Interview: TV Superhero takes THE PONY EXPRESS to South Shore Conservatory

Actor and singer/songwriter Shayan Sobhian earned fame playing Behrad Terazi, a time-traveling superhero, on the CW television series “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” so he says it is appropriate that his current project is a period piece.

“After ‘Legends of Tomorrow,’ I thought it would be only fitting that I do a musical that travels back in time to the Old West,” explained Sobhian by telephone recently from his home in Cohasset, Massachusetts.

With inspiration from his father-in-law, longtime songwriter Leo Meehan, Sobhian began work on “The Pony Express: A Musical Adventure!” – a folk-rock musical based on the song of the same name by Meehan that tells the story of a young orphan whose life is forever changed when he saddles up for the Pony Express (1860–61), an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted young riders between Missouri and California.

“The story is daring and romantic, and the score is reminiscent of the late 1960s/early ’70s Laurel Canyon sound, named for the area in the Hollywood Hills that was then home to musicians like Jackson Browne, Neil Young, and the Eagles,” according to Sobhian. “Songs like ‘Desperado’ and ‘After the Gold Rush’ were among our influences on this project.”

With music and lyrics by Sobhian, Josh Amara, and Leo Meehan, along with additional music by Chris Meehan and Bob Palmer, and in collaboration with Sally Meehan Sobhian, the show has been in development for five years. Sobhian will give the first public performance of songs from the musical during “An Evening on the Red Carpet,” the opening night of Evenings Under the Stars at the South Shore Conservatory in Hingham, Massachusetts, on July 8.

“That night, I will also be playing acoustic guitar, with Chris Meehan on base, Bob Palmer on drums, Josh Amara on electric guitar, and my brother, Kamran Sobhian, on keyboards,” says Sobhian. “Leo decided he wanted to sit this performance out, and instead just take it all in from the audience.”

Sobhian began building an audience when he played James the Greater in season one of the streaming series “The Chosen,” which has been viewed by some 400 million people worldwide, and later with “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” broadcast in the U.S. and internationally before ending its seven-season run last year.

With his television career temporarily on hold, Sobhian – an American-born actor of Iranian descent who was brought up in Chelmsford, Massachusetts – returned home to Cohasset, where he made his local theater debut playing Anthony Hope in last fall’s Company Theatre production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” in Norwell, Massachusetts.

“I’ve always loved being on stage,” says the actor, who earned his BFA in acting from Purchase College – SUNY, and not long after, appeared in the 2017 off-off-Broadway production of the Angle Project’s “Lost and Guided,” a documentary play about Syrian refugees.

It was while living in New York that Sobhian met future wife Sally Meehan. The couple were married on September 5, 2020, in a covid-restricted ceremony at her parents’ home in Cohasset.

“We were only able to have 30 guests, but it was still beautiful to celebrate with our families and close friends,” recalls the contented groom. And the partnership is not only personal, but also professional.

“Sally will be our director when this show gets to the workshop stage. And she is part of the final say on everything we do,” says Sobhian. “She is very happy to see her father and me, and everyone else, working together. We are thrilled to premiere four songs from ‘The Pony Express: A Musical Adventure!’ with conductor Nick Palmer and the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra on a stage that bears a dedication to Sally’s great-grandfather, Nicholas V. Papani.

“This project has been a five-year labor of love for our whole family, and we are proud for it to make its debut at the South Shore Conservatory,” he says. “We know that it’s bound to leave audiences singing its tunes long after its final chord.”

Caption: Shayan Sobhian and Sally Sobhian Meehan, two of the creative forces behind “The Pony Express: A Musical Adventure!” Photo credit: Daniela Marchione.

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