Sometimes great ideas occur in unlikely places. Isaac Newton figured out why things drop while chilling under an apple tree. Archimedes eureka’d why things float while relaxing in a bathtub. Lin-Manuel Miranda discovered what makes theatre audiences smile while hanging in a basement.

Miranda, the once-in-a-generation multi-hyphenate talent and all around genius, is of course the creator of the megahit Hamilton. That paradigm-shifting musical followed another hit, In the Heights. Both came after, and in some sense rested on a foundation built by, Freestyle Love Supreme. And Freestyle was what the author/performer/composer discovered in a basement.

Miranda and his friends and Wesleyan College chums Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale started their New York theatre careers in a tiny black-box theatre located in the basement of Manhattan’s famous Drama Book Shop, still the best theatre book store in America. While on breaks from rehearsing In the Heights, they would kibitz and joke, riff and rhyme, and freestyle hip-hop beats. The spontaneity and virtuosity they found in these sessions eventually informed the writing of Heights, and in turn, of Hamilton. And the freestyling itself soon grew so sophisticated and sweeping that the gang realized that these improvs were the kernel of something special. It was perhaps not Newton’s law of gravity, nor Archimedes’ principle of buoyancy, but it was wondrous in its own right: a show.

That show is on the Globe’s stage tonight, and we’re pleased to welcome it as it tours its way around the United States after a Tony-winning Broadway engagement.

Freestyle Love Supreme is different from the Globe’s usual fare. As such it’s an opportunity for us to reach audiences we usually do not. But more, its difference allows us to push the boundaries of the forms we explore. Not a book musical with a story and a written script that’s been rehearsed and honed, FLS is instead made new on the fly each night. The show you see this evening will never be seen again. It arrives fresh each time on a lightning bolt of innovation, imagination, and discovery. It’s a high-wire act for its company of performers, a leap into the unknown. The most extraordinary thing about it is their bravery, boldness, and simply breathtaking talent. If the theatre is an art form that’s created in the moment of exchange between audience and actor, then FLS is theatre at its purest.

You, the Globe’s audience, have your own crucial part to play in FLS, as it’s your suggestions that send the company on its flights of fancy. That’s the other thing I love about this show: the suggestions the audience make reflect precisely what’s on our world’s mind at this moment. Back when FLS opened at Broadway’s Booth Theatre in 2019, you can bet nobody in the audience shouted out prompts about lockdowns or masks or vaccines, for example. Now… well, those make up the fabric of our reality, with us even on a fun night out. Theatre holds a mirror up to nature, but FLS and its collection of our current obsessions strike me as more of an X-ray: a look inside us, and right through us. That it’s as fun and bracing and exhilarating as anything that’s been on our stage makes it all the more special.

While they’re in San Diego, tonight’s performers will be collaborating with The Old Globe’s Arts Engagement Department to bring their FLS Academy to some of our community partners. These workshops will enfranchise a swath of our friends and neighbors into the liberating fun of freestyling. Who knows what joyous discoveries will flow from rooms all over our city? Newton, Archimedes, Miranda. Maybe the next great idea will emerge from right here.

Thanks for coming. Enjoy the show.