The Ohio Light Opera 2018 Season in 3 Panels Each!

It's almost opening week for the Ohio Light Opera! I'm looking forward to going to Wooster later in the summer to get my annual light opera and early musical fix, but for now, here's a rundown of their entire season.... starting with Adler and Ross's classic musical about sleepwear and industrial action!

Next up is a Rodgers and Hart classic that was turned into a classic-but-totally-unrecognizable film adaptation starring Mickey & Judy, featuring free-range theatre kids attempting to PUT ON A SHOW.

Next up, a Cole Porter musical. As with most Cole Porter musicals that are not Anything Goes or Kiss Me Kate, I know lots of the songs in this one, but have never heard of it before. 

No Ohio Light Opera season would be complete without a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.

I'm excited about OLO's first Leonard Bernstein production, especially because it's Candide. It has an AWESOME OVERTURE. 

You can almost always guarantee that an Offenbach operetta is going to be silly, but La Perichole actually seemed comparatively sedate by his standards... until it gets to Act 3.

And finally, a Lehar operetta. These are generally either moderaetly fluffy or somewhat self-importantly bittersweet and romantic. Fortunately, this is firmly in the first category. 

Looking forward to seeing all this good stuff on the stage on the Freedlander Theatre later this summer! 

The Stratford 2018 Season... in 3 Panels!

It's that time of year again... The Stratford Festival's opening is just around the corner and it's time to take a look at their playbill for the season. Here we go! 

First up we have a classic musical that needs no introduction.

Then some Shakespeare! This production of The Tempest has a female Prospero, so... ignore the beard. 

Then it's everybody's favorite sci-fi/comedy/horror rock musical! 

Then a stage adaptation of a classic book. 

The following is possibly the production I'm most excited about. By all accounts this is going to be an extremely cinematic and visually stunning production of an underrated Shakespeare play. 

Let's lighten things up with some Oscar Wilde. No, not the one with the handbag. It's the one with all the letters. 

I knew nothing about the following Italian play, which is getting a new translation at Stratford this season. It seems to be half rollicking riotous comedy and half cynical dark comedy. Either way, I'm looking forward to it. 

This season's production of Julius Caesar features some great gender-neutral casting, with Caesar and Cassius, among others, being played by female actors. Very excited about this.  

DISCLAIMER. The following two plays are NEW plays, which means I don't have any idea what they will actually be like. What I do know, though, is the source material they are based upon. And so I present....

...and, with a similarly literary bent, we have...

One more Shakespeare! This one looks like it's going to be quite the production, with male/female Antipholi and Dromios. 

Finally we have this entry from what I call "The American Canon of Miserable Families Being Miserable", by Eugene O'Neill. 

SOUNDS LIKE FUN!

But in all seriously, I'm very much looking forward to this season at the Stratford Festival. Maybe I'll see you there! 

The Birth of Merlin (in 3 Panels)

One final Apocrypha for the time being. This one sounds particularly fun, if you ask me.

Action packed with lots of magic and comedy and hijinks! The Birth of Merlin was originally printed attributing it to Shakespeare and William Rowley, but most people agree it was written by Rowley alone, or possibly with another collaborator who was definitely not Shakespeare. It still sounds like a lot of fun, though. 

There are more apocrypha to tackle in the future, but that's it for the moment!

Thomas of Woodstock (in 3 Panels)

I'm particularly intrigued by today's Shakespeare Apocrypha play, Thomas of Woodstock, as it is, essentially, a prequel to Richard II. 

Richard II picks up almost immediately after Thomas of Woodstock, with people arguing over who murdered him. When I saw Breath of Kings, which condensed Richard II, Henry IV  parts 1 and 2, and Henry V into two plays, at the Stratford Festival last season, they actually opened with the murder of Thomas from Thomas of Woodstock, which I thought was a nice way to try and fill in the backstory of Richard II a bit.

Thomas of Woodstock exists only as an incomplete, anonymous manuscript. Many people have tried to argue that Shakespeare wrote it, but, as with the other apocrypha, there is no evidence and no scholarly consensus to back up that claim. 

Arden of Faversham (in 3 Panels)

Let's continue our journey through Shakespeare's Apocrypha, with a play that SOUNDS like it should be a rogue Jane Austen novel, but absolutely isn't.

Arden of Faversham was actually based upon the real-life murder of Thomas Arden, which caused quite a stir at the time. I haven't read it, but the synopsis makes it sound unintentionally hilarious, with Alice reruiting what seem to be a dozen different people to murder her husband, none of whom actually manage to do so until the very end. 

The author or authors of Arden remain unknown. The play was published anonymously, and subsequent generations of scholars have cycled through all the likely suspects: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, and others. It's possible Shakespeare contributed some material to it, but there doesn't seem to be any overriding consensus on the matter. 

Upcoming Appearances

I'm giving the opening address at the Utah Shakespeare Festival Wooden O Symposium! Here are all the fun details:

WHO: Me!
WHAT: Opening address at USF's cross-disciplinary Shakespeare conference! I'll be talking about Good Tickle Brain, comics, and Shakespeare! 
WHEN: Monday, August 7, 5:00pm
WHERE: Movie Theatre, Sharwan Smith Student Center, Cedar City, Utah
WHY: Because they asked me!
HOW: My talk is free and open to the public! Just show up!

A Yorkshire Tragedy (in 3 Panels)

Let's get back to Shakespeare's Apocrypha, a.k.a. plays that have, at some point in time, been attributed to Shakespeare but either have not survived or are generally agreed to have been written mostly or entirely by people who were definitely not Shakespeare! Today's installment is the extremely problematic Yorkshire Tragedy! 

