Director and actor Beth Glover appeared in the first production of Wicked City at the Mason Street Warehouse in Michigan, and brought the fast-pace spoof of the detective genre to our attention. Beth kindly agreed to direct the Depot Theatre production, and below are her notes about the show.
Chad Beguelin and Matt Sklar wrote Wicked City back in the late 90’s. It had a workshop at New York Theatre Workshop in ’99 and then another one at American Stage in Teaneck, NJ. The show didn’t receive a full production and World premiere until 2004 at Mason Street Warehouse in Saugatuck, MI. Our production is the FIRST full production since then making it a Regional Premiere.
Through its evolution, the idea was always to capture the snappy dialogue and style of film noir using a jazzy Broadway score. But what story could best serve that for a modern audience through the use of musical theatre? What better than a Greek Tragedy with its heavy drama a given. I’ll let you figure out which Greek Tragedy as you watch, if you haven’t already heard.
In preparing for this production here at The Depot I wanted to honor Chad and Matt’s original vision, use much of what we developed at Mason Street (I was a part of that production) and of course, bring some new twists, turns and ideas.
So While working on the set with Charlie Jicha and looking for my concept, I remembered from touring the country with plays and musicals, many of the houses we played were first Vaudeville houses then Film houses. Now they’re venues for mainly musical touring companies -- making that full circle back to theatre. I thought that this show was the perfect melding of the journey of those theatres and mediums: Vaudeville (Greek Tragedy/theatre) to Movies (Film Noir). And we’re performing Wicked City through Modern Musical Theatre; which completes the journey, if you will.
The show, no matter how it’s delivered, is about love. Telling the story by melding these mediums has been great! I hope you recognize and enjoy each reference to all our sources (Vaudeville, Greek Tragedy, Musical Theatre and of course Film Noir). It’s subtle, in your face, loving and silly – sometimes all at once. In the end, we hope great entertainment results because, after all, love makes fools out of all of us.
