For most people, off-Broadway musicals and political campaigns don’t have much in common. But for three Arizona politicos-turned-theater-producers who created a musical about Sen. John McCain, the two are actually pretty similar. 

Jason Rose, a local Republican public relations legend, teamed up with Max Fose, a former McCain staffer, and Lynn Londen, a businesswoman and owner of AZTV, to produce the musical “Ghost of John McCain.” The production follows the late senator in the afterlife as he finds himself trapped inside the mind of former President Donald Trump. 

Rose said the creation of the musical has been “not unlike” running a campaign – something he has done dozens of times for candidates at all levels of government.

“You have a concept rather than a candidate, you have ticket sales instead of tracking polling, and rather than a win or a loss, you have profit or loss, and then along the way, you have critical acclaim and reviews that hopefully go your way,” Rose said. “But just as everyone has an opinion on Ruben Gallego, Kari Lake or Donald Trump, there’s gonna be a lot of people who have an opinion about ‘Ghost of John McCain.’”

In the musical, McCain meets a “Greek chorus” of famous figures who are also trapped inside Trump’s head. Politicians like Hillary Clinton and Lindsay Graham will be portrayed in the show alongside cultural figures like rapper Kanye West and former Argentine First Lady Eva Perón. 

The musical debuts in New York City on Sept. 3 at the SoHo Playhouse and will run from Sept. 24 to Nov. 5 – or Election Day. To keep the musical relevant to the current presidential election, the producers wrote Vice President Kamala Harris into the script when she took over for President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee last month.

“This will be the first place in America where people can see Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate,” said Fose, who came up with the idea of swapping Clinton for Harris in an already-written debate scene. A real presidential debate was scheduled for Sept. 10 – a week after the musical’s debut – and Trump said he’ll be there. 

Though Rose, Fose and Londen all have personal experiences with McCain and those close to him, the musical is not a “behind-the-scenes” look at him or his life, Londen said. Don’t expect it to be like “Hamilton” either.

“It’s Saturday Night Live meets Book of Mormon meets some of the smartest and most serious we’ve seen in a presidential debate,” Rose said. 

In addition to running campaigns and his public relations firm, Rose is the founder of Quixote Productions, which is known for its other Arizona-politics-centric musical “¡Americano!” That show, a biography of a local Latino political consultant, ran in Phoenix before moving off-Broadway in 2022. 

Rose dreamed up the original concept for “Ghost of John McCain” after the 2020 election and took it to McCain’s first chief of staff and former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, who agreed to help write it. The two worked on the story until Woods’ death in October 2021. 

“[Woods] was so important to telling a McCain inspired story,” Rose said. “I was like, ‘Well, who would be someone else that might feel passionate about this project?’”

That’s where Fose came in. He began working on McCain’s Senate staff in 1992 and later helped launch the senator’s 2000 bid for the White House. After Fose left politics to start his own digital media company, he remained close with McCain until his death in 2018.

Fose said he was excited about the musical’s concept when Rose approached him about joining as a co-producer.

“I said yes because I was excited about the script,” Fose said. “I was excited about how we could tell John McCain’s story in a different way and also how John McCain’s story conflicts with what’s going on in politics now.”

Londen joined the production team more recently, but also has a deep connection to McCain and Arizona politics. Her late-husband, 1978 Arizona gubernatorial candidate Jack Londen, was a “great friend” of McCain’s who supported his 2008 presidential run. Londen’s brother, Tom Patterson, served in the state Senate in the 1990s as both majority and minority leader. 

All three producers take the preservation of McCain’s legacy very seriously, and say it’s something they’ve considered since the very beginning of the process. But Fose said he thinks the show would fall right in line with McCain’s sense of humor.

“John McCain was a very intense and intentional person and having laughter and fun was part of his character,” Fose said. “I think he would love the show and he’d love the parts that make fun and the serious parts as well.”

Meghan McCain, the senator’s daughter, expressed contempt for the show in a post to X in April, calling it “a gross cash grab by desperate mediocre people.” The producers extended an invitation to Meghan and her husband to attend a reading of the show, but she did not take them up on the offer. Fose said the production has been in contact with other members of the McCain family and decided to move forward based on those conversations.

“I know deep down we’re not doing anything inappropriate with Senator McCain’s legacy,” Fose said. “Senator McCain’s legacy has been written about a lot – by himself and by others. It’s been documented a lot and we have taken great care to respect that.”

The team knows that there might be skeptics out there. Rose said he once told Woods that the concept was “either going to be genius or a mess.” He thinks they’ve landed on genius.

“The people that have seen it in New York and have read the script, have said they’ve never heard or seen anything like it,” Rose said. “And that’s why I think we’re all excited to see how this piece of art can impact the political world.”

The team says there aren’t any current plans to bring the show to Arizona for local audiences as they’re focused on the off-Broadway debut and reactions to the show’s first run. But if all goes well, theatergoers outside of New York City could be seeing the “Ghost of John McCain.”

Rose said audience members don’t necessarily need to know who McCain was to enjoy the show because it’s “universal in its appeal.” 

“You could have zero interest in politics and walk into this being entertained and amused and fascinated and thinking when you walk out,” Rose said.