The WallBuilders Show
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The WallBuilders Show
Spies, Songs, And Washington
Hidden networks. Secret signals on a clothesline. A general who didn’t even know every name that kept him alive. We sit down with composer Christy Stutzman to unveil Ring of Spies, a new musical that brings George Washington’s Culper Ring out of the shadows and onto the stage with period-rich music, meticulous research, and a story that stirs the heart.
We trace the British occupation of New York and Long Island, follow Haim Solomon’s bold blend of languages, finance, and espionage, and meet Robert Townsend and Anna Strong, whose quiet courage turned ordinary life into a codebook. Christy shares the poignant arc of Liz, an enslaved girl whose flight to British lines led to deeper abuse, and the daring rescue that returned her to freedom—proof that the Revolution’s true stories are diverse, complex, and unforgettable. From thwarting counterfeit plots and exposing Benedict Arnold to safeguarding the French fleet, the Culper Ring shows how intelligence, sacrifice, and faith shaped victory as surely as battlefield tactics.
Designed for a two-hour-twenty run with twenty-three original songs, Ring of Spies honors history without lecturing and embraces craft without compromise. With Kennedy Center dates locked for September 14–20 and plans to license nationwide, the production aims to give schools and community theaters a powerful, values-centered show that sells tickets because it’s excellent and earns trust because it’s true. We talk premiere possibilities, research partnerships, and why reclaiming space on the stage matters for the nation’s 250th.
Ready to see history sing and courage echo? Listen now, share with a friend who loves theater or the American founding, and subscribe so you don’t miss updates on premiere cities, ticket links, and licensing opportunities. Then tell us: which unsung Revolutionary hero would you spotlight next?
Christy's website:
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And of course, every area of the culture, we need to be going back into those areas, taking godly principles, being not just good biblical citizens in government, but in our entertainment, in our education, everything that we're doing. In today's program, we're going to be talking entertainment and an area of entertainment that we don't usually cover. We, you know, we have people on from VidAngel. We talk about good Movies coming out that have good values, but Broadways, yes Broadways, actual musicals with good values. This you do not see very often. David, Tim, what do you guys think?
Tim Barton [00:00:46] I am very excited about this because one of the things that we have navigated for decades is people who have learned apparently more about American history by watching like a Nicolas Cage movie or the Steven Spielberg: Lincoln or even the Hamilton musical. They've learned far more stories that they think, that's actually how history happened, and we have to point out to them, well, that's not exactly what happened. Like the few tones or details now, movies like The Patriot, that was a little more correct in a lot of tone. Actually, they did really good in some areas. Mel Gibson's character was a kind of a combination of two actual guys from the South Carolina region. One of them being Francis Marion, the swamp Fox that Disney had done a series on, so there have been some good ones. But actually looking at what's been more popular in culture are things that have not really been honoring to America or the Founding Fathers by and large, in a lot of ways. And so, now having somebody saying hey let's go back and tell a better story, maybe by better more accurate story, and something that is very palatable the people, families can go to and enjoy. And especially looking at Washington's spy ring and getting some of that background information I am very excited for the potential of what this is
David Barton [00:02:08] And that spy ring, I think is one of the most untold stories in American history, because even to today is still largely secret. I mean, that spy ring they had in New York, even George Washington did not know the members of that spy ring that got him so much information. And that's spy ring was there in New York city and Long Island and New York city and Long Island. That was the hotbed of the British during the war. Cause that's where they whooped us. That's where Washington almost, if it hadn't been for a miracle from God with weather. Washington would have lost, the battle would have been over only two months into it. But that's where the British stayed and it was so cool that there was, there was a lady they’re named Anna Smith Strong. They do know she was there and she literally would use laundry to give the signals. I mean, if there was a black petticoat that appeared among the laundry, when she's hanging laundry after dry, that means a courier has arrived in town and she had six handkerchiefs and which combination of handkerchiefs she put up. Would tell which, which cove the guy was coming to. And I mean, they had this intricate stuff and they still don't know who all the people are to this day. It was that secret. They know a few of them, but it is a good story. And the fact that all this is starting that the premier is going to be at the Kennedy Center that tells you something of the quality of this for the very start when you premiere at the Kennedy Center, which kind of is the, is one of the top places in the U S for fine art stuff. This is awesome.
Rick Green [00:03:35] Christy Stutzman is the composer, the creator of this, of this new musical, not her first rodeo. She's done this for decades, actually. And some really cool success at doing this. So super excited to see these two, I don't want to say collide, but to get the history and the spy ring and all that into a musical and to this area of arts is, is super exciting. So Christy is going to be with us when we return from the break. Stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show.
