A New Brain

Gordon Schwinn, Jonathan Groff, is a dedicated songwriter who sits at his piano to meet a looming deadline, frustrated by the pressure to craft a spring-themed tune for the children’s television host Mr. Bungee, a frog-costumed showman. The prologue opens with the whimsical line, Prologue: Frogs Have So Much Spring (The Spring Song), setting a tone that blends grand musical ambition with a hint of existential worry. After a tense stretch at the keyboard, Gordon decides to take a break and meet his best friend Rhoda, Alyse Alan Louis, at a neighborhood restaurant. A fan of Mr. Bungee among the staff—who are listening in from behind the counter—the waitress informs them of the specials, including Calamari, as Gordon wrestles with the creeping sense that the music inside him might never be finished.

During lunch, a piercing headache interrupts Gordon’s flow, and he collapses face-first into his meal. An ambulance ride follows, and the flood of questions about his health pushes him to confront one of his deepest fears: the possibility that he could die with countless songs still unwritten inside him, a fear that echoes in his anxious assertion, I Have so Many Songs. His mother Mimi Schwinn, Ana Gasteyer, arrives with a mix of worry and maternal resolve, insisting that everything will be okay even as Gordon’s condition becomes clearer. A neurosurgeon, Dr. Berensteiner, Bradley Dean, explains that there is something physically wrong with Gordon’s brain and that an MRI is necessary to determine the exact course of action.

In the hospital, Gordon’s temper flares at Mimi for underestimating the seriousness of his illness and for not listening to the doctors. A hallucination of Mr. Bungee materializes, its voice a demanding chorus that mocks Gordon’s fear and urges him to be polite to everybody. The moment underscores Gordon’s internal struggle between artist ambition and the vulnerabilities that illness exposes. He drifts into a daydream about Roger, his boyfriend, who is on his way to the hospital from a sailing trip, and the two navigate a fragile exchange of support and distance as Gordon tries to steady himself.

Two nurses enter the scene, Nancy D. and Richard, each bringing a distinct temperament to Gordon’s care. Nancy D.—stern yet capable—asks for family history, prompting Gordon to reflect on why he seems to have inherited more of his parents’ less flattering traits. The line of genetic humor spirals into deeper questions about identity and lineage (Gordo’s Law of Genetics). Roger arrives, offering a quiet moment of tenderness, but Gordon urges him to go if he must, a choice that reveals the strain between his professional demands and his personal longing for closeness. Richard steps in to prepare Gordon for the MRI with a sponge bath, and his own self-doubt—being poor, unsuccessful, and fat—becomes a counterpoint to Gordon’s dreams of grandeur.

That night, Gordon’s life becomes a maze of visions in which Mr. Bungee continues to plague his thoughts, while a minister interrupts with a push toward religious certainty, clashing with Gordon’s Jewish background. Exhausted, Gordon falls asleep, only to be awakened by Nancy D. on MRI Day, who reminds him of the claustrophobic reality he must face. To cope, Gordon revisits a past sailing journey with Roger (Sailing), letting the memory anchor him as fear swirls around the procedure. Dr. Berensteiner explains that Gordon’s condition is an arteriovenous malformation, and he must undergo a craniotomy to mitigate the risk of a dangerous rupture. The doctor outlines the risks: if the operation goes wrong, Gordon could die; if it goes too exactly, he might still face fatal complications. Faced with a life-altering choice, Gordon agrees to proceed, while Roger offers to stay with him that night for support, a gesture that tugs at the balance between duty and intimacy (An Invitation to Sleep In My Arms).

Rhoda returns with news that Mr. Bungee needs a fresh song by the next morning, placing Gordon under renewed pressure. He declines Roger’s offer for companionship and commits to writing, driven by the belief that the art must live on. In a haunting moment, Gordon envisions Lisa, the homeless woman he met earlier, who pleads with the audience for change—both in the material sense and in the social fabric of the world. Her plea becomes a catalyst for a new sense of purpose, pushing Gordon to channel the urgency he feels into his work. He presents a new song, Yes, to Mr. Bungee, only to witness the host’s disdain as he storms off, leaving Gordon crushed in the middle of the room.

Mimi stoically tends to Gordon’s apartment, and in a fit of rage, shreds his books, a visual symbol of the tension between protection and control that surrounds his life. Gordon’s surgery is postponed for a tense stretch, and the hospital becomes a theater in which time seems to stretch and compress around his fate. In the wake of the delay, Roger sits with Gordon and waits for the outcome, while Lisa—now in a coma of sorts—offers consolation as Gordon drifts toward the operating room once more. In his coma, Gordon experiences a surreal mini-opera that stitches together voices from his past: Brain Dead, Whenever I Dream, Eating Myself Up Alive, and The Music Still Plays On. A kindly Mr. Bungee returns to him with a guiding message: Don’t Give In. The line becomes a lifeline, and Gordon awakens to the glimmer of possibility rather than the certainty of fear. Dr. Berensteiner indeed celebrates a successful craniotomy arrival, and the hospital room fills with a sense of fragile renewal.

Post-surgery, Gordon and Roger share a moment of playfulness in the hospital shower, a small rebellion that unsettles Richard, who fears trouble. Yet Gordon’s perspective shifts; he experiences a renewed appreciation for life, feeling the world with sharper clarity as he faces the future with a lighter heart. Months pass, and Gordon enjoys a more fulfilled life with Roger by his side. They encounter Lisa again, only to find that she is selling Gordon’s books that Mimi threw out, a stark reminder of the precarious nature of art and memory. When Gordon asks for the books back, Lisa refuses, and Roger’s presence helps steady his temper as they navigate this disruption. Time, as they say, continues to move, and Gordon begins to see his art and his life recovering in tandem.

As the dust settles, Gordon rediscovers a sense of balance: Time and Music become a paired axis around which his world turns, and he finds a new rhythm that allows him to write once more. The curtain rises on a final note—the closing spring song, I Feel so Much Spring—an affirmation that life, even after fear, can bloom anew. On the street outside, the homeless woman’s voice lingers in Gordon’s mind as he confronts the cost and reward of change, and the tale ends with Gordon embracing a future where his work no longer carries the same oppressive weight but carries with it an expanded sense of purpose and gratitude.

Last Updated: October 03, 2025 at 06:47