Dogfight The Musical

For educational use only.

In 1963, on the eve of JFK’s assassination, Eddie Birdlace, a 20-year-old Marine, spends his last night before deployment hosting a “dogfight” with his friends to see who can bring the ugliest date to a party. Throughout the night, Eddie forms a relationship with Rose Fenny, a local waitress he sweet-talks into joining him. The audience is shown conflicting opinions on the Vietnam war in their conversations. While a certain awkward tenderness grows between the couple, aggression and hostility grow with the other Marines. The next morning the men are deployed to serve in the war. Quickly, Eddie’s friends are killed in battle, leaving him questioning what they are fighting for and his place in America.

Final Twinmotion Renders

Overall Concept

The most interesting thing about the story is the changing culture of America. Throughout the play, this is most easily seen in the character of Eddie, who goes from a naive 20-year-old who feels like he and his friends rule the world. They are about to be deployed and as they discuss Vietnam and interact with people on their last night in San Francisco, it is obvious they don’t understand the gravity that their actions will have.

As Eddie goes to war, he witnesses his best friends die. Four years later, upon his return home, Eddie, who once proclaimed about the parades that would be thrown for him, is instead greeted with peace protests and an entirely different world. This disconnect between what he feels he was promised, versus the pawn he had become is one of the most interesting parts of the story. The love story between Eddie and Rose serves as the perfect demonstration for Eddie combatting his true feelings, of traditionalism and social growth.

Set Concept

The set is an abstraction of the American Flag and the Golden Gate Bridge. It is creating a collage of memories of signs, textures, and forms that Eddie would associate with his brief night in San Francisco. The American flag captures the sense of pride the young Marines had in their country, as well as this idea of a golden age of American culture when JFK was president. It also transitions well into the set for Vietnam where these “American Heroes” were coming to save the day and moved together not as individual men, but as the greater US Military. There are pieces of the Golden Gate Bridge in the set, including metalics, the copper orange color, as well as shapes that are featured in the bridge. Together, both of these pieces of iconic American imagery combine to create a feeling of memories colliding for just one moment.