In My Life (musical)

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In My Life is a 2005 Broadway musical written, composed, and directed by Joseph Brooks. It opened on October 20, 2005 at the Music Box Theatre and closed on December 11, 2005 after 61 performances and 23 previews. The show is often described as one of Broadway’s strangest productions.

Plot in simple terms: Jenny works at the Village Voice processing personal ads and has obsessive-compulsive disorder. She falls in love with J.T., a singer-songwriter who has Tourette’s syndrome and sometimes shouts “lemon.” As they connect, an angel in Heaven named Winston watches and decides their story should become a reality opera, intensifying the drama by giving J.T. a brain tumor. The tale also involves J.T.’s dead mother and sister, as well as God, who goes by the name Al and sometimes appears in the story. The musical was performed without an intermission.

Brooks wrote the entire show and also directed it. Jonathan Groff made his Broadway debut in this production as an understudy for J.T. and Nick. Before previews, two CD samplers promoting songs from the musical were printed and distributed in large numbers—about 200,000 copies. The samplers are the only official recordings from the show.

The production did not fare well with critics and audiences. Reviews were uniformly negative, and despite a marketing push that cost millions, the show failed to attract a lasting audience and closed after just over two months. Critics described the book and songs as uneven and the concept as largely unworkable on stage, though some noted moments of charm in Brooks’s melodies and the design. The libretto has never been published, and no cast recording was made.