Promethean Theatre Ensemble officially has officially announced its fourth season, so I guess the cat is out of the bag. That we were doing "The Last Unicorn" this fall was (thanks to my big mouth plus this blog) pretty much the worst-kept-secret in the whole darn city, but hopefully by the time the box office opens it'll be an even worse kept secret! I want everyone who cares about this story as much as I do to have a chance to see it. Please spread the word.
Accompanying "The Last Unicorn" will be the company's first musical ever! "The Fantasticks!" I know what you might think- why are we doing such a well-known, conventional musical? A lot of us thought that before we reviewed the script during season selection. Actually, this musical is an excellent fit with both our company and our mission statement. I highly recommend reading the script if you've never encountered the piece before (or, perhaps, only encountered it via bad high school productions) -is has a really poetic, wise take on human interaction that I find to be alternately amusing, moving and deeply profound. While the story we will collaborate with our audience to tell is in this case an old one- boy meets girl, boy loves girl, complications ensue- the way the story is told is so classy, so wistful, so truthful that once we all had read it it was difficult to resist. There's a downside to picking this piece- it is very popular and in fact our production will be in slight competition with one of the bigger fish in town- but fortunately the productions won't be exactly simultaneous, and I think our company can bring a very different flavor and perspective to the piece. And I say that with respect and affection for our 'competitors'- the other company doing this next year I consider to be good friends of mine and they do excellent work. But come see ours too. It will be differently awesome.
Last but not least is our THIRD SHOW. That's right, we're doing three next year, beatches! While other companies shrink in fear, we've decided that now is not the time to be lily-livered. Nothing ventured nothing gained. And on that note, our third piece is...
(drum roll)
SPRING AWAKENING. No, not the musical. The play. You know, the original piece written by Frank Wedekind that the musical is based on? Having read the play AND seen the musical- trust me, the musical is the one that's sugarcoating things. Come see our version if you want to know why this play was REALLY banned in the late 1800s!
Well, that's it for now. I know I'm pumped. Are you? : - )
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3 comments:
Thanks for the plug! I'm excited!
The Fantastics - is it too sugary or too dour? Discuss.
Thanks for the comment. I think that mishandled it has the *potential* to be both too sugary and too dour- too sugary if all of the 'cute' elements are played up to far, with completely over the top mugging and posing. Too dour if the underlying darkness and danger of the world, and the intrinsic tremendous difficulty of making love work are brought to the fore too soon- it's a piece that is tremendously hard to get right because you have to walk the fine line between the two. When done well, it is neither. One isn't seeking completely naturalistic performances, but the emotional life and responsiveness of the characters must nevertheless be very present. The moon of The Fantasticks is two dimensional, but the characters should never be.
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