Clint Black Developing Christmas Musical

Clint Black. Photo: Kevin Mazur

Clint Black has a Christmas musical in development. Looking For Christmas will be helmed by director Kent Nicholson, with book by James D. Sasser, and music supervision by Charles Vincent Burwell, of The 959 Group.

The musical takes its name from Black’s 1995 Christmas album of the same name. The show will include several songs from Looking For Christmas, as well as Black’s 2004 holiday album Christmas With You, though he also penned new songs for the show.

The musical is a contemporary family story about a young American veteran, his wife and daughter. After returning home from war, he struggles with PTSD and has to find a way to fit into the family again, as well as rediscover the true meaning of Christmas.

“I had toyed with the idea of writing a musical as I’m always looking for new challenges,” said Black. “When I met James Sasser, he asked if I’d ever considered Broadway. I said, ‘Not as a performer, the work week is too long!’ We decided we’d explore ideas together as writers and I introduced the idea of a Christmas story built around my original Christmas music from Looking for Christmas and Christmas With You.”

He adds, “We developed the story to fit the music and quickly had a very clear sense of the kind of story we wanted to tell. Many of our soldiers come home from war to a new war in their minds. The holidays are always a time of heightened emotions and we knew we would have some very inspiring themes to explore, while telling a contemporary tale that would be relatable to many Americans young and old. One of the new songs is about shopping and the stress of getting ‘just the right gift’. It’s a fun look at that harried part of the holidays.”