21 Chump Street

21 Chump Street
The Musical
Cover of the Original Cast Recording
Music	Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lyrics	Lin-Manuel Miranda
Book	Lin-Manuel Miranda
Basis	An episode of This American Life
Productions	2014 Brooklyn Academy of Music 2016 European Premiere, London 2016 Manly Musical Society (Australian Premiere)

2014 Brooklyn Academy of Music

2016 European Premiere, London

21 Chump Street is a fifteen-minute musical written by composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who most notably created the Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton. The show was based on an episode of This American Life, where a high school student fell in love with an undercover police officer, and ultimately was arrested for selling drugs to the officer in an attempt to impress her. The musical premiered in a showcase put on by This American Life, held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on June 7, 2014.

The show opens with the story's narrator telling the audience about a plan called 'Operation D-Minus.' He introduces the story's hero, Justin Laboy, who is an eighteen-year-old senior honors student attending Park Vista Community High School in Lake Worth, Florida.

In Justin's final semester, a beautiful Puerto Rican-Dominican girl by the name of Naomi Rodriguez appears in two of his classes. Justin is instantly smitten by everything Naomi does.

He begins to go out of his way to make Naomi fall for him, repeatedly asking her, in person and in text, what he needs to do to make her fall in love with him. She won't "be straight up and just tell him what the heck [he] gotta do to be with her" no matter how much he texts her. Justin and Naomi soon become close friends, and Justin asks Naomi to go to prom with him. Though other students say that Naomi rejected him, Justin insists that she tells him that she'll think about it, and he is overjoyed ("What the Heck I Gotta Do")

Naomi confirms to the Narrator that she was asked to prom but denies ever telling him she would think about it. The Narrator then reveals that Naomi is actually a twenty-five-year-old undercover cop working for the Palm Beach Police Force. Her assignment is to pretend to be a senior and discover which students are dealing drugs.

After explaining to the Narrator that she did everything she could to stop Justin from asking her to prom, Naomi goes up to Justin and asks him if he smokes. Justin tells her he doesn't, but if that's what she needs to go to prom with him, then he'll get her weed. He then divulges to the Narrator that he has no idea what he's doing, but he just cares too much about Naomi to have told her no ("One School").