Rick Green [00:05:05] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Christy Stutzman back with us, Christy, great to have you back on.
Christy Stutzman [00:05:10] Thanks so much for having me. I'm real excited.
Rick Green [00:05:12] I think last time we were talking about one of your latest books, this time a musical? Really? No kidding?
Christy Stutzman [00:05:21] Right, no kidding, yeah.
Rick Green [00:05:22] Is there anything you haven't done? State rep, author, married to a congressman, like what's left on the bucket list?
Christy Stutzman [00:05:29] Well, actually, you know, I grew up in a family of fine arts. Like, that's what we did. My dad was a playwright and a composer. I've been writing music since I was five years old. And so, when I married Marlon, my husband who's the congressman, we never saw politics in our future, but you know we were young parents, September 11th happened, we were afraid for our country, we got involved and I really set it all on the side. And so, the book was really an outpouring of our experiences and trying to help other people realize that if we could do it, anyone can do it and that we all should be a part of it. But on the back burner has been music writing and composing. And so, we actually purchased a Broadway rep theater that had been running in Indiana for 50 years, was very well known. And we were trying to take our little bite out of the culture fight and provide uplifting, values-based, faith-infused entertainment. And so, we were able to produce four different Broadway style musicals while we were running the place. We've actually, since then we've sold it, but we really felt like we were making a difference with that and so this next project came up and I just jumped at it.
Rick Green [00:06:43] Wow! All right, very cool. I love, absolutely love the concept as well. So, George Washington's Ring of Spies, a musical revolution. And it looks, if I'm reading this right, that's part of why we wanted to have you on was just to find out exactly everything you're doing from putting it on the show to, apparently you can actually license it for people to put it on in their communities at their opera house or whatever it might be. Am I following that right? Is that true? Or am I making that up in my head just based on- I don't know.
Christy Stutzman [00:07:11] No, you're reading it right. So that's the plan for this. We're really trying to speak into the culture. So, one way to do that is to provide content. I mean, when I was looking for shows for my theater, it was slim pickings as far as what I could put on that stage and what I felt my audience would want to see. So, when we started writing, we found that we had great runs, great responses, but then we wanted to get it out further. So, I've been licensing my shows through CMI shows out of Nashville ever since. And so, once this thing is launched and we've worked out the kinks and it's all good to go, we're gonna make it available for license. And we'd like to work with; I've talked to Tim and David about this. As we make it for license, we wanna make also further information available. So WallBuilders would be perfect for that. Letting people know that they can do their own research on these people and that what we're putting on the stage actually happened.
Rick Green [00:08:13] Okay, I'm speechless. I'm not ever speechless. This is cool! This is this is literally the whole, you know, we're always talking about taking the arts back and we tend to think movies.
Christy Stutzman [00:08:22] Right.
Rick Green [00:08:22] This is awesome. I mean, this is I love musicals. I love Broadways. It's just such a powerful way to communicate and you know to use that entertainment venue, but also then to tell these powerful stories. So, man, I did not know y'all were doing this is so cool. I am so glad that you've been talking to David and Tim about it. This one's called Ring of Spies, but you also did the movie series, Love Comes Softly. Yeah, When Calls the Heart.
Christy Stutzman [00:08:49] Yeah, Love Comes Softly, When Calls the Heart, yeah.
Rick Green [00:08:52] Yeah, so those are the ones you have been doing at your theater, right?
Christy Stutzman [00:08:56] Right, we did When Calls the Heart. We did two runs of that. It was hugely successful. Then we did Love Comes Softly a couple of years later. We did a musical, Christmas Carol, where we actually emphasize Scrooge's redemption story. And so those things have been out there for a while, but this one is new. So, The Ring of Spies really started when the British took over New York, when they were actually kind of in charge there, and there's a lot of people, a lot of patriots behind enemy lines. Patriots started doing whatever they could do to further the cause of the American patriots. And so, there was a member of the Sons of Liberty in New York and his name was Heim Salomon. He was a Jewish guy and he had come from Poland, via all over Europe. And then he came to New York and did very well in finance and business and joined the Sons of Liberty. And boy, when the British took over, Heim got to work. He started spying. He was caught for espionage. He was in prison. Of course, he knew six different languages. He was absolute genius. And he talked his way out of prison the first time by saying, hey, you got a bunch of Hessian troops that you can't communicate with very well, I can translate for you. And so, he started translating for the British. Well, come to find out some of the Hessians started defecting. And the British put two and two together and were like, this guy isn't translating right.
Rick Green [00:10:18] That's great.
