EPIC: The Musical all began in 2019, when the creator Jorge Rivera-Herrans started writing the songs as a senior thesis project at the University of Notre Dame. EPIC is based on “The Odyssey” by Homer, where the hero, Odysseus, takes 20 years to get home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. This is a musical adaptation of “The Odyssey” with some tweaks made by Rivera-Herrans to suit what he wanted to convey of the story. Rivera-Herrans has said that he wants this musical to have a video game-like feeling and stated that the overall theme is “Ruthlessness”.
At the age of 21, started this project and put all his time and efforts into making this the best musical he could. On January 17th, 2021, he uploaded his first TikTok about the musical, it was a draft of one of the songs called “Full Speed Ahead”. He continued to post on his social media account about the musical. Most of the earlier songs were solo songs but when it came for other charters to be introduced. Rivera-Herrans had to hold auditions, so he posted the instrumentals of some songs that the character would be singing along with the lyrics. “I thought we were going to get maybe 30 auditions, but we had 1,000 video submissions by the end of the month,” Rivera-Herrans said in a tiktok. Many of the characters’ voices were found from these auditions, with some even being musicians who released their own songs. They all shared the love for Greek mythology and musicals as Rivera-Herrans . Along with the auditions, Rivera-Herrans is always posting snippets of songs or short videos to joke with fans. He acquired 1.4 million followers on TikTok, along with supporters on Instagram, Discord, and Youtube. His fans also make fan art, perform covers to the songs, make animations of songs, and spread the word about the musical.
The musical begins with The Troy Saga, this is when the battle was just getting to the point when the Greek would win over the Trojans. This saga consists of songs 1 to 5, the first song was“The Horse and the Infant” where the Greek invade Troy from a wooden horse and Odysous has to kill Prince Hector’s son just to find he is a baby. Other songs from this saga are listed in order; “Just a Man”, “Full Speed Ahead”, “Open Arms”, and finally “Warrior of the Mind”. The second saga is called The Cyclops Saga, for when Odysseus and his crew come across a cyclops, giant one-eyed creatures, and a battle breaks out. It
consisting of songs 6 to 9, “Polyphemus”, “Survive”, “Remember Them”, and lastly “My Goodbye”. The third saga is called The Ocean Saga, where we find Odysseus and his crew on the ocean trying to get home but trouble happens and is later met with Poseidon, Greek god of the seas. This saga contains songs 10 to 13, “Storm”, “Luck Runs Out”, “Keep Your Friends Close”, and “Ruthlessness”. After escaping Poseidon, Odysseus and his crew found themselves on an island that is home to a sorceress that turns men into animals, this is The Circe Saga. “Puppeteer”, “Wouldn’t You Like”, “Done For”, and “There are Other Ways” are songs 14 to 17. With Circe’s help Odysseus and his crew go into the Underworld, beginning The Underworld Saga. It Contains songs 18 to 20, “The Underworld”, “No Longer You”, and “Monster”. These five saga’s would be Act 1 if it was a stage musical. In Act 2, it is more fast paced as Odysseus is tired from the journey and has turned into a “monster”, hinting to song 20 “Monster”, and just wants to get home to Ithaca. The Thunder Saga consists of songs 21 to 25, “Suffering”, “Different Beast”, “Scylla”, “Mutiny”, and “Thunder Bringer”. The Wisdom Saga where we hear from Telemachus, Odysseus’s son who has grown up wondering if his father is still alive. It consists of songs 26 to 30, “Legendary”, “Little Wolf”, “We’ll Be Fine”,” Love in Paradise”, and “God Games”. Song 29 “Love in Paradise “ is where Odysous washes up on Calypso’s, a nymph and goddess of strange power and beauty, island and detained for seven years. The Vengeance Saga starts with Odysous getting the help of Hermes, Messengers of the Gods, to leave Calypso’s island. It consists of songs 31 to 35, “Not Sorry For Loving You”, “Dangerous”, “Charybdis”, “Get in the Water”, and “Six Hundred Strike”. The final saga is The Ithaca Saga, when Odysous finally makes it home to Ithca just to be met with hundreds of suitors trying to marry his wife and hurt his son. It has songs 36 to 40, “The Challenge”, “Hold Them Down”, “Odysseus”, “I can’t Help but Wonder’, and finally “Would You Fall in Love with Me Again”. Nine Sagas and 40 songs, the effort put into this musical is unmeasured. Rivera-Herrans and his team asked artists through social media to draw clips of songs. They would then share it to their fans on TikTok and Instagram. This was meant for the fans to visually see what Rivera-Herrans wanted the character to look like during the moment.
Near the start of EPIC, Rivera-Herrans had some legal issues with the production. He created his own company called Winion Entertainment LLC and had a legal battle with Blair Russel about ownership of the copyrights for the first two sagas. Rivera-Herrans won but the entire cast had to re-record the entire production from scratch and allowed the first two sagas to be released under Rivera-Herrans ‘ ownership. Winion Entertainment LLC also opened a business where you can buy vinyl sets of the sagas, merchandise, and possibly future iterations of the musical. It is also rumored that Rivera-Herrans and his team are talking to big companies to make EPIC: The Musical into “an animated movie, and with another to make it a live action stage show,” quoted from The Guardian.
EPIC: The Musical was a very long project to put out. Starting at the age of 21 and ending at the age of 26, Rivera-Herrans is finally able to rest. You can follow him on Tiktok @jayherrans and Instagram @jayherrans. He is not as active as he used to be when he was producing EPIC but he still posts little videos about his life and what he might do in the future.
