Star Trek: Strange New Worlds songwriters Kay Hanley and Tom Polce reveal their marching orders to make the musical as emotional as possible.
Summary
- Kay Hanley and Tom Polce were challenged to create emotional songs for Star Trek’s first musical episode, leading Hanley to cry while writing “Keep Us Connected.”
- The writers aimed for a narrative that exposed the characters emotionally, with a directive to make viewers cry during the musical episode.
- The episode, “Subspace Rhapsody,” was screened at WonderCon in a singalong event, showcasing the emotional depth of the songs.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds songwriters Kay Hanley and Tom Polce reveal they were instructed to make people cry watching Star Trek‘s first-ever musical episode, “Subspace Rhapsody.” Hanley and Polce, from the band Letters to Cleo, wrote and composed all of the songs for “Subspace Rhapsody” in just five weeks. It was arewarding but emotional experience that led Hanley to cry for the first time ever while writing a song.
At WonderCon, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ musical episode was screened in a singalong event, followed by a panel with Kay Hanley and Tom Polce moderated by Scott Mantz. Hanley revealed she had never cried writing a song before “Keep Us Connected,” which was sung by Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and Tom Polce says writers Bill Wolkoff, Dana Horgan, and Strange New Worlds‘ showrunners encouraged the songs to be emotional. Check out their quotes below:
Kay Hanley: I’ve been writing songs, we both have, for 30 years, and I’ve never cried while writing a song until “Keep Us Connected.”
Tom Polce: One of the great directives they gave us – from the very beginning of this when we were trying to figure out ‘what is this about? What are these songs going to be about?’, it was clear to all of us that this wasn’t going to be an hour of jazz hands set to superfluous music. What was important was that lyrically, it was a narrative, and it was an exposition of these characters emotionally. And when they said to us, I swear, it was like, ‘We want people to cry’… That’s what they said!
Kay Hanley: So I took that to heart. Meaning, you want me to cry. And I did. I cried, and I still cry. I sobbed writing the Uhura song.
Check out the full performance of “Keep Us Connected” from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ musical, “Subspace Rhapsody”, below:
Why Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Musical Was So Emotional
The crew of the Starship Enterprise bared their innermost feelings
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ musical worked wonders not just because it was wildly entertaining, but there was genuine depth and heartfelt emotion behind the characters’ songs. While the threat of the subspace rift affecting the entire galaxy satisfied Star Trek’s sci-fi requirements, the crux of the episode was the crew of the Starship Enterprise laying their innermost feelings bare. Characters like Uhura, Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), and Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) sang out loud their hopes and deepest fears since Strange New Worlds began.
“Keep Us Connected” gave Uhura the fortitude to save the Enterprise.
Nurse Chapel came to a fateful decision to put herself first in “I’m Ready,” breaking the heart of Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) in the process. La’an’s heartwrenching performance of “How Would That Feel?” gave her the strength to open herself up to others, especially Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley). And the powerhouse “Keep Us Connected” made Ensign Uhura face the loss of her family and Lt. Hemmer (Bruce Horak), but affirmed Uhura’s true purpose as the heart of the Starship Enterprise. “Keep Us Connected” gave Uhura the fortitude to save the Enterprise in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds while bringing Kay Hanley and audiences to tears.
