Most people deal with a breakup by trying to move on.
Doug Leibowitz decides to write a catastrophically inappropriate middle-school musical.
The official trailer for The Musical introduces one of 2026’s more gloriously unhinged comedy premises, with Tony Award winner Will Brill starring alongside Gillian Jacobs and Rob Lowe in director Giselle Bonilla’s darkly comic feature debut.
Doug is convinced that he belongs somewhere much more important than the school theatre department where he currently works.
He is a playwright.
At least, that is how he sees himself.
His real life is considerably less glamorous.
Instead of building a career in New York, Doug spends his days teaching middle-school students while repeatedly watching his professional ambitions go nowhere.
Then his personal life collapses too.
His ex-girlfriend Abigail, played by Community and The Bear star Gillian Jacobs, begins dating the one person Doug already cannot stand: his school principal, Brady.
Rob Lowe plays Brady as exactly the kind of successful, confident and irritatingly charismatic man capable of making Doug’s existing resentment considerably worse.
And Brady has something important approaching.
The school is competing for the prestigious Blue Ribbon of Academic Excellence.
Doug suddenly realises that his theatre department gives him an extraordinarily effective way to sabotage it.
Instead of mounting the safe production everyone expects, he secretly begins rehearsing an original musical so inappropriate that, if it reaches the stage, it could humiliate Brady and destroy the school’s chances of receiving the award.
Doug has officially discovered the motivational power of spite.
The trailer captures the increasingly absurd transformation beautifully.
At first, Doug simply looks defeated.
Then inspiration arrives.
Soon he is standing in front of a group of children explaining why secrecy, deception and theatrical surprise are apparently essential components of artistic expression.
The students believe they are participating in something daring.
Brady believes the school's theatre programme is progressing normally.
Doug knows he is constructing a revenge bomb with a curtain call.
And the further he goes, the more excited he becomes.
The Musical premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where the film's willingness to push its premise into genuinely uncomfortable territory became one of its defining characteristics.
Doug's secret production is not merely edgy.
It is intentionally outrageous.
The play he creates, titled The Heroes, turns the September 11 attacks into a middle-school musical.
That is the point at which an already questionable revenge scheme moves into spectacularly disastrous territory.
But the joke is not simply that Doug has written something offensive.
The film appears much more interested in how easily personal bitterness can disguise itself as artistic conviction.
Doug tells himself he is making important theatre.
He tells his students they are doing something brave.
He frames secrecy as creativity and manipulation as mentorship.
In reality, an adult man is using children, theatre and national tragedy to embarrass the person dating his ex-girlfriend.
It is an impressively terrible plan.
And that is exactly what makes the character fascinating.
Will Brill arrives in the film following an acclaimed stage career that included his Tony-winning performance in Stereophonic.
That theatrical background makes Doug particularly effective casting.
Brill understands the intensity, ego and complete seriousness that can exist inside rehearsal rooms, allowing Doug to treat his increasingly ridiculous production as though he is creating the next revolutionary work of American theatre.
Gillian Jacobs plays Abigail, Doug’s ex and a fellow teacher at the school.
Her new relationship with Brady provides the immediate trigger for Doug’s meltdown, but the trailer suggests that Abigail may also understand exactly how much resentment her former boyfriend has been carrying around.
Rob Lowe, meanwhile, is almost perfectly suited to Brady.
The principal is polished, attractive and ambitious — the kind of man who can walk into a room looking completely comfortable with his own success.
For someone already convinced that life has failed to recognise his genius, watching that man date his ex is apparently intolerable.
The result has shades of several different kinds of satire.
There is the vicious workplace rivalry.
There is the absurd seriousness of school achievement culture.
There is theatre-world ego.
There are children becoming enthusiastic participants in an adult conflict they do not fully understand.
And underneath everything is a character study of someone gradually convincing himself that revenge is actually artistic integrity.
Giselle Bonilla directs from a screenplay by Alexander Heller, who also produced the film alongside Rob Lowe, Greg Lauritano, Findlay Brown and Jordan Backhus.
For Bonilla, The Musical marks her feature directing debut after previous work as an actor and filmmaker.
The film made its world premiere at Sundance on January 25, 2026, where its deliberately provocative combination of school comedy, theatrical satire and increasingly uncomfortable revenge immediately set it apart from more conventional comedy releases.
There is also something particularly effective about using a middle-school production as the weapon.
School theatre is normally presented as a place where teachers encourage creativity, confidence and collaboration.
Doug uses exactly that trust for the worst possible reason.
His students are enthusiastic because they believe their teacher is giving them the opportunity to make something unique.
Doug is enthusiastic because the performance may ruin Brady’s life.
Those objectives are not quite the same.
The trailer wisely allows the absurdity to escalate rather than treating Doug as a conventional hero.
He is petty.
Jealous.
Self-important.
And increasingly delighted by his own terrible idea.
Yet the sheer commitment makes it difficult to look away.
Everyone talks about creating art because of love, inspiration or passion.
The Musical asks what happens when the creative driving force is pure, concentrated spite.
The answer apparently involves Rob Lowe, Gillian Jacobs, a group of unsuspecting middle-school students and one production that absolutely should not make it to opening night.
The Musical opens in U.S. theatres on September 18, 2026.
Watch the trailer below.
