Gatsby Glitters at DPAC, But the Heart
Beneath the Champagne Matters Most

The First National Tour of The Great Gatsby, playing May 5-10 at the Durham Performing Arts Center, stars (from left) Joshua Grosso
as Nick Carraway, Lila Coogan as Myrtle Wilson, and Will Branner as Tom Buchanan (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby has always been a story about dazzle and decay: champagne towers, reckless wealth, aching longing, and the dangerous American belief that desire can rewrite the past. In the First National Tour of The Great Gatsby, which plays May 5-10 at the Durham Performing Arts Center, as part of Broadway at DPAC, that glitter is very much on display.

With music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and a book by Kait Kerrigan, this musical version of Fitzgerald's 1925 novel leans fully into the theatrical possibilities of the Jazz Age. Directed by Marc Bruni and choreographed by Dominique Kelley, the production understands that Gatsby's world must first seduce us before it can reveal the emptiness underneath. The result is a big, polished, high-energy evening of musical theater that turns DPAC's stage into a place of motion, color, longing, and carefully manufactured illusion.

The Durham Performing Arts Center will present The Great Gatsby on May 5-10 (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

At the center of it all is Jake David Smith as Jay Gatsby, the mysterious millionaire who has built an entire life around one impossible hope: reclaiming Daisy Buchanan. Smith gives Gatsby the necessary charm and polish, but his strongest moments come when the facade begins to crack. His Gatsby is not merely a rich man throwing parties; he is a man who has mistaken reinvention for resurrection. The famous smile is there, but so is the desperation behind it.

Senzel Ahmady brings a soft radiance to Daisy Buchanan, making her more than simply the careless golden girl of Gatsby's imagination. Daisy can be frustrating, even maddening; but Ahmady suggests the fear and fragility beneath her privilege. The musical gives Daisy emotional space to sing what Fitzgerald's novel often leaves implied: that she is both trapped by wealth and protected by it, both desired and deeply compromised.

Jake David Smith stars as Jay Gatsby in the First National Tour of The Great Gatsby (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

As Nick Carraway, Joshua Grosso serves as the audience's moral witness. Nick is the outsider invited into the party, the Midwesterner trying to make sense of East Coast glamour and corruption. Grosso gives the role a thoughtful steadiness, allowing Nick's fascination with Gatsby to grow gradually into disillusionment. Leanne Robinson's Jordan Baker adds a cool, modern confidence, moving through the world with a dry wit and a survivor's instinct.

The darker side of the story comes through strongly in the triangle of Tom Buchanan and Myrtle and George Wilson. Will Branner's Tom Buchanan has the blunt force of inherited entitlement. He does not need to charm because the world has already been arranged for him. Lila Coogan's Myrtle Wilson brings heat, hunger, and restlessness to her role, while Tally Sessions as George Wilson gives the production one of its more quietly tragic figures -- a working man crushed by forces that he barely understands.

The Great Gatsby stars Senzel Ahmady as Daisy Buchanan (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

The supporting cast helps keep the world of the show lively and crowded. Edward Staudenmayer's Meyer Wolfsheim adds a touch of comic menace, whereas Joann Gillian, Alli Sutton, D'Marreon Alexander, Anna Gassett, Josiah Hicks, Tyler Johnson-Campion, Macy McKown, Shai Yammanee, Valeria Ceballos, and the ensemble help create the sense that Gatsby's world is always in motion. The party scenes are where Dominique Kelley's choreography has its greatest impact, filling the stage with bodies that seem to be dancing as fast as they can to avoid standing still.

That movement matters. In Fitzgerald's world, stillness is dangerous. When the music stops, people have to face what they have done, what they have lost, and what they can never recover. The production's best numbers capture that tension between intoxication and dread. The parties are fun to watch, but they are not innocent. They are distractions, performances and, in Gatsby's case, invitations addressed to one woman who may never arrive in the way that he needs her to arrive.

Leanne Robinson (center) stars as Jordan Baker in the touring version of The Great Gatsby (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

As an adaptation, The Great Gatsby faces the same challenge as every stage or film version of the novel: Fitzgerald's prose is the original's greatest special effect. No musical can fully reproduce the sharp ache of those sentences. Instead, this production chooses scale, melody, and spectacle. At times, the show's lush theatricality risks making Gatsby's world look more enviable than hollow. But when the production remembers the sadness beneath the sparkle, it finds its footing. On a more critical note, the volume of this show made it difficult to understand the lyrics and the regular "belting" added an unnecessary shrill note to many of the songs. The quieter songs had much more impact, because they could be understood and communicated heart.

What makes The Great Gatsby endure is not merely its portrait of the Roaring Twenties, but its understanding of a very American kind of longing: the belief that money, beauty, and determination can erase time. Gatsby's tragedy is that he has everything except the one thing that he wants most -- and even that desire may be built on an illusion.

Tally Sessions stars as George Wilson in the First National Tour of The Great Gatsby (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

This musical version of The Great Gatsby gives audiences the champagne, the dancing, the costumes, the romance, and the spectacle. But its most affecting moments come when the party thins out and we are left with the old ache of Fitzgerald's story: the green light still shining, the past still out of reach, and the dream still powerful enough to destroy the dreamer.

