Coming off their most successful season to date after 2022’s second-place finish at the DCI World Championship Finals, the Boston Crusaders will be heading out on the high seas in 2023.
Recently revealing the title and theme of their competitive production, “White Whale,” we dig into what the corps has revealed about the production with less than 50 days to go to the start of the 2023 DCI Summer Tour.
1. BAC doing what they do best: A story-driven show
“White Whale” will take its inspiration from the literary classic “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville. The corps’ initial release of the concept says the program “offers a turbulent ocean adventure filled with gritty characters while exploring the realms of philosophy, science, history, and politics with intrigue and insight.”
Story-driven show concepts have been a forte of the Crusaders in recent years. From the conflagration closing out 2017’s “Wicked Games” to the sword-wielding David vanquishing his foe in 2019’s “Goliath,” the Boston Crusaders’ expert ability to spin a yarn on the football field has created some of the most memorable moments in marching music.
Through the use of props and stage sets, look for “White Whale” to begin offshore on the docks before the corps finally sets sail on its epic nautical adventure.
“For the most part, the drum corps is representative of the vastness and the beauty of the sea,” said Keith Potter, Boston’s artistic director. “The guard plays more of the working class people … the color guard is definitely more human in character, whereas the brass and percussion are a lot more scenic.”
2. Reconnecting to their roots
As done with the Crusaders’ Salem witch trials-themed “Wicked Games,” “White Whale” is meant to pay homage to the corps’ coastal New England ties.
Potter says the design team that’s been in place since that 2017 production has been influenced by the support of the corps’ alumni and board of directors. “There's such a Boston heart to what we've been inspired by,” he said.
“I grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, actually growing up around the wharf and the dock and the ocean,” percussion director Colin McNutt said. “And of course, ‘Moby Dick’ is the greatest classic story of that genre, and it's connected to Massachusetts. So to have that historical background is cool, because then you start to think about, well, what is that going to look like on the field?”
3. Music anchored by a Bernstein classic
Potter says that Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Waterfront” will serve as the “cornerstone bedrock” of the corps’ 2023 repertoire.
While one of Bernstein's more prominent works in its own right, “On the Waterfront” has been relatively untouched by the DCI community, other than a handful of occasions, perhaps most notably the 1986 Garfield Cadets. 2023 will mark 15 years since DCI audiences last heard the Bluecoats perform selections from Bernstein’s soundtrack to the Academy Award-winning Marlon Brando film as part of their popular “The Knockout” production.
Other interesting repertoire selections include “The Wellerman,” a traditional folk song often attributed as a sea shanty, which has been an almost constant earworm and dance trend among TikTok enthusiasts since 2021. In addition, “Show Me the Way to Go Home” surprisingly ties into the nautical theme of the Crusaders’ production as a song sung by the characters played by Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider aboard the Orca in the 1975 thriller, “Jaws.”
@christiankesniel go go power rangers dc:@buqicrew_official ♬ Sea Shanty Medley - Home Free
The Dropkick Murphys’ aggressive “Shipping up to Boston” has become an unequivocal Beantown anthem — save for maybe “Sweet Caroline” when the Red Sox are in town at Fenway Park — after its debut in 2006’s Best Picture-winning “The Departed.” As such, it’ll likely get audiences on their feet when the Crusaders are tearing through the East Coast and across the United States this summer.
4. Boston’s gold-tinged white whale?
Describing the legacy of Melville's “Moby Dick,” Potter said, “‘White Whale’ has become a metaphor in our world as something that is elusive, unattainable and chased at all cost.”
One has to wonder if that idea has been living rent free in the design team’s minds as it applies to the corps’ own quest to claim gold and hoist the DCI Founders Trophy for the very first time.
A founding Drum Corps International corps that took more than a quarter of a century to finally break into the “Top 12” competitively, the Crusaders took nearly 25 years more to earn their first silver medal at the 2022 DCI World Championship Finals to close out DCI’s milestone 50th anniversary season.
The corps undoubtedly has momentum on its side. But will 2023 be the year the Boston Crusaders can start their novel, “Call me Ishmael Champion?”
“I think there's a lot of metaphor for what we do in the summer, all of us in drum corps,” Potter said. “It is kind of a willing to do it all, to chase, whether it's perfection or a competitive goal, or just product quality. I think there is a connection to the relentless pursuit of that excellence that is a great crossover to what the story is of ‘Moby Dick.’”
The Boston Crusaders are set to kick off their 2023 summer tour on July 1 in Lynn, Massachusetts.
View Boston's 2023 DCI Summer Tour schedule