The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

An Avett Brothers musical is testing the waters. Next stop: Broadway?

The brothers’ folk-rock songbook is featured in “Swept Away,” an Arena Stage production telling the story of a 19th-century shipwreck

By
From left, Wayne Duvall, Stark Sands, Adrian Blake Enscoe and John Gallagher Jr., who play the four men lost at sea in the musical “Swept Away” at Arena Stage. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
7 min
correction

A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Matthew Masten. The article has been corrected.

For his latest project, John Logan went to sea. And to get there, he put on his headphones. “I spent the next few months listening to every single Avett Brothers song, and taking notes on every single song — and they have recorded a lot of albums,” recalled Logan, a Tony winner for his 2010 play, “Red.”