This rather hideous play was originally registered and printed with Shakespeare listed as the author, but general consensus today is that it was actually written by Thomas Middleton. It sounds like a terrible evening at the theatre, if you ask me. Shakespeare is well out of this one. 

Upcoming Appearances

I'm giving the opening address at the Utah Shakespeare Festival Wooden O Symposium! Here are all the fun details:

WHO: Me!
WHAT: Opening address at USF's cross-disciplinary Shakespeare conference! I'll be talking about Good Tickle Brain, comics, and Shakespeare! 
WHEN: Monday, August 7, 5:00pm
WHERE: Movie Theatre, Sharwan Smith Student Center, Cedar City, Utah
WHY: Because they asked me!
HOW: My talk is free and open to the public! Just show up!

The Ohio Light Opera 2017 Season in 3 Panels Each!

It's almost time for my favorite light opera theatre company's season to start! The Ohio Light Opera kicks off their 2017 season this weekend. Let's see what they have in store for us this year...

We start off with a couple well-known musicals, the first being Meredith's Willson's magnum opus, The Music Man. 

So far so good. Next up is Cole Porter's Anything Goes. 

When you think about Anything Goes, you think about all the great song and dance numbers. You never think about the denouement with the dubious Chinese disguises. That's because it's stupid. 

OLO was kind enough to program the same Gilbert and Sullivan operetta that is playing at the Stratford Festival this year, so I didn't have to draw a new comic of it:

"THIS RESOLVES EVERYTHING SOMEHOW", a.k.a. the motto of most Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. I loves 'em.

From Gilbert and Sullivan to Gershwin, Primrose looks like a nice, typical, early American musical, with lots of couples getting mixed up.

Side note: I really resent drawing 3-panel plays of shows that have more than two couples in them, because it's a real pain to try and fit six or more people in a single panel. 

A lovely Ruritanian romance classic by Sigmund Romberg is up next:

There always has to be a bittersweet operetta in any OLO season to balance out all the frothy, lighthearted capering, and The Student Prince is this year's offering.

Next up is ONE OF MY FAVORITES AAAAAAAAAH I LOVE IT:

I love Countess Maritza. Apart from Die Fledermaus, it's probably my favorite of the Classical Viennese Operetta genre. The music is great and the plot is actually decent. The last OLO production of Maritza back in 2003 probably ranks as one of my top ten theatrical experiences of all time; I'm not even joking.

OK, next up we have this hot mess: 

Don't ask me any questions about this one. I have absolutely no answers, but it's currently in the running for this season's Stupidest Plot in a Musical or Operetta award. I absolutely can't wait to see it. If it's half as stupid as Herbert's Dream City and the Magic Knight, it'll be a real winner. 

And that's the Ohio Light Opera's 2017 season! If you're in Midwest, seriously think about checking them out - they've perfected the art of balancing the madcap stupidity and unapologetic melodrama of operetta and early American musicals, and it's always a delight to watch them. I can't wait to visit them in August!

Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival

In other news, I will be exhibiting at the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival (nee Kids Read Comics) this weekend! Stop by the downtown Ann Arbor District Library between 12:00pm and 5:30pm on Saturday and Sunday and say hello! I will be selling the usual t-shirts, posters, and comic books. It's going to be a lot of fun!

The Stratford Festival 2017 Season... in 3 Panels!

Spring is in the air, which means the Stratford Festival's season is getting underway, so it's about time for me to put together a handy guide to the plays that will be appearing on their myriad stages this year. This season the theme is "Questions of Identity".

We start with one of my all-time favorite musicals:

Then we have one of my all-time favorite piratical swashbucklers:

And then this play. I guess it's a classic of some sort, I dunno...

From Shakespearean classic to Gilbert and Sullivan classic:

I've written a theme song for this next play. It goes like this: "Who lives in a hole and acts quite beastly? SPONGETIMON ATHENSPANTS! Embittered and dirty and misanthropic is he. SPONGETIMON ATHENSPANTS!"

Then, for all your gender-bending needs, we have what is probably my favorite Shakespearean comedy:

It may seem like writing a three-panel summary of a play is a fairly straightforward endeavor. Unfortunately, this is only true when the play itself is relatively straightforward, unlike our next offering:

"After many confusions" is code for "too much stupid stuff happened for me to adequately distill in this format."

Then it's time for a play by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Thomas Middleton:

There's a whole complicated subplot that I haven't even bothered to address here. Anyways. Keeping with the "bodies everywhere" theme, we have this classical offering:

Up next are a couple of new plays, so I may not be 100% accurate with these summaries. First is a follow-up to The Last Wife, Kate Hennig's play about the life of Katherine Parr. This one revolves around a young Elizabeth I and her highly-problematic relationship with Thomas Seymour:

The Breathing Hole is another new play by Colleen Murphy. I may not have all the details right, but the important thing to remember here is that it stars a polar bear.

These two new Canadian plays are followed by a pair of French plays, one classic:

...and one a bit more contemporary:

The final play of Stratford's season is The Komagata Maru Incident. It's framed in a very metatheatrical way, which I'm going to totally skip over here and just tell you what is being metatheatrically portrayed. 

(Stick figures don't do "metatheatrical" very well....)

And that's the Stratford Festival's 2017 season! Speaking of which, I will be participating in the Festival's Forum this season as part of a panel entitled "Willy Shakes: Fanboy". Here are the details:

WHO: Me and the Kill Shakespeare guys (Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery)
WHAT: A panel discussion on Shakespeare, comics, graphic novels, and whatever else.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 6, 10:45am
WHERE: The Chalmers Lounge at the Avon Theatre, Stratford, ON
WHY: Because they asked me to and it sounded really cool.
HOW: You can check out the details and buy tickets online!

If you're in the Stratford area, I hope to see you there!