LALT NEWS
One Crazy Day, a multicolored genderbent televangelist musical farce is the love- child of Mozart/Da Ponte’s slyly political class-war opera “The Marriage of Figaro” and Beaumarchais’ death knell of the aristocracy play “Une Folle Journée” by way of the American South. While playwright/composer DS Magid received great inspiration from those works, this isn’t a modernized adaptation but rather, a story with its own cans of worms.
That said, audiences familiar with Mozart’s opera will recognize some similarities (as well as a few tunes) along with some marked differences: while Beaumarchais and Da Ponte focussed on class wars, One Crazy Day… aims at modern women’s struggles for equality and against ageism, and features regendered male roles, a multiracial story line, and a roadmap for the empowerment of disenfranchised classes.
The musical addresses its targets in a humorous, lighthearted way, in homage to its predecessors, and takes its style from the country and folk tunes which inspired Mozart. Folks who followed American religious foibles in the last century may recognize a televangelist who’ll cry at the drop of a nickel, and a televangelist’s wife who wears about four pounds too much makeup…
Los Alamos denizens might recognize DS Magid’s name from the Library’s Broadway Singalong at Fuller Lodge this past April – along with Katy Korkos, Magid conceived that event and then led the singing. She’s known nationally for her playwrighting/composing, and also for the years she spent singing, dancing, and acting on Broadway. In Northern New Mexico, many of her works have been seen at Santa Fe Playhouse and Teatro Paraguas. Closer to home, LALT produced her musical The Cowboy Poet in 2012, she’s had numerous plays in their short-play festival “the 8x10s,” and she has directed half-a-dozen plays and musicals there over the past 25 years.
The upcoming reading will be One Crazy Day’s first public outing. Performers include Suzy Kroesche, Bruce LaMartine, Eric Bjorklund, Christine Armenion, Jazmine Torres, Valerie Lawdensky, Alexis Perry, Jenni Gaffney, Giovanna Garofalo, and the inimitable Patrick MacDonald. Gretchen Amstutz will woman the keyboard and musical-direct, Nick Denissen will arrange the music and play guitar, and Magid will set the limited staging.
WHAT: Free, public staged reading of One Crazy Day, a multicolored genderbent televangelist musical farce by DS Magid WHO: Local performers and musicians WHEN: At 2 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020 WHERE: Los Alamos Little Theater, 1670 Nectar, Los Alamos NM 87544 FURTHER INFO: 216-320-0969 / SMMSLT111@gmail.com