Congressman Davy Rides Again

Richard Byrne

19 Dec 2025 — 2 min read

Crockett rides a bear to Texas. Davy Crockett's Almanac, 1845

It has been more than a year since Congressman Davy – the musical I have written with Dean Schlabowske – had a full staged reading at Washington DC's historic True Reformer building.

We have been busy plotting the next steps. And now we can announce them:

Congressman Davy is coming direct to the people. And all in time for America's Sesquicentennial on July 4, 2026.

We lay it all out on our spiffy new website. An album release of songs from the show in late spring. And a podcast version of the full musical by the nation's 250th birthday.

Yes, it's ambitious. And we are going to need help from the general public. But there is no better time to tell this (mostly) true American story.

Sure, Congressman Davy tells the true story about Davy Crockett's political rise & fall.

But it is also a show that explores where our country is at right now: a polarized landscape with bad electoral losers, naked corruption, and a revolutionary legacy hijacked by partisan politics.

Congressman Davy is also a musical that puts the women in this tale of American politics front and center. Your guide to America's burgeoning capital – Washington City – is Anne Royall. Her story is astonishing. She was the first woman to own, publish, and write her own weekly political newspaper.

You'll also meet a bevy of outsized personalities entangled in the politics, commerce and culture of America in the 1830s: canny hotel proprietors and boarding house keepers, wheeler-dealer politicians, a singing bear, and a young editor named Edgar Allan Poe.

I hope you will have a look at the website – and then decide to be part of making Congressman Davy happen. We have plenty of room on this bandwagon!

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Read more about my work at my website.

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