How ‘Swept Away’ Writer John Logan Turned a Horrific Maritime Disaster Into an Unlikely Broadway Musical

“Swept Away,” a musical about four men stranded at sea, had a landlocked genesis.

John Logan, the show’s Oscar-nominated and Tony-winning writer, started teasing out the idea for the musical during a hike through Malibu Canyon, listening to The Avett Brothers‘ folk and bluegrass hits. It wasn’t his idea, exactly, to bring the saga of a maritime disaster to Broadway. It was the band who had first become fascinated with a historical survival story in the early aughts, releasing “Mignonette,” a hauntingly beautiful concept album that explored themes of sacrifice and forgiveness, in 2004. That gave Matthew Masten, a producer whose credits include “Side Show” and “Of Mice and Men,” the idea to reach out to Logan with a pitch to turn those songs into a musical.

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“As I walked around, I listened to the album and then I put on a random Avett Brothers playlist,” Logan remembers. “I knew that there was something here, but I also knew I wanted access to their entire catalogue. They are these great American songwriters with such complicated and interesting lyrics. That helped inspire me to think about plot and character and all of those different things.”

And like the Avett Brothers, Logan felt there was something primal and arresting about the idea of being abandoned at sea without food or water, forced to make horrific decisions. “The concept of four men trapped together in a claustrophobic setting struck me as gripping and dramatic,” he says.

It’s a world that Logan knew something about. His father was a naval architect from Belfast, and Logan “grew up around shipyards and ships.” He was also a voracious reader, drawn to stories of the sea and the work of authors like Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad, who took pains to document nautical life.

When it came to “Swept Away,” Logan opted to depart dramatically (and geographically) from the story that inspired the Avett Brothers. Their album drew on stories about the ill-fated Mignonette, an English yacht that sank in 1884 off the Cape of Good Hope. Its crew of four was stranded on a lifeboat. After weeks at sea, one of the men was killed and eaten by the others. “Swept Away” changes the particulars of that grisly tale. It focuses on a whaling vessel that capsizes in a storm after leaving New Bedford in 1888. The ship’s captain and three of the crew are then set adrift and face a similar moral dilemma as starvation sets in and rescue seems impossible. Moving the timing back by four years allowed Logan to look at the collapse of the whaling industry, which was on its last legs, undone by dwindling whale populations and the popularity of kerosene as a replacement energy source for whale oil.

“By making that time jump, we see people who are grappling with a way of life that is past its prime,” Logan says. “It’s a topic that’s relevant today. We’re losing touch with what we make and who makes it. People are being replace by automation and new technologies. Creative people aren’t immune to this. For the captain in our show, kerosene makes his profession obsolete. For those of us in the arts, it could be AI that makes us useless.”

Logan made a name for himself writing scripts for films like “Gladiator,” “The Last Samurai” and “The Aviator.” He’s noticed a shift in the types of projects the entertainment industry is willing to back. Now, the focus is on costumed heroes, not human beings whose struggles and ambitions animate much of Logan’s most acclaimed works.

“Those mid-budget drama movie were vital and important for taking creative risks. But as studio support becomes less available for those projects, we’re left with an industry where the big tentpole movies and sequels suck the air out of the room,” Logan says. “It’s hard out there.”

But Logan has still managed to find opportunities to tell those stories, even if they come wrapped in a silver sequin glove. He’s writing the script for “Michael,” an upcoming Michael Jackson biopic that will chronicle the King of Pop’s life and career, from the scandals to the chart-topping hits.

“It’s been amazing getting to spend years on a character that’s so complicated and challenging,” Logan says. “He was a great artist and performer and he changed the entire world. It’s such an American story.”

And though “Michael” was produced in conjunction with the Jackson Estate, which tightly guards the singer’s image, Logan says he had “total creative freedom” to write the movie.

As for “Swept Away,” in theater circles much of the buzz ahead of its premiere this month has focused on its grim subject matter. It’s known around Broadway as “the musical about cannibalism.” Logan, unsurprisingly, thinks that’s reductive.

“The story is harrowing and the violence gets to a compellingly dark place. But my goal was to put my characters in a crisis and see how they react,” he says. “This show isn’t about any one event, just like ‘Hamlet’ isn’t about a sword fight. It tells the story of human beings who are lost at sea for 21 days with no food, no water, and no land in sight. Before they judge or look away too fast, I want people to ask themselves, what would you do?”