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.

Zombie Prom

I don't have much to say about this one.Grease without the sex. Little Shop of Horrors without the horror. It occupies a bland middle ground. The antagonist, Miss Strict, gets a fun song but they didn't let RuPaul sing it in the abridged film version. I'm running out of Halloween themed shows.

Hello Again

If La Ronde was a play about class then Hello Again is a musical about loneliness. Both stories feature a daisy chain of hook ups but neither has much to say about sex. In a sense that's the point. The sex in Hello Again is rarely for love or pleasure. It's a tool to gain something from a partner; financial support, a career boost or a sense of feeling "safe."

The scenarios are flexible enough to allow for literal or fantastical staging. The 2017 film version includes a lovely mix of both. The roles are juicy enough to showcase stars or newcomers and the original Off-Broadway cast has gone on to great things. The show was not LaChuisa's first musical but it was definitely the one that put him on the map.

See What I Wanna See

Like The Apple Tree, Weird Romance and Little Fish before it See What I Wanna See grouped short stories with similar themes. Michael John LaChuisa adapted three short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa concerning the theme of "truth." The subject matter earns mixed reviews but the compact cast size makes it attractive to smaller theaters.

Little Fish

Michael John LaChuisa has been writing musicals non-stop for over two decades. He’s drawn from a wide variety of source material including Greek myth, celebrity biography, French and Spanish drama, Japanese cinema and American poetry. Little Fish was drawn from two short stories Deborah Eisenberg: Days and Flotsam.

The heroines of Days and Flotsam are forced to reinvent themselves. The former after she quits smoking and the latter after she flees an abusive relationship. LaChuisa combines them into the character of Charlotte. The cigarettes had been a coping mechanism for so long that she forgot what she was coping with. Her pain forces her to build a community with those around her instead of swimming upstream on her own.

Tension builds as she passes from person to person, then dissipates in a "don't worry / be happy" ending. The structure has been compared to Company though there's no "Ladies Who Lunch" or "Being Alive" to cap off the night. Instead I held on to the songs for Charlotte's Sorry-Grateful friends, Marco and Kathy, who end up the most fully formed characters on stage.

Weird Romance

This summer Ellen Greene reprised her signature role at the Encores concert of Little Shop of Horrors. The role of Audrey had been written for Faith Prince but a television contract prevented her from performing in the scheduled premiere. The role went to Ellen and history was made.

Ellen had already originated roles in several Off-Broadway musicals and would again. After co-starring in the Little Shop film she reunited with Alan Menken to play contrasting roles in Weird Romance. Both women were trapped inside machines and the shows emphasized ensemble rather than the star. Critics dismissed the show but there are some interesting ballads and comic numbers.