July 07, 2025
Provided Image/Courtesy of FX Networks and Hulu
The cast of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' took its 'Nightman Cometh' musical on the road in 2009, stopping at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby for two shows.
Diehard fans of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" have been singing about the "Dayman" — a master of karate and champion of the sun — since the show's musical episode aired almost 16 years ago. But the crowds that gathered at Tower Theater on Sept. 19, 2009, got to belt those nonsensical lyrics along with the cast for a live performance of "The Nightman Cometh" that played at just five other locations — and has not been staged again since.
The FX series' brief foray into musical theater is recounted in "It's (Almost) Always Sunny in Philadelphia," the new pop history of the long-running sitcom. Author Kimberly Potts dedicates an entire chapter to the show's Season 4 finale "The Nightman Cometh," which finds the gang staging a bizarre production at Charlie's behest.
The musical is about a boy who pines for a princess/waitress and grows into a man after repeated visits from a troll and a lecherous "Nightman." It turns out to be a convoluted proposal to the object of Charlie's affections, the unnamed waitress, but it only horrifies the audience and earns him a resounding no.
The live tour grew out of a spontaneous performance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in April 2009. According to GQ, singer Don McCloskey had booked the venue and invited his longtime friend and "Always Sunny" creator-star Rob McElhenney to join him on stage, along with McElhenney's co-star and wife Kaitlin Olson and any other interested cast members. They were only supposed to sing "a couple" songs from "The Nightman Cometh." But what started as a Don McCloskey show with special guests from "Always Sunny" performing songs from "The Nighman Cometh" morphed into a live performance of "The Nightman Cometh" with the full cast ... and Don McCloskey. Apparently, an incorrect LA Weekly listing was to blame.
The "Always Sunny" actors rolled with the misunderstanding, and sold out two shows at the Troubadour. Live Nation, sensing a hit, pitched them on a 30-city tour. The gang talked them down to six, including Upper Darby. "The Nightman Cometh" would play at the historic Tower Theater on Sept. 19, 2009, two days after the show's Season 5 premiere. It was the only stop on the tour with two performances, one at 8 p.m. and another at 10:30 p.m.
The cast traveled on a tour bus, on loan from Danny DeVito's brother-in-law and wrapped in promotional imagery of the cast in diapers. It had recliners and, according to former production assistant Sean Clifford, a bar.
"There was an energy to it," he recalls in Potts' book. "You're getting out of a show. There's a party afterwards. You're going to bed really late, sometimes driving through the night. Then you're waking up and staying in hotels, and everybody already knew each other, so there was a comfort level there."
The live show naturally required some alterations. Bootleg footage reveals the waitress rejected Charlie not from a folding chair of a school theater auditorium, as she does in the episode, but the balcony of the Tower Theater. The performance also featured bonus songs like "It's Nature, S--- Happens," a Mac solo that explains his villainous Nightman character. Frank and Dennis also duet on "I've Got a Troll in My Hole," wherein the "hole" is a crappy apartment.
The Troubadour show that inspired the tour was filmed and included as a bonus feature on the "Always Sunny" Season 4 box set. But no such recording of the Tower Theater performances made it onto a DVD. Fans hoping to capture some of its magic will have to settle for YouTube clips or a souvenir shirt for $250 on eBay.
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