from the ISTHMUS Daily Page

Why write a show about Genesis?
It’s a common human impulse to want to explain where we came from. We wanted to explore the dichotomy between evolution and creationism in a big, fun musical. We created these characters—Adam, a fundamentalist type who believes he’s getting instructions from God on how to start the human race, and Eve, a free-spirited mutant
ape, who is trying to make things work with Adam, but feels out of her element. And, of course, when Skipper, the fish with legs, arrives on the scene, everything spirals out of control.

How did this show evolve?
We’ve spent a couple of years thinking, reading, and writing about this topic. We’ve been really inspired by Richard Dawkins’ book, The Ancestor’s Tale, and Frans DeWaal’s Our Inner Ape, which is all about our closest relatives, chimps and bonobos. We produced a one-act version of this show as part of the Blasphemy trinity in January.

What’s different about this version?
We know more about Adam and his relationship to God. We learn more about Eve’s personal journey, and there’s a lot more development of Eve’s relationship with Skipper, the fish. We also get to know more about Eve’s family of origin. There are seven new tunes that I think are some of Andrew’s best compositions, including an amazing song called “Surrender,” which is Eve’s coming out song.

What about bonobos? Are Eve’s family members bonobos?
They live like bonobos, in a peaceful, pansexual, egalitarian, female-centered commune. Eve can’t remember her life with her family because of a head injury. But we (the audience) see that her family is different: rather than the violent and maledominated world Adam represents, the ape family works out their conflicts out through
sexual expression, like bonobos.

Will Christians be offended?
For the most part, the show is lighthearted and irreverent, with an edge. I think audiences might be pleasantly surprised at how kindly we treat spiritual searchers, like Eve, who would like to talk to God, but doesn’t understand what that means. Biblical literalists— people who believe God created the world as it is 6,000 years ago— will have problems with this show. So will anyone who resists the fact that apes are our cousins.

Tell me about your experience working with the cast.
Some of the cast members have been a part of the Rohn-Capellaro musical family since Temp Slave, like Broom Street and Mercury Players veteran Marcy Weiland, Christopher Babiarz, who wowed audiences as Dr. Normal in Madison and the New York Fringe Festival productions of Walmartopia, and Ken Adams, who I once whipped onstage in Temp Slave. Kelly Maxwell’s Madison debut was in Walmartopia. We are
delighted to be working with these actors again. Equally exciting is the chance to collaborate with people we haven’t worked with before, like Luke Arthur, who I met taking improv classes at the Monkey Business Institute.

You also play in a number of bands. Are the musicians working on this show all people you’ve worked with before?
Mostly. Andrew, Marcy, Kelly and I are all in the disco band V05 (which won the MAMA award for “Best Cover Band” this year). Biff from the Gomers is a long-time friend (V05 loves the Gomers, especially since they admitted defeat in our “Rock vs. Disco” show), and he played for Walmartopia in Madison and at the New York Fringe Encore performances. Gordon Ranney and Geoff Brady (also Gomers) have both subbed for VO5 shows, too. We’re so excited to have three Gomers aboard!

Tell me a little bit about your process. Do you both write the script? What about the musical numbers? Does one of you write the music and the other write the lyrics, or do you collaborate on both?
Our process has changed over the years, but it involves many, many conversations and brainstorms, arguments, compromises, and resolutions. We have to have a very strong feeling and agreement on an idea for a show before it can really take off artistically. Once we hash out a general idea, we split off, with me writing the script and Andrew writing music and lyrics. Sometimes an idea for a song shapes a scene, and vice versa. It’s still a big mystery to us, but somehow it all comes together. The collaboration doesn’t end when we start rehearsals. Once we start working with the choreographer (Shannon Barry, who choreographed Attack of the Mini-Musicals, Blasphemy, and Walmartopia) and the cast and crew, we still need to stay in touch with our separate and shared artistic visions.

What's it like writing with your spouse? Does your personal relationship make it easier or more difficult to work together?
It’s challenging. Whatever show we’re working on tends to dominate our lives to an extreme. We wake up in the morning thinking about the show. Our director in New York said “all collaborators are married,” which is probably true. But did Rodgers and Hammerstein argue about who’s folding the laundry? There’s no escaping our interdependent fates. Our twin boys, Leo and Julian, were born in 1999, and everything changed then. We've had to incorporate them into our theater lives to make it work. They feel very at home in the theater. In fact, I was performing (as a dominatrix in “Temp Slave”) when I found out I was pregnant. The boys have spent their childhoods running around backstage and in the aisles of the Bartell, the Capitol Theater, and the Minetta Lane Theater, where we did our Off-Broadway run.

Are you working on any other projects?
We plan to adapt Walmartopia into a screenplay, and we want to serialize musical comedy shorts on YouTube. We continue to explore the performing aspects of our lives by both playing with V05 and the Madgadders Band and we’re both studying improvisational comedy at the Monkey Business Institute. We’d like to form a troupe that does musical sketch comedy on a regular basis here in Madison.

What's going on with Walmartopia? Is anyone else planning on producing the show?
Walmartopia was produced by the Landless Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. in April. It’s being performed at Cocoa Beach High School in November, and in Twentynine Palms, California in April.

How do you feel about the New York production?
The past few years have been a crash course in musical theater for us. We were surprised at how eager producers and designers in New York were to work with us. It seemed like the city was hungry for new voices. We completely revamped the show for this new context, and there are some things we would have done differently in hindsight, some cuts we might have resisted. We had some astounding talents in the show, and it had Broadway-quality production values: a breathtaking set, costumes, and giant billboards. It was a rush. We were interviewed by CNN and Al-Jazeera! It felt a little like someone else’s life. When the show opened, we got slammed by most critics, which wasn’t easy, but not unsurprising. We had a dedicated cast, adoring fans, and plenty of raucous, enthusiastic audiences. We realize what an anomaly it is to even get produced in New York, so we feel lucky that we got a four-month run.

Anything else you'd like to share?
Science and nature are miracles.
--Catherine Capellaro