A few weeks before the world premiere of “2020: COVID — The Musical” at the Brown County Playhouse, the community is invited to participate in a conversation to discuss COVID and its impact here.

The musical will hit the stage at the Playhouse the weekends of Nov. 12 and 19 with shows happening on Friday and Saturday nights, then a Sunday matinee. Tickets are available at BrownCountyPlayhouse.org.

“We are so excited. This is the first commissioned piece that has ever been written for The Playhouse,” said Lisa Hall.

Hall sits on the board of the Playhouse and worked with Executive Director Hannah Estabrook to establish funding for the show.

A community conversation about COVID will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 20 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Playhouse. There will be a panel to answer questions and a moderator to organize the discussion.

“This is an opportunity to just examine this pandemic as a county,” Hall said.

“What did we learn from COVID? How are we better? What hasn’t changed? Who makes the decisions in these cases of national emergency for our counties? What took place that maybe county members are not even aware of?” Hall said.

“Again, for the next global situation we have, how can you get involved if you weren’t involved with helping with COVID? How can you get involved? Where were the places that volunteers were needed?”

Hall said having the opportunity to learn as a community about COVID-19’s impact here will be meaningful.

“People will possibly have a better understanding on why in the world we would want to create a musical around it,” she said.

“It’s really because the stage helps people process social commentary and social culture.”

“It’s a chance to explore it as a community. What did we do right? What do we need to do better? What will we better prepared for next time?” she continued.

Tickets for the musical also will be on sale that night.

The inspiration for a musical came to Hall while she was having a morning cup of coffee and thinking about her new twin grandchildren in Colorado whom she was unable to visit due to travel restrictions.

“It occurred to me someone would put a script or score to this. I knew one playwright and I called him,” she said.

Hall called Ashton Wolf, a playwright from Indianapolis she’d met while filming a documentary in Nashville.

“I said, ‘How do you feel about a play for the Playhouse about COVID?’ He said, ‘How would you feel about a musical?’ I said, ‘That much better.’ By November of 2020 he had a 21-song musical exposé written,” she said.

According to a press release earlier this year, in the musical, a narrator takes six characters of diverse backgrounds on an “emotional musical journey” as they recount their experience, having lived in the new “normal” world of COVID-19 and the fallout from the global pandemic.

Hall said they waited almost a year to launch the musical so they could find time in Playhouse programming and get their “ducks in a row.”

“This is something we’re creating as a turnkey production,” she said.

Information about the musical will be emailed out to other theaters across the country as they prepare to welcome patrons back. A licensing fee will be implemented, with that money going back to the Playhouse.

“That really could help sustain the Playhouse that just struggles from year to year. It would create a revenue stream for our little theater. It could be really big for us,” Hall said.

This is Wolf’s 12th musical and will be his 10th to be produced on the stage.

The musical has already been registered with the Library of Congress for licensing.

For more information on the musical and to hear sample songs, visit 2020covidthemusical.org.