Man on the Moon (musical)

Man On The Moon
Original Ad Illustrated by Andy Warhol
Music	John Phillips
Lyrics	John Phillips
Book	John Phillips
Productions	1975 Little Theatre, New York

Man on the Moon is a 1975 musical written by John Phillips of the Mamas & The Papas, produced by Andy Warhol and directed by Paul Morrissey. The story concerns an American astronaut who leads a mission of interplanetary dignitaries to prevent the destruction of the universe by a bomb that has been placed on the moon by an evil scientist and primed to explode. Original illustration by Rudy Cardenas of Detroit, MI

The original production ran at the Little Theatre in New York for 43 preview performances (beginning December 27, 1974), opened on January 29, 1975 and closed two days later, on February 1, after disastrous opening night reviews.

Soon after completing work on his debut album John, the Wolf King Of L.A., John Phillips came up with the idea for a space-themed musical project, inspired by his viewing of the July 1969 TV broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The initial title for the project was simply Space. Phillips worked on a script and wrote songs for Space over a period of two years with his third wife, Geneviève Waïte. Phillips envisioned that the lead role of the astronaut would be played by either Elvis or Ricky Nelson, both of whom he was friendly with.

Initial funding for the project came from producer Michael Butler, who had brought the stage musical Hair to Broadway. Butler hired a young director called Michael Bennett to work on the project, but he and Phillips did not gel and Bennett resigned during dress rehearsals for the production at the Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles. Phillips then attempted to generate interest in a film version of the book with the help of real estate heir Leonard Holzer (a producer on the Stones documentary, Gimme Shelter and the former husband of Warhol superstar, Baby Jane Holzer). Holzer took the project to Ray Stark, producer of Funny Girl, who brought the script to the attention of Barbra Streisand, while Holzer tried to hook Jack Nicholson for the male lead. In 1972, Phillips also got a copy of the script to director George Lucas through his daughter Mackenzie Phillips, who was one of the stars of Lucas's film American Graffiti. Phillips would later maintain that Lucas got the idea to make Star Wars from Space.