If you look around the emergency room on any random night, you’ll see dozens of stories converging in one place. A man experiencing heart attack symptoms. A mom with an inconsolable baby. A kid whose birthday party was just ruined by a broken bone.
And then there are the stories of the hospital staff themselves — the personal dramas lurking in the background that keep you hooked on “ER” or “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Jeffrey Foy, MD, was working late in the emergency department one night, observing the drama around him, when a thought struck: “This would be the perfect setting for a musical.”
“One moment we can have something really serious happening, and then the next minute, we can have something really crazy or really funny happening, and the next minute have something heartfelt and warm happening,” said Foy, assistant professor of emergency medicine practice at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
With his theatre background limited to one role in a high school musical, Foy knew he would need some help. He found the perfect partner right in his own home: his then 16-year-old son, Jacob, who often filled the house with piano music as an emerging songwriter.
It would be several years in the making, but what began as a fun father-son project eventually manifested as “Emergency the Musical.” After a successful trial run at an IU workshop in Bloomington, the show made its big debut at the New York Theater Festival’s SummerFest in 2019, receiving rave reviews from a sold-out crowd.
Now the show is coming home to Indiana, playing at The Tarkington in Carmel from Aug. 27-30, aligning with the 50th anniversary celebration of the Emergency Medicine Residency Program at IU School of Medicine.
“It’s really cool to have a performance in New York because that’s the mecca of theatre, but it’s something special to be able to bring the show back to Indiana,” said Jacob, who is now a full-time musician, composer and music teacher. “It’s been a Hoosier project through and through.”
The first draft of the show was completed in about nine months of writing, singing and laughing together in the Foy home. The next step was inviting Jacob’s choir and theatre friends over to read parts around the kitchen table.
“We spent lots of late nights trying to figure out what to do with this thing,” Jeff said.
They found a New York producer who liked their work and agreed to start coaching them. The Foys joined a writer’s group and flew out to New York City several times a year as they worked through script revisions.
Notably, the main character, a newly graduated MD named Justin Marks, needed a foil. So, the Foys developed his nemesis, Kyle. The plot of “Emergency” stems from their rivalry as these two interns vie for the last spot in the country still available for an emergency medicine residency. One overnight shift in the ER will determine who gets the job — and a career as an emergency medicine physician.
Based on a true story
“It’s rooted in the reality of the Match process,” explained Jeff Foy. “Justin didn’t match, nor did Kyle. And there’s just one spot left. It’s called the scramble, where the people who don’t match connect with the programs that didn’t fill.”
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The show is sure to keep audiences laughing as the mayhem ensues with budding romances, quirky patients and foreign objects where they shouldn’t be! The soundtrack includes 17 original songs intentionally mixing different genres, from emotional ballads to ’80s rock.
The Foys filmed a music video of the catchy “Male Nurse” number at the Simulation Center at Fairbanks Hall on the IU Indianapolis campus — a setting equipped just like a hospital unit that is used to train Indiana’s future doctors, nurses and medical technicians.
“Emergency the Musical” is playing on the same weekend that hundreds of alumni will be gathering in Indianapolis for the Emergency Medicine Residency’s 50th anniversary. A continuing medical education event will feature experts in the field on Aug. 28 at IU School of Medicine’s new Medical Education and Research Building, and more than 300 people have registered for a gala at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art on Aug. 29. Alumni are traveling from 29 states for the festivities.
As a chief resident from the Class of 2001 and a professor of emergency medicine for the past 25 years, Julie Welch, MD, has helped train hundreds of those former residents. She is looking forward to the weekend’s events, including Foy’s ER-themed musical.
“Dr. Jeff Foy’s passion for emergency medicine, combined with his musical talents, as well as his son’s musical talents, is going to be amazing to watch,” she said. “It’s bringing in the perspective of a medical student, with all the interactions between nurses and physicians and the inner knowledge you get working in an emergency department, and bringing all the fun of theatre and musical performance.”
50 years of training Indiana’s ER doctors
Since its founding in 1976, the Emergency Medicine Residency has graduated about 700 emergency physicians. Many have gone on to become leaders in the field, including health system medical directors, department and division leaders, and residency directors.
“Most would consider us to be one of the top 10 emergency medicine programs in the country, out of around 280 to 290 programs now,” said residency program director Joseph Turner, MD.
It’s not just IU’s reputation for rigorous clinical training in high-volume, high-acuity medical centers, but also the program’s welcoming, family atmosphere and its structure for leadership development that set it apart, Turner said.
Alumni testimonials validate that claim: “My years at IU shaped everything about who I am as a doctor, leader and person,” said Ashley Grigsby, DO, Class of 2019. “The people I trained with — and those who trained me — taught me what it truly means to put patients first and to take care of each other.”
Welch has seen the residency program nearly double over the years. When she was a resident, nearly all of the training was done at IU Health Methodist Hospital. Now residents rotate at other hospitals and clinics, including Riley Hospital for Children. IU is one of just four medical schools in the nation with a combined Emergency Medicine-Pediatrics Residency program, which is celebrating 45 years alongside the broader emergency medicine program’s 50th anniversary.
Today’s residents can also explore niche areas like motorsports medicine and wilderness medicine through elective rotations.
“The breadth of work we get to do in emergency medicine both within the department and outside the department is really unique to our specialty,” Welch said. “We’re very much embedded in the community.”
About the show
The timing couldn’t be better for “Emergency the Musical” to return to Indiana.
Tickets start at $40 and are available online at EmergencyMusical.com or by calling The Tarkington at (317)843-3800. There will be five performances from Aug. 27 through Aug. 30.
The show’s cast consists of professional and local performers. Cole Winston plays Justin, reprising his lead role from the show’s premier. A graduate of the IU Musical Theatre program, Winston currently resides in New York City. Robbie Russo, another IU theatre graduate living in California, plays Male Nurse. Other cast members are affiliated with Ball State University, Anderson University and the award-winning Expressenz Dance Center in Carmel.
Since writing “Emergency,” the Foys have gone on to create another musical comedy called “One Night Only.” Their big dream would be to get their shows to Broadway, but with an average production cost upwards of $20 million, they need to find more funding.
This month, they’re excited to bring “Emergency the Musical” to an audience that will include real emergency physicians. Anyone who enjoys musical comedy is invited to see this family-friendly show written by one of Indiana’s own medical doctors and his son.
