Wal-Mart is the new McDonald's.

Last year the acclaimed documentary "Super Size Me" had the fast food giant scrambling to promote a healthier image, replacing oversized fries and burgers with salads, fruit plates and walk-o-meters.

This year's documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" prompted the chain's public relations team to try to portray a more diverse, generous and community-centered company behind the trademark yellow smiley face.

Helping to expose what's beneath that face is Mercury Players Theatre in its latest production, "Walmartopia."

Mercury first performed "Walmartopia" as a 40-minute mini-musical in 2004.

Now a full-length production, the show is a wacky and imaginative parody of big-box culture, with catchy song-and-dance numbers and a truckload of enthusiasm from the 27-member cast.

Read the full review by Rena Archwamety Beyer of the Capital Times

Walmartopia is an agit-prop piece that's part Wizard of Oz, part Michael Moore film, part after-school special. - Gwen Quick, Madison Core Weekly

Wal-Mart is the big-box retailer that everyone loves to hate. Sure it's got the lowest prices, and it's fun to stock up on great quantities of things you don't really need at Sam's Club. But the mega-store has a list of detractors a mile long, including small businesses, environmentalists, workers' advocates and 1.6 million women who are currently involved in the world's largest lawsuit for sexual discrimination. Add to the list Catherine Capellaro and Andrew Rohn, authors and composers of Walmartopia, an original musical produced by Mercury Players Theatre

Walmartopia is an agit-prop piece that's part Wizard of Oz, part Michael Moore film, part after-school special. It's got a lot of heart, and its large cast gives everything they've got, with over a dozen rousing musical numbers that range from a stage full of blue-vested employees holding smiley-face signs and complaining about their jobs, to a hilarious send-up of Wal-Mart's CEO being, in his own words, "nibbled to death by guppies," to the horrifying futuristic propaganda piece "Bullets are Freedom."

read the full review by by By Gwen Quirk of the Core Weekly, Madison

Run, don't walk to get your tickets for the rollicking song-and-dance show....You'll come out laughing like a loon, and the show's sneaky
tunes'll play in your head for weeks to come." -Isthmus Weekly

Past Praise for Rohn and Capellaro

“The American musical has faded since Rodgers and Hammerstein. But here in Madison, the genre has a sprightly writing team in Catherine Capellaro and Andrew Rohn, of local renown for Temp Slave: The Musical.”—Kenneth Burns, Isthmus

“This consistently innovative local troupe puts out some of the most compelling original and political theater in Madison.”—Linda Falkenstein, Isthmus

“The finale is a 40-minute musical called Walmartopia. The outrageous songs and dance numbers, performed in blue-and-silver Wal-Mart vests, delight the people in the audience, who laugh, clap and holler throughout the show. The night’s performance ends with a standing ovation.”—Wisconsin State Journal

“The same theater that seemed cavernous two and a half years before was jammed, rocking to Walmartopia, the new musical by Madison’s own Catherine Capellaro and Andrew Rohn. —Jeremy Harrell, Isthmus

Praise for Temp Slave, the musical

“It’s not often that something so illuminating is also so much fun!”— Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America

[Temp Slave] is delightfully rambunctious, making a powerful statement with zest and humor.”—Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

“This witty, wise and poignant story of temporary workers in the 1990s ably updates the tradition of Odets.” —John Nichols, the Capital Times

“The music is bright, the jokes are clever, and the plot moves right along. As sheer enjoyment, it’s a hit, and it’s bound to appeal to people on this basis who may not otherwise be open to its politics. And secondly, the politics are great. Temp Slave is geared to the young and the exploited, the clerical workers in the service sector who find themselves in dead-end jobs. It points out the boorishness of bosses, their crude anti-unionism, and the crookedness of politicians. If I were a union organizer or a union leader, I’d want to have all my members see this play. If I were John Sweeney, I’d have the Temp Slave troupe tour America! It’s that good.”—Matthew Rothschild, editor The Progressive