Christy Stutzman [00:10:19] They imprisoned him again and then the Sons of Liberty, you know, said it was a miraculous escape from them that second time. And then Haim went to Philadelphia and then contacted Washington and he became a financier for Washington's troops. So, he was kind of like spying on his own and others were too, like Hercules Mulligan and other people were spying on their own. Well, then when the Culper Spy Ring came along, they really, like they saved Washington's life. They saved the French fleet when they arrived. They saved that the economy actually, because the British had counterfeit that they were going to infiltrate into our currency and it was gonna really tank the economy and they uncovered that plot. They really did a lot to help Washington and of course they uncovered Benedict Arnold and the West Point, he was gonna hand over West Point but he was going to hand over Washington too. So, they really saved a lot of things. And the most beautiful thing about the story is that they went to their graves and never told anybody that they did it.
Rick Green [00:11:23] Oh, wow.
Christy Stutzman [00:11:24] Didn't expect anything.
Rick Green [00:11:26] And even with Solomon, I didn't know that preview. I knew he was one of the financiers, but I had no idea that he had been pulling off the spy part and turning Hessian soldiers to us. So how do you, I'm curious how your brain works. So, like, how do take all, you've got so many stories to tell from the founding era and with this, even with just the culprit, but in getting Talmadge in there and all these guys, how do pick? Like, how did you get this down to, I'm assuming the show’s about two hours.
Christy Stutzman [00:11:56] Yeah, it's going to be right around two hours, 20 minutes is what we're estimating right now. We're doing the first table reading at Indiana Wesleyan University on January 24th. So I'll have a better read on like how long it's gonna be.
Rick Green [00:12:08] Yeah.
Christy Stutzman [00:12:08] I've done it before and I know the length as I'm writing. So, it's looking like two hours, 20 minutes right now with the songs. There's going to be about 23 different songs. They're very revolutionary era sounding. Think like John Adams mini-series and stuff like that. So, but right now, how I picked the characters was just, as I was doing the research, one would just pop out at me like, wow, this is a really cool story. There's one about Liss who was a slave girl in Oyster Bay who escaped with the British thinking they would free her and they didn't. They actually abused her more. And then Culper Jr., who was Robert Townsend, actually it was his father that had owned her, which is very surprising because he was a Quaker. But this girl escaped thinking she would be freed and then she wasn't. Robert Townshend kept track of her and it's understood that she was helping him in some way. Because she was very well located in the British higher ups. So, he found out that they had sold her to a guy in Charleston. And so, he went down and tracked her down, purchased her freedom, smuggled her back into New York and she lived in freedom the rest of her life on Long Island. But there's so many stories like that. So as stories kind of popped up and there's still research being done, but I really focused on the Culper Spy Ring, but I added in there Haim Salomon. And then Liss was recent discoveries and research and stuff. So, I included her as well. But really, I mean, I'm focusing on heroes that are kind of like, because they were recently uncovered and I'm talking in the last 50 years, we haven't really studied them in history, but they're like new heroes that we should look up to and they represent America and microcosm at the, at the founding. So, it's, it's a beautiful story.
Rick Green [00:14:00] I love even that concept of finding some more of these heroes, bringing them to life. There's so many great stories. Dicey Langston and of course Sybil Luddington has been fairly well told, but there's just so many. And I have, I know, I have zero input or zero take or investment or anything in your play, but I gotta say, and you don't have to give this away if you don't want, but I'm assuming Talmadge is going to be one of your characters, and I'm wondering if you're going to do the farewell, you know, from his writings, the emotional farewell to the officers from Washington and all that. Is that even in the, at the Francis Tavern, is that even on your radar? Would that be possible? Could I throw it in there? Would you consider it?
Christy Stutzman [00:14:41] So do you know? Okay, so that farewell is really long, but it is so eloquent and so beautiful. So yes, I will say I'll give you a little insight into the musical.
Rick Green [00:14:52] It's just you and me and a million or so of our closest friends. It's okay. Go ahead.
Christy Stutzman [00:14:57] Yeah, it's at the end, it will break your heart. It will bring you to tears. It will, it would just stir your heart, it is just very emotional. Washington does make appearance towards the end and, you know, especially with the revelation of the betrayal of, Benedict Arnold, some of the things he said are so poignant and hard hitting, so that I included some of that, but yes, that farewell. I've had to narrow it down to the essence of what it said. For time, but you just can't leave that out. So yeah, you're awesome.
Rick Green [00:15:29] You're awesome. Oh, Christy, I cannot wait. Okay, give me timeline. Okay, I know you're wanting to have this premiere in the 250th and you got this first reading come up. Have you already picked like a date and location for the premiere or y'all still working on that?
