Why Musicals Dream of “Santa Fe”
by Chris Peterson
In musical theatre, everyone’s running toward something. Sometimes it’s fame. Sometimes it’s love. Sometimes it’s rent money. But for a surprising number of Broadway dreamers, the ultimate destination is a place far from the bright lights of Manhattan. A place where the air is warm, the sky feels endless, and nobody’s asking you to audition for anything. Somehow, that place is Santa Fe.
It’s one of those funny coincidences that two of the most beloved modern musicals—Newsies and RENT—each have a song called “Santa Fe.” Both are sung by working-class New Yorkers who want nothing more than to leave the city behind. Both are full of yearning, both use Santa Fe as shorthand for freedom, and both capture that universal Broadway emotion: the desperate hope for something better. Yet for all they share in name and spirit, each song looks west through a different lens.
For Jack Kelly, the scrappy newspaper boy leading a strike against Joseph Pulitzer in Newsies, Santa Fe is a dream of freedom. For Collins and Angel, the free-spirited couple in RENT, it’s a dream of peace. Same name, same destination, completely different meaning.
When we first meet Jack Kelly, he’s covered in newsprint, running from the cops, and already halfway through a fantasy about Santa Fe. The city hasn’t even introduced itself yet, and he’s already thinking about leaving it. For Jack, Santa Fe is a cowboy’s paradise. He sings about sunlight, horses, and open space—things that couldn’t exist further from the crowded, grimy streets of 1899 New York. It’s romantic, of course. He imagines himself out there in the desert, maybe painting houses, maybe wrangling cattle, maybe just existing without the constant noise of survival. It’s the kind of dream that could only belong to someone young, poor, and full of imagination.
Jump forward a century, and New York still hasn’t gotten any easier. In RENT, Jonathan Larson paints a city that’s vibrant, diverse, and alive—but also unforgiving. His characters are artists living on the edge, fighting to survive under the weight of poverty, disease, and heartbreak. And once again, someone starts singing about Santa Fe.
Tom Collins and Angel Dumott Schunard are, in many ways, the moral center of RENT. They’re the kind of couple that radiates light even in a world falling apart. When they sing “Santa Fe,” it’s not about riding horses or escaping work—it’s about finding a place where they can simply be. Their Santa Fe is imagined through the lens of love and safety. They dream about opening a restaurant together, far from the chaos of the East Village, where nobody’s judging them and every night ends in a toast instead of a hospital visit. For two queer people living with HIV in the 1990s, that fantasy feels both tender and tragic.
In RENT, Santa Fe becomes a symbol of rest. It’s a reprieve from a world that demands too much. When Collins sings about being “sunny and safe,” the line lands with a weight that’s hard to describe. He’s not asking for wealth or fame—he’s asking for a world that lets him live in peace.
Of course, RENT doesn’t let that happen. (Spoiler Alert) Angel’s death shatters that dream, and Santa Fe becomes another reminder of what could have been. But that’s part of the brilliance of Larson’s writing. Even though Collins and Angel never make it to Santa Fe, the idea of it sustains them. Like Jack Kelly, they never get the physical destination—but the dream is enough to keep them alive, if only for a while.
It’s tempting to think this is just coincidence—that two writers happened to pick the same city out of a hat. However, Santa Fe has a rich history in the American imagination, and it has always been about transformation.
For Jack Kelly, Santa Fe means distance. For Collins and Angel, it means calm. But underneath both is a shared idea: agency. Each character dreams of a life where they’re in control. That’s the heart of every “I want” song. Whether you’re a newsboy or a drag queen, the yearning for self-determination is what makes musical theatre characters sing in the first place.
There’s also something specifically American about choosing Santa Fe. The mythology of the West—wide-open spaces, new beginnings, self-invention—is baked into our collective imagination. Broadway, being New York’s artistic heartbeat, has always been the opposite of that: crowded, electric, competitive. So when its characters start fantasizing about the desert, it’s not random. It’s a natural counterpoint.
In the end, both musicals deliver the same emotional message: Santa Fe is not real, but it’s necessary. You need a dream to survive the grind. Jack never rides off into the sunset, and Collins never opens his restaurant, but both find peace in the idea that something better exists—even if only in imagination. That’s what makes these songs so powerful. They’re not about getting somewhere. They’re about believing that somewhere still exists.
The older I get, the more I think Santa Fe is less of a place and more of a state of mind. It’s the quiet we chase when life feels loud. It’s the version of ourselves we become when nobody’s watching. It’s the part of every dreamer that still believes they could start over, even when the rent is due or the strike seems impossible to win. Broadway’s love affair with Santa Fe isn’t really about geography. It’s about hope. It’s about endurance. It’s about the idea that no matter how hard the world gets, there’s a horizon somewhere, glowing just out of reach.
And maybe that’s why both songs endure. “Santa Fe” in Newsies gives us courage. “Santa Fe” in RENT gives us tenderness. Together, they remind us that it’s okay to dream of something better—even if we never get there. Because sometimes, the dream itself is enough to keep singing.