The WHO’s Tommy

Spanning from 1940 through the early 1960s, The WHO’s Tommy is a rock opera about the life of a young boy from London named Tommy who, after witnessing the murder of his mother’s lover at the hand of his father, goes into a catatonic state. Because of his condition, the boy undergoes many more traumatic experiences during his formative years, and he eventually develops an affinity for pinball. As a young adult, his mother is able to break him out of his catatonic state which leads to Tommy becoming an international pinball superstar.

The design for the piece is grounded in historical accuracy with characters being dressed and styled in recognizable fashion trends from each era. Each member of the leading and supporting cast also has a prominent color story that follows them throughout the show. Notably, as an adolescent, Tommy is dressed only in white and shades of grey whilst in the thick of his trauma as both a nod to the original designs for the show and a visual representation of the fact that he is a “ghost” of the person he once was. After coming out of his catatonia and assuming the personality of the ‘Pinball Wizard,’ Tommy’s wardrobe becomes drastically bolder and more saturated with the introduction of bright yellow into his wardrobe. A throughline of all his looks is incorporation of plaid or stripes which, from a distance, can read like TV static/noise. The intention being to represent how distant, dissociated, and disconnected from reality Tommy is.