Christy Stutzman [00:15:43] Well, so we'd like to premiere it somewhere. I mean, actually talking to people in several different places. One place is Dallas, Fort Worth. The other place is Branson. I even talked to people down in Florida, because we really would like to premier it somewhere and have a short run before dates that we actually have reserved at the Kennedy Center. So, those dates are September 14th through the 20th. But then we've also talked to the Museum of the Bible. They are interested in possibly having a longer run of it there sometime next year as well. I mean, this year as, well, and so we're kind of like we've got the Kennedy Center locked in, but we're also talking to others who really want to bring it to their, their venue. And we're looking for, you know, something kind of maybe in either in the middle of the country or something so that it's not just East Coast. And so, we are in talks right now.
Rick Green [00:16:34] Well, I'm not biased at all, you can tell, right? I mean, I don't try to push my ideas on you at all. But I'm, but I'm biased at all, but I'm thinking Constitution City, Texas. The newest little town in Texas, just west of San Antonio. It's the home of Patriot Academy. So, it's like the WallBuilders- Patriot Academy campus, if you will. I, I don't know if I can get the studio built by July 4th or not, but let's talk girl. Let's talk, man. I'm, no, I'm serious though. I am so excited and I'm not kidding. I would, I think it'd be amazing if you even bring it here after your first run of to the Patriot Academy campus in Fredericksburg in this whole area, but the Nimitz museum is right down the road from us. A lot of cool stuff. But I'm just so excited.
Christy Stutzman [00:17:14] Well, Texas is really on the radar for sure.
Rick Green [00:17:16] Yeah, it's central. It's exactly what you're saying. Dallas, of course, you know, bigger population and everything. But I just love what you are doing. Christy, God bless you. This is, you now, this is, we talk about it all the time here on WallBuilders about, you know Lance Wallnau, Seven Mountains and the whole, you, know, going into every area of the culture and everything, but very few people are doing it well in the arts. And I don't know of anybody else that's doing it on the musical side of things. So, you've really struck a chord with us
Christy Stutzman [00:17:46] Well you think about, you know, Hamilton has been put on video now. You've got Wicked, you've got Wicked for Good. This generation is embracing musical theater like we've never seen before. And it is a very powerful medium. In fact, on Broadway, you will have very blatant pushing of their agenda from the stage. Lion King, when you go to see Disney's Lion King right now; at the end afterwards during the applause and everything, they come out with a pride parade. I mean, they're very blatant with what they, you know, are pushing.
Rick Green [00:18:19] They are, yeah.
Christy Stutzman [00:18:20] And it's a, they know that the medium is powerful. I mean they have put in millions of dollars into Broadway shows. In fact, there were 31 musicals on Broadway, brand new musicals that were produced since COVID and all of them pretty much have flopped. And the reason is because they are so woke and there's not an audience for it and they just, they aren't getting the message. But what I'm seeing is that the other side is willing to put their money there because they know that they can affect the culture and they can't affect the next generation. But, you know, Wicked for Good is be very popular. So is Wicked, so is Hamilton and these others. And so, we really need to be in that space. And reclaim it. And we can't do that without content, but this story, I'll tell you what, it'll get your blood going. You will be proud you're an American and very patriotic.
Rick Green [00:19:06] Well the timing obviously with the 250th and everything is so perfect. And I should mention Sight and Sound. That's another one in that space that does a great, you know, they do obviously very professional. Andrew Womack does really good shows out at Charis Bible College. So, you know there's definitely a handful, but man the space is so big and there's such a need. And that's why when I was reading through your website and I saw the licensing... part of it that it just really excited me because, you know, then we have a chance for schools to do it and Oprys for all these, you now, places across the country. And there's just not much of that where we're feeding them the content as you said.
Christy Stutzman [00:19:41] That's what we're hoping. As you said. Yeah, we're competing with MTI, which is Musical Theater International. We're competing with Concord Theatricals. They have all the big-name stuff. And what schools tend to do is they tend to follow whatever Broadway puts out. Whatever these places license. And so, we're up against some big challenges, but we're trying to pick titles that people recognize. And that's why we picked When Calls the Heart and Love Comes Softly and A Musical Christmas Carol and Now Ring of Spies. We want them to identify with these titles, because that helps sell tickets, because people recognize them. But they're faith-infused, they're not in your face like preaching the gospel. But boy, it teaches lessons throughout the entire thing, and you walk away singing songs that stick in your heart. And that's our goal, is to get it into universities and high schools and theaters across the country.
