1776, by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, is a raucous musical re-telling of the dramatic events of the summer of 1776 leading up to the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence. The “obnoxious and disliked” John Adams, delegate from Massachusetts, must win over the rest of the Continental Congress. He enlists the aid of the wily Benjamin Franklin, delegate from Pennsylvania, and charismatic Thomas Jefferson, delegate from Virginia, to persuade the other members to vote for independence. Full of witty dialogue, memorable songs, and not-so-incidentally some serious history, 1776 was a direct inspiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit Hamilton.

And Then There Were None is one of Agatha Christie’s most famous masterworks of murder and madness. Ten guests, unknown to each other but all apparently known to their mysterious host, “U.N. Owen”, arrive for a house party on a deserted island…and then the murders begin. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, also famously full of murder and madness, tells the story of the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire, precipitated by Caesar’s assassination at the hands of the associates who fear his dictatorial ambitions.