A Letter to Harvey Milk

"May 22 was Harvey Milk's birthday."
"Who was Harvey Milk?" a friend asked.
I gave the short version. "He was a gay rights activist in the 70's. He became a San Francisco city supervisor. The first openly gay politician. He was assassinated in City Hall along with the mayor by a colleague they'd fired. He'd been getting death threats and had already recorded his will. One of his more famous quotes was 'If a bullet should ever enter my brain, let that bullet shatter every closet door.'"
For a longer version have a look here.

Harvey Milk's life has been recounted by a musical, two operas, a documentary and an Oscar winning film. The 2016 musical, A Letter to Harvey Milk, is less about the man than his legacy. Two strangers, a Jewish widower and a lesbian teacher, meet in a writing class and discuss the way Harvey influenced their lives.

Some detractors are upset by the homophobic comments the teacher must endure. I'm of the mindset that a show set in the early 80's would be more offensive if it ignored the homophobia that our community has had to overcome. There's room for the Love, Simon fantasias in 2018 but we must never forget our history.

A Letter to Harvey Milk is currently running Off-Broadway at the Acorn Theatre.

The Addams Family

So producers ask you to write an Addams Family musical. What story do you tell? The films contrasted the Addam's with "normal" criminals who wanted to harm them. The stage show introduces a fiancee and conservative in-laws. The device has fueled many comedies including You Can't Take It With You, Auntie Mame and La Cage Aux Folles. So that's your spine. But what do you do with the details?

Who are the Addams's? Are they undead? If so are they zombies, ghosts or vampires? Are they just unusually morbid mortals? How much of their BDSM leanings can you mention in a family show? If you put them onstage do you use the personalities from the comics, cartoons, TV sitcom or films?

The stage show went through multiple rewrites before and after the Broadway engagement. The squid was cut for the tour. She certainly isn't in the school version. But the song about squid molestation was in the Chicago tryout and made it to Broadway.

Big Fish

I wasn't the target audience for this story. I side with the practical son whereas a musical comedy has little choice but to side with the wacky father. Reviews were mixed and the run was short but the show has a passionate fan base and has done well in regional productions. Norbert Leo Butz has stolen shows before and deserves another chance at a star vehicle.

Here's Norbert Leo Butz and Kate Baldwin performing "Time Stops."

Dueling Wild Party's

The Wild Party is more existential dread than horror themed, but it has something in common with the other horror musicals I'll be looking at this week. Public domain source material and two competing musical versions.

New York Times on Lippa:
Mr. Lippa's score, dexterously orchestrated by Michael Gibson, has a jittery, wandering quality, conscientiously shifting styles and tempos as if in search of a lost chord. ... Mr. Lippa's book and lyrics have expanded the focus of March's notoriously cool-blooded poem to depict a quest not just for novel sensation but for that funny thing called love.

New York Times on LaChiusa:
This latest version, the work of Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe, is big on letting its characters suffer, loudly and aggressively, in the spotlight. The suffering is embodied by talented stars like Mandy Patinkin, Toni Collette and the legendary Eartha Kitt.