Rick Green [00:20:30] Well, thank you so much, Christy. It's going to be so good. Cannot wait, cannot wait. George Washington's Ring of Spies, a musical revolution. Okay. If you want to learn more and get on the list so you can license it, once it's completed, go to musicbychristy.com, musicbychristy.com and then click on Ring of Spies. So cool. All right. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders show.
Rick Green [00:21:54] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Christy Stutzman for coming on and for just putting this together. And of course, David and Tim still a lot of work to do. As she was saying, they're looking for a place for the world premiere. And I wasn't totally kidding when I said, maybe Constitution City at the Patriot Academy campus, who knows what will happen. We'll, we'll see what comes of all this. Of course, they are still working on funding. We want to encourage people to maybe go check that out. There may be some of our listeners that would love to get behind this and get involved in it. But you know, guys, we've, we said this literally for decades at WallBuilders that every area of the culture we should be going into and having good values and good entertainment and Christians should do it better than the world. And that's what I see happening here. This is really cool
Tim Barton [00:22:36] It's really exciting. The fact that this is going to be in the Kennedy Center, it's incredible. And one of the things that we have done, I feel like for years, I don't know how many years, but it's been a while. Every Christmas, we've gone over the naughty or nice list, the companies that maybe we shouldn't be spending as much dollars as because of what they're promoting, the things they're doing, the direction they're going, and the places that maybe we should spend more money. And we talk about voting with our dollars on a lot of occasions. This is a great time to vote with our dollars. This is the 250th anniversary of the nation. There's gonna be a lot of people telling a lot of stories and a lot of these stories being told, we already know from the left it's gonna to be this Marxist perspective that America is the oppressor, the founding fathers were evil they were racist they were secular. They were... Go down the laundry list of the accusations they're gonna throw out there. So, to have something like this that could be done very well and very cool locations. This is something that I would definitely encourage for people to get behind and support starting some kind of, you know, not quite a GoFundMe, but maybe something along those lines. This will be a really good deal. And Rick, I do hope they come down and on the Patriot Academy Campus, Constitution City, somewhere down there, they do this. I would like to go ahead and request my tickets in advance right now when that happens. Maybe balcony seating, you know, some, you, you can figure it out, but I want to be there when this happens.
Rick Green [00:24:08] We just have to build a balcony. That's so cool, so cool. David, what do you think, man?
David Barton [00:24:13] Well, it's gonna be really fun. And by the way, Christy said her website was musicbychristy.com. And since you can spell Christy with a K or a C.
Rick Green [00:24:22] Oh, good point.
David Barton [00:24:23] And you can use a Y or an IE. It is actually C-H-R-I-S-T-Y. Musicbychristy.com So that's where you can go. The other thing is, I mean, premiering down to Constitution City, awesome. Then if you wanna, if you've never been to DC, since this thing is the 14th through the 20th of September, that is a perfect time to go visit DC. School kids are gone. It's a cool weather-wise time of the year. It's not the hot sultry summers that DC often has there on the coast. It is a great time. Your lines are shorter. Everything about it's good. So, it's perfect timing to be able, if you never taken a family trip to DC or want to. This would be a good time to do it. And that's a good reason to go do it at the Kennedy Center is to see this new musical. It's gonna be fun. This spy ring and the revolution. It's going to be a fun musical to see that. 23 songs, by the way. That's really creative.
Tim Barton [00:25:20] I do think it's worth pointing out, Dad, that you're saying it's not too hot. It's still in the eighties, sometimes even the nineties in September. So, for us in Texas, that's all that hot. That's that's a nice, cool day in late summer. But if you're coming from somewhere not in the deep south, it might be a little warm, but as you mentioned, there's not a lot of school traffic coming back yet because most school trips start late September, October. So, this is early on, there's gonna still be tourists there. You're not gonna go to DC and not have tourists, but it's not quite as heavily populated. It's a great time to go. And again, as we're celebrating the 250th, there's going to be so many cool exhibits all over DC. You need to plan on making a trip at some point this year and that would be a great to go and see a really cool movie.
Rick Green [00:26:03] Well, and hopefully, even as you're listening to this today, folks, that you'll be inspired to look for ways that you can get involved in the culture and realize that, man, you may be a musician, you may some kind of artist, you might be an architect, you maybe, you know, whatever, whatever the area of the culture is, we should not leave it off limits, we should be honoring God in what we do. And we should be doing it the best that we can as unto God, not unto men, as Colossians 3:23 says, and be the best in that field, so that we are honoring God and that. So, thanks to Christy Stutzman for coming on day for doing what she's doing and for all of you getting involved in that and making some plans to be able to attend Ring of Spies at some point in the 250th this year as it gets launched later this year. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilders Show.
