“ I’ve told you all I’ve learned…”
PROLOGUE
Doctor Johann Faustus, an astronomer, is brought before the Holy Inquisition.
He is questioned by the powerful Prince Archbishop of Mainz,
who demands that Johann admit it was the Devil who led him to his blasphemous theories.
Under threat of death, Johann agrees to the false confession.
Ana, Johann’s wife and scribe, watches from within the gathered crowd.
Also watching is a young woman named Gretchen Wagner.
Then, in an act of warning and punishment, the Archbishop has all of Johann’s writings burned.
The crowd grows threatening, forcing Johann and Ana to flee Mainz as Gretchen watches in dismay.
“ Soon in a flash, turn into ash! Now I will dance with demons…”
2. LET GO OF ME
The couple takes refuge in a great dark wood.
As her distraught husband stares into a small fire, Ana leaves to gather more wood.
In the flames, Johann sees the faces of his colleagues who were burned for refusing to confess as he did.
The fire grows into a wall of flame and Johann contemplates joining his executed friends.
At the moment he is about to enter the flames, a mysterious man appears and tells Johann to instead go to the struggling town of Hertz, where he can rebuild his life.
“ Trust me, you’re safe behind closed doors! ”
3. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
At her home in Hertz, Gretchen hosts a Salon for the town’s most powerful citizens.
She urges them to support Hertz’s Baron, Valentine Engel, in opposing the Inquisition’s influence.
As the salon grows raucous, Gretchen goes out onto the balcony of her estate and recognizes Johann and Ana as they enter the city.
Gretchen brings the Faustuses into her Salon and introduces Johann to Baron Valentine as a brilliant scholar and engineer.
Disguising his identity, she calls him Doctor Träumen.
She says that Doctor Träumen can help rebuild Hertz and keep the Inquisition out of the city.
“ Yes, we long for more! Stay by my side and my dear Doctor Man, you can soar...”
4. MORE
Johann spots the mysterious man from the woods and follows him into the street.
There, the man identifies himself as simply the Traveler.
He extends his hand and asks Johann to take it.
Johann cannot resist and suddenly the two men appear atop the spire of Hertz Cathedral.
The Traveler convinces Johann to join Gretchen in her efforts.
This way, the mysterious man says, Johann can fight the Church and restore what was taken from him.
“ Sometimes late at night, there’s a lonely girl, hiding from the shadows of the day…”
5. SHE’S NOT ME
The next morning, Johann wanders back to the Wagner Estate where Gretchen meets him.
Gretchen explains that Valentine is under pressure to allow the Inquisition into Hertz.
She urges Johann to gain Valentine’s trust and convince him otherwise.
Ana arrives and she and Johann step away to speak while Gretchen looks up at the moon, still visible in the morning sky and contemplates her place in what might come.
“ Never forget, tomorrow begins today…”
6. TOMORROW BEGINS TODAY
As Johann works to rebuild the town, he arouses adoration and suspicion.
The people call him the Savior of Hertz.
Valentine invites Johann to his estate where he declares that, though he is uncertain, he has decided to allow the Archbishop and his Inquisition into Hertz.
Valentine confides in Johann, that despite his proposals, Gretchen will not agree to marry him.
Meanwhile, as Gretchen and Ana study together, an unexpected attraction emerges between them.
“ The early years were tough and the nights would take a toll. Though we never had enough, we both shared a common goal.”
7. THE MAN I KNOW
Ana is fearful that her husband’s growing prominence will reveal their true identity to the Archbishop.
When she tries to convince him that they should flee Hertz, Johann berates her and angrily storms off.
Alone, Ana considers the life she shares with a man she no longer knows.
Johann finds Gretchen and explains that Valentine has decided to allow the Inquisition into Hertz.
He says that the young Baron loves her desperately and will only listen to her.
He urges her to marry Baron Valentine.
“ Under these stars, tell me I’ll soar…”
8. DARE TO DREAM
Gretchen tells Valentine that she will be his wife
if he promises to allow her a level of freedom not usually afforded women.
Valentine agrees and Johann suggests that the Prince Archbishop of Mainz himself come to Hertz and officiate the wedding.
Gretchen suspects she has been tricked.
“ Rise or fall, will I rise or fall? Through it all, a voice keeps ringing...”
