Inspiration

Footprints on the Moon is a loose-book musical with book and lyrics by Art Perlman and music by Jeff Lunden.  The musical is a series of scenes and songs based around many events of the "Space Race" of the 1950s and 1960s.  They focus on such famous topics as sending animals into space, the legacy of Russian cosmonauts and the careers of legendary astronauts, Neil Armstrong and John Glenn.

The musical was written shortly after the tragedy of the 1986 Challenger explosion.  As a result, Perlman and Lunden included the 1967 capsule fire that killed astronaut Ed White and two others to symbolize the terrible setbacks that were suffered to attain the Lunar Landing.

Productions

Footprints on the Moon was commissioned and produced by TheatreWorksUSA, a respected New York-based youth theatre company, in 1989 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Moon Landing.  The musical has been in the company's repertoire since, going on occasional tours every ten years or so.

Cultural Influence

• Footprints on the Moon was one of several TheatreWorks pieces to put the team of Art Perlman and Jeff Lunden on the scene.  The two, who had been writing together since junior high school, would go on to craft the award-winning musical, Wings, along with receiving the Richard Rodgers Award from the Stephen Sondheim society in 2003.