Contact:
Catie Monck
(212) 695-7400
catie@oandmco.com
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“ W A L M A R T O P I A “
THE MUSICAL!
TO HAVE ENCORE NEW YORK ENGAGEMENT
DIRECT FROM SOLD-OUT RUN AT 2006 N.Y. INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVAL,
MULTI-SMILEY FACE HIT
PLAYS SEPTEMBER 15-23
AT HYPOTHETICAL THEATRE ( 14 th STREET Y)New York , NY -- Walmartopia The Musical!, the show from Madison , Wisconsin , that was a sensation of the the 2006 New York International Fringe Festival, will have an encore NYC engagement as part of “FringeNYC Encores.” The irreverent new musical send-up of big business and eternal smiley faces, will play eight additional performance at the Hypothetical Theatre (14 th Street Y - 344 East 14 th Street, between 1 st & 2 nd Aves.), from September 15 – 23 (see performance schedule below).
Walmartopia , called “genuine Fringe fun” by the Village Voice, is written by Catherine Capellaro (libretto and direction) and Andrew Rohn (music and lyrics), and features a lead performance by Anna Jayne Marquardt, who received the Outstanding Actor Award at this year’s Fringe Festival.
With a cast of 17 and a 5-member band, Walmartopia tells the hilarious and timely tale of Vicki Latrell, a single mom who speaks out against her company’s working conditions and finds herself jettisoned to 2036, into a future where Wal-Mart dominates the entire world. Yes, the musical features the singing head of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.
Walmartopia The Musical! premiered in Madison in a sold-out record-breaking run in 2005 (and an encore engagement earlier this year). Since then, the show has become something of a legend in the Badger State . The Wisconsin State Journal raved, “Campy, caustic and comically irresistible;” while Madison Magazine dubbed Rohn and Capellaro “a hip Rodgers and Hammerstein.”
Madison ’s Mayor Dave Cieslewicz even declared “Walmartopia Days” with an official proclamation. And in Wisconsin ’s finest progressive tradition, Walmartopia is becoming a lightning rod for its prescient message (Wal-Mart has faced increasing scrutiny in the past years for its stingy health insurance plan and treatment of its workers and producers abroad. The company also faces the largest sex-discrimination suit in history – 1.6 million women).
In an ironic twist, the real folks at Wal-Mart hired a New York firm to create a musical for their shareholders meeting in Bentonville , Arkansas in June. This bears an uncanny resemblance to Walmartopia, which features its heroine being drafted into Wal-Mart-sponsored musicals in the present and 30 years from now. As a response to Wal-Mart’s musical, the playwrights of Walmartopia have updated the show with a new number, “A Woman’s Place is at Wal-Mart”. This means that Walmartopia could be the first musical in history to respond to a musical responding to a musical.
Catherine Capellaro and Andrew Rohn have performed and written musicals for more than 10 years in Madison , and created the cult hit, Temp Slave. They met under the tutelage of the late iconoclastic theater director, Joel Gersmann of Broom Street Theater, for which Rohn wrote the music for The Grant (1992) and My Fair Arab (1993) and where Capellaro performed. The couple has produced eight short musicals, some of which were combined to create Attack of the Mini-Musicals (2002). Rohn is a composer of pop and jazz and is a pianist and drummer. He has performed with a Javanese Gamelan, and played Kora with a Ghanian group, among other adventures. Capellaro performs with the dance band VO5 (trumpet and vocals), and has worked as a journalist for the Progressive Media Project. She is currently managing editor of Rethinking Schools. Their seven-year-old twin boys will accompany the troupe on the tour.
The Walmartopians en route back to New York for the encore engagement count among their day j0bs: physician, magazine editor, database manager, water chemist, typesetter, social worker, drug and alcohol counselor and massage therapist, among other vocations.
Walmartopia will play the following performance schedule:
Friday, September 15 at 4 p.m.
Sunday, September 17 at 5 & 8:30 p.m.
Monday, September 18 at 4 p.m.
Tuesday, September 19 at 6:30 p.m.
Friday, September 22 at 4 p.m.
Saturday, September 23 at 2 & 5 p.m.
Tickets for the encore NYC performances of Walmartopia are $18 and will go on sale September 1. They are available through www.TicketCentral.com or 212.279.4200.
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