The Silent City

The Silent City is a record-based musical produced by the Stagehands. It follows a music man named Stan from his home in an average town to Laconia, the land of entertainment. It turns out that Laconia is a dictatorship run by a mayor who makes everyone in the town wear a mask in exchange for making them famous.

Stan chooses not to wear a mask, and the mayor does not provide him with fame, but he continues to try. This inspires Ashley, a townsperson who had been previously masked, to join him in his resistance, under threat of exile. Eventually, Stan and Ashley are able to convince the town that they don’t need the mayor, and become leaders of the town. Stan declines because he thinks that the townspeople following him blindly is not an improvement.

The Silent City contains examples of:

• Affably Evil: The mayor is quite nice to everyone… provided they obey his commands to wear the masks.
• Angry Mob Song: “The Threat” and “The Riot”
• Big No: The Mayor has one during his villainous breakdown.
• BSOD Song: Only the beginning of "Not Alone"; the rest is a Subversion.
• Cassandra Truth: The sailor man in the third song tells Stan that “the land of entertainment is a lie”. He doesn’t believe him until he sees the masks.
• Crowd Song: “Welcome to Our Town”, “La Bibliotheque”, “Now or Never”, and the Angry Mob Songs
• Evil Sounds Deep: The only baritone in the musical is the tyrannical mayor.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Inverted Trope. The Mayor is able to locate the token resistance because Stan went out of his way to find them.
• "I Want" Song: “The Commercial (Do It Anyway)” talks about Stan wanting fame
• La Résistance: Stan and Ashley work against the mayor to convince the townspeople that they don’t need to wear the masks.
• Lemony Narrator: The narrator occasionally finishes actual characters’ sentences, and sometimes puts in things that seem like incorrect value judgments.
• Offered the Crown: Stan and Ashley both, although only Ashley wants it; Stan refuses because he doesn't want the people worshipping him instead of the mayor.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Stan is far more idealistic than the average from his hometown, but is more discerning and less trusting than most of the people in Laconia.
• "Somewhere" Song: “It’s the Start”; Stan does go to the place he wanted to but it turns out to be terrible.
• Tenor Boy: The hero Stan’s voice is approximately the same pitch as the female narrator’s.
• Ultimate Authority Mayor: Exaggerated. Not only does the mayor not have to answer to a higher power, he actually became a totalitarian dictator.
• Villain Song: “The Mayor”, “The Threat”, and “The Riot”. “Welcome to Our Town” to a lesser extent.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: “Now or Never” which is where the townspeople turn against the mayor.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Mayor has one at the end of “Now or Never".