9. RISE OR FALL / ACT ONE FINALE
Sensing Johann’s plan to force a confrontation with the Archbishop, Gretchen resolves to leave Hertz.
Johann attempts to persuade her to stay.
In order to achieve their mutual goals, he says Gretchen must convince Valentine to declare Hertz independent from the Archbishop and Mainz.
Gretchen counters that such an action could start a war, and Johann replies, ‘exactly’.
Gretchen is horrified, but when Johann warns that without it, the Inquisition will come to Hertz, she listens more closely.
Johann insists that if Gretchen doesn’t agree to the plan, that he, along with Ana, will most certainly be burned.
Their conversation is interrupted and Gretchen races off, leaving Johann to wonder whether he has convinced the young woman.
The Traveler appears and urges him on while inside Hertz Cathedral, Gretchen, in her wedding gown, begins to march down the aisle.
“ You find the darkest and blackest of all your fears, and you bring it to the light and bathe it in your tears…”
Johann confronts the Archbishop at the wedding feast.
The Archbishop identifies Johann as Doctor Faustus and declares that his Inquisition must be brought to Hertz.
Johann, realizing that Gretchen has not followed through with his plan, begs Valentine to listen to him.
As Valentine tells his guards to arrest him, Johann is plunged into a shadowy nightmarish space where the Traveler emerges, telling Johann that his only hope for freedom is to kill Valentine and take control of Hertz.
Tormented, Johann obeys and runs Valentine through with his sword.
“ Can I break free from his control? Why am I whole when I am in his arms?”
10. HE IS NO MAN
Johann finds himself bound in a dark cell.
He grasps at logic and wonders whether the Traveler is truly a messenger of darkness.
Because of Valentine’s death, Gretchen is now the Baroness of Hertz.
The Archbishop warns her that if she wishes to remain in power, she must allow the Inquisition into Hertz.
Gretchen, hiding her anguish, agrees.
The Inquisition begins its questioning and various citizens are forced to confess that Johann was accompanied by a demon as he rebuilt Hertz and assumed control of the town.
“ Sign, Shake, Spit! It begins. It’s all shit. No one wins…”
11. SIGN, SHAKE, SPIT!
The Archbishop instructs Gretchen to have Ana brought to be inquisited.
At the salon, Gretchen’s friends quarrel about her apparent capitulation.
Gretchen arrives and is harassed by her former friends,
but she evades them and finds Ana.
As she begs Ana to confess so that they can be together, guards arrive to take Ana.
Ana refuses to confess to what she knows is not true.
The Archbishop warns her that if she does not, she will be burned at the stake.
“ I tried to love, but learned to lie. And now I’ve lost control…”
12. CATCH THE MOON
Gretchen visits Johann in his cell and demands that he convince Ana to confess.
Johann claims that everything is Gretchen’s fault because she didn’t keep her end of the bargain.
Gretchen realizes that Johann has lost all touch with reality and leaves.
She goes out into the snowy night and as she watches the pyres being built in the town square, she bitterly resolves to choose a life alone.
“ In the light we can be who we’re meant to be! In the blaze we can see forever…”
13. IN THE LIGHT
As Johann despairs in his cell, the Traveler begins to materialize in the air above him.
The trembling Johann rises into the Traveler’s embrace and the two ascend into the heavens.
The Traveler directs Johann to open his eyes.
A dizzying vision of the cosmos stretches infinitely before them.
Johann realizes he has the power to control the very thing he has spent his life studying.
“ There is no price to pay. There is nothing more you owe. Now the time has come for you to be the man I know…”
14. THE MAN I KNOW - REPRISE
Johann awakes alone on the cold floor as Ana is thrown into his cell.
She explains that Gretchen has sent her in hopes that Johann will convince her to confess.
Johann proclaims that the Traveler has shown him the heavens and that he now has the power to save her from her death.
Ana, heartbroken by her husband’s delusional state, tells Johann that the Traveler never existed at all and that it has all been a lie of Johann’s shattered mind.
As the terrifying truth at last reaches him, Ana tells him that she will never agree to the Archbishop’s lies.
She holds her husband close and recalls their first meeting so many years ago.
Guards enter the cell and take Ana to be executed.
“ Now I can see who the universe allows for me to be...”
15. HER EMBRACE
The next morning,
Johann is taken to be executed himself.
As he is led to the pyre, Johann praises his wife’s strength and vows to follow in her footsteps.