Jake David Smith stars as Jay Gatsby in the First National Tour of The Great Gatsby (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

Jason Howland, Nathan Tysen, and Kait Kerrigan's THE GREAT GATSBY (In Person at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 6-10), based on the 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald; directed by Marc Bruni and choreographed by Dominique Kelley; starring Jake David Smith as Jay Gatsby, Senzel Ahmady as Daisy Buchanan, Joshua Grosso as Nick Carraway, Leanne Robinson as Jordan Baker, Lila Coogan as Myrtle Wilson, Will Branner as Tom Buchanan, Tally Sessions as George Wilson, Edward Staudenmayer as Meyer Wolfsheim, Joann Gillian as Catherine/Gilda Grey, Alli Sutton as Mrs. McKee, D'Marreon Alexander as Mr. McKee/Bystander #2, Anna Gassett, Josiah Hicks, Tyler Johnson-Campion, and Macy McKown as The Sugars, Shai Yammanee as a Cop, and Valeria Ceballos as Bystander #1 and an Ensemble that includes D'Marreon Alexander, Justin Scott Brown, Valeria Ceballos, Anna Gassett, Joann Gillian, Josiah Hicks, Nina Michael Howland, Tyler Johnson-Campion, Joi D. McCoy, Macy McKown, Maya Petropoulos, Tim Quartier, Alli Sutton, Ryan Vogt, and Shai Yammanee and Swings that include dance captain William Bishop, Kyle Caress, Rosie Granito, fight captain Kurt Kemper, Charlotte McKinley, and and assistant dance captain Dee Tomasetta; and presented locally as part of Broadway at DPAC (Durham Performing Arts Center in Durham). DIGITAL PROGRAM: https://issuu.com/dpac0/docs/the_great_gatsby. TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-GCApU-m94&t=4s. THE PRESENTER/VENUE: https://www.dpacnc.com/, https://www.facebook.com/DPACNC, https://www.instagram.com/DPACNC/, https://www.tiktok.com/@dpacnc, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham_Performing_Arts_Center, https://x.com/DPAC, and https://www.youtube.com/@DPACLive. 2025-26 BROADWAY AT DPAC: https://www.dpacnc.com/broadway-at-dpac/season/broadway-at-dpacs-2025-2026-season. DIRECTIONS: https://www.dpacnc.com/plan-your-visit/directions. PARKING: https://www.dpacnc.com/plan-your-visit/parking. THE GREAT GATSBY (1925 novel): https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Great-Gatsby and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby. THE TEXT (Wikisource): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby_(1925). F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (Saint Paul, MN-born novelist, short-story writer and essayist, nee Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, 1896-1940): https://fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org/, https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/f-scott-fitzgerald, https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/person/fitzgerald-f-scott-1896-1940, https://www.britannica.com/biography/F-Scott-Fitzgerald, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald. THE GREAT GATSBY (2023 Paper Mill Playhouse, 2024 Broadway, and 2025 West End musical): https://broadwaygatsby.com/, https://www.mtishows.com/the-great-gatsby, https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/the-great-gatsby-538662, https://www.facebook.com/greatgatsbymusical/, https://www.instagram.com/bwaygatsby/, https://www.tiktok.com/@bwaygatsby, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby_(musical), https://x.com/bwaygatsby, and https://www.youtube.com/@GreatGatsbyMusical. JASON HOWLAND (Concord, MA-born composer): https://www.mtishows.com/people/jason-howland, https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/jason-howland-22488, , https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0398196/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Howland. NATHAN TYSEN (Kingston, NY-born lyricist): https://www.nathantysen.com/, https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/nathan-tysen-501952, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8758201/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Tysen. KAIT KERRIGAN (Pennsylvania playwright and screenwriter): https://kaitkerrigan.com/, https://www.mtishows.com/user/1139909, https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/kait-kerrigan-538663, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1715449/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kait_Kerrigan. THE TOUR (Jan. 31, 2026-Present): https://broadwaygatsby.com/tour, https://www.ibdb.com/tour-production/the-great-gatsby-543111, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby_(musical)#North_American_tour_(2026). TOUR CAST: https://broadwaygatsby.com/en/tour-cast. EDUCATIONAL GUIDE: https://broadwaygatsby.com/en/groups#educational-guide. CONTENT ADVISORY: DPAC cautions that this show contains adult themes. NOTE: Arts Access, Inc. of Raleigh will audio-describe and sign-language interpret the show's 2 p.m. Saturday, May 9th, performance. TICKETS: $41.50 and up, plus taxes. Click here to buy tickets. (Note 1: DPAC has $30 plus tax Student Rush tickets for students with ID. Click here for details. Note 2: Winners of DPAC's Digital Lottery may purchase one or two tickets for $40 each.) GROUPS (10+ tickets): 919-680-2787, Groups@DPACnc.com, and https://www.dpacnc.com/events/groups-services. INFORMATION: 919-680-2787 or CustomerService@DPACnc.com. Susie Potter's Triangle Arts Review Review.

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