David Thorne Scott

David Thorne Scott is a singer, songwriter, composer, and writer. His current project is "Animal Spirits," a new musical about economist John Maynard Keynes. It examines the role of love, art, and sexuality in a world of war, ideological polarization and economic inequality. Scott wrote the book, music and lyrics.

As a performer, David has long been known for bringing a modern edge to the classics of the Great American Songbook. His album "Shade" was named a "Top 5 CD of the Year" by the Jazz Education Journal. Cadence Magazine said "he phrases like a saxophone player and is as slippery and hip as the young Mel Tormé." Herb Wong, one of the west coast's leading jazz experts, wrote “I haven’t been this moved by a performance of ‘For All We Know’ since Carmen McRae.”

David's recent album...

David Thorne Scott is a singer, songwriter, composer, and writer. His current project is "Animal Spirits," a new musical about economist John Maynard Keynes. It examines the role of love, art, and sexuality in a world of war, ideological polarization and economic inequality. Scott wrote the book, music and lyrics.

As a performer, David has long been known for bringing a modern edge to the classics of the Great American Songbook. His album "Shade" was named a "Top 5 CD of the Year" by the Jazz Education Journal. Cadence Magazine said "he phrases like a saxophone player and is as slippery and hip as the young Mel Tormé." Herb Wong, one of the west coast's leading jazz experts, wrote “I haven’t been this moved by a performance of ‘For All We Know’ since Carmen McRae.”

David's recent album is called "Thornewood", an album that explores the sweet spot between Jazz and Americana: Cole Porter and Harold Arlen placed next to John Denver and Townes Van Zandt. Special guests on the album include Paula Cole, Peter Eldridge, Jason Palmer, Walter Smith III, and Sara Caswell.

David's pop/jazz crossover album "Hopeful Romantic” consists of smoky jazz, powerful rock anthems, bouncy pop and moody hip-hop musings. Gold- and Platinum-award winner Anthony Resta produced the CD.

His composition “I See You” was featured in the television show The Blacklist on NBC. David has been a featured soloist with the Boston Pops, the Capital Jazz Orchestra, the New England Wind Symphony, the Melrose Symphony, the Cape Symphony, and the Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra.

David is Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music.

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Scripts

Animal Spirits: A New Musical about Economist John Maynard Keynes

by David Thorne Scott

Cast Size
10—20
Genre
docudrama/historic,
musical

John Maynard Keynes developed groundbreaking economic theories in a turbulent time. ANIMAL SPIRITS shows how Keynes’ friendships and love affairs with brilliant artists and free-spirited bohemians unlocked his genius and changed the world.

ANIMAL SPIRITS tells the story of economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), whose groundbreaking theories transformed the 20th century. Young Maynard and his brilliant...

John Maynard Keynes developed groundbreaking economic theories in a turbulent time. ANIMAL SPIRITS shows how Keynes’ friendships and love affairs with brilliant artists and free-spirited bohemians unlocked his genius and changed the world.

ANIMAL SPIRITS tells the story of economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), whose groundbreaking theories transformed the 20th century. Young Maynard and his brilliant bohemian friends, including Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, and Duncan Grant, lived lives of wild parties, polyamorous intrigue, and passionate debates about art, love, and – after their friends started dying in World War I – politics. Maynard wrote a devastating critique of the leaders of the Allies, which predicted the rise of fascism and established him as a public intellectual.

Maynard employed his skills as an economist to advise governments and amass wealth, which he used to support struggling artists. He was bisexual, and spent much of his life in romantic relationships with men until he fell in love with and married the quirky Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova. During the Great Depression, he taught the world how governments can intervene in the free market to the benefit of all.

His circle of friends was smashed by the brutality of World War II, but Maynard invented new economic plans that let Britain survive the German onslaught and help defeat Hitler. For his final act, he negotiated a new system of international rules that prevented the rise of a third world war and spread prosperity. But in the end, did he hold fast to his deepest principles, or did he betray them?

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