by Jordan Peterson (Avengers Assemble Stunt Show), is like marathoning the Captain America and Avengers movies at double speed and fast-forwarding to the major plot points. (Marvel movie fans know the beats, and non-fans get the gist.) There’s a clear through-line from The First Avenger to The Avengers to Avengers: Endgame that tracks Steve’s emotional and heroic journey through the MCU, told musically with a soundtrack that is appropriately Disney Broadway. Rogers: The Musical may have started as a purposely cheesy Broadway spoof in Hawkeye, but the Disney Parks version is as hearty as it is wholesome, with songs worthy of a Broadway stage. 

The Rogers: The Musical soundtrack features the familiar — including Shaiman and Wittman’s earworm “Save the City” as heard in Hawkeye, Alan Menken and David Zippel’s “Star Spangled Man” USO show tune from The First Avenger, and Alan Silvestri’s iconic Captain America and Avengers themes — and five new original songs, including “I Want You” (Steve’s very own “I Want” song about enlisting for Uncle Sam), “What You Missed” (a pop culture catch-up pop song performed by S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury, less stoic spymaster and more Aladdin’s scene-stealing Genie), “End of the Line” (a reflective twist on Steve’s endgame), and “Just One Dance” (a ballad about the “lost romance” between Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter). 

From a book by Hunter Bell (Broadway’s award-winning production titled “[title of show],” Disney Cruise Line’s Villains Tonight!), with music by Christopher Lennertz (Marvel’s Agent Carter) and lyrics by Lennertz, Peterson, and Alex Karukas, Rogers: The Musical is produced by Disney Live Entertainment, which presented the Broadway-lite stage adaptations Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular and Frozen – Live at the Hyperion for Disney California Adventure. 

For the creative team behind the real-life Rogers, the musical was an opportunity to give parkgoers — and musical theater fans and superhero fans alike — “something they would love about the music,” Lennertz said. “Both avid fans and guests that are new to the story of Captain America will relate to Steve’s journey to answer, ‘What do I aspire to? How do I get it? What choices do I have to make?’” said Jennifer Magill, producer at Disney Live Entertainment. “Guests of all ages will be won over by the humanity and good-natured positivity of Rogers: The Musical.”  

That includes Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige, who embraced the show-within-a-show turned real-life musical. Fields recalled Feige’s reaction to one show-stopping musical number: “‘Nick Fury sings? That should be on the billboard.’” 

I could watch it all day. 

Rogers: The Musical will be presented Tuesday through Saturday most weeks at the Hyperion Theater inside Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort from June 30th to August 31st. See the official Disneyland website for park tickets and showtimes, and read our guide to Rogers: The Musical.