The World Still Needs You, Boris Yeltsin! is a new comic musical based on actual events (although highly fictionalized). In 1989, after the dissolution of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin was sent to the US on a fact-finding mission, representing the new Russian republic. He toured the US and was rather bored by everything, including his visit to the NASA Space Center in Houston. After NASA, he was taken to see a large grocery store in Houston, and was overwhelmed by the incredible variety and quantity of products available to regular Americans in a capitalist society. As a result, he went back to Russia, was elected president, and established capitalism in his country. This explanation skips a few steps but is basically what happened. Really. 

Music by Evan Mack
Lyrics by Joshua McGuire
Book by Evan Mack, Joshua McGuire, and Christopher Mirto
Directed by David Gately

YELTSIN – Alec House-Baillargeon
STORE CLERK – Jonathan Motes
STORE MANAGER – Olivia Brice
RENT-A-COP – Thomas Valenti
VLADIMIR – Jovanni Ferrer

ENSEMBLE
Claire Burreson
Isabella Napoli
Madeline Lee
Maisy Parker
Alex Georgopoulos
Noah Gunn
Zack de Besche
Patrick O’Farrell