Category Archives: Theatre/Performance

Go over the rainbow with Alliance’s folk art take on “Oz”

When it comes to Americana, even a tornado would have a hard time uncovering a story as ingrained in American pop culture as The Wizard of Oz. Though this tale has been told in multiple ways since the 1900 publication of the L. Frank Baum-penned The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it’s the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film starring Judy Garland that has taught most of us that it’s fun to follow the proverbial yellow brick road, but there is ultimately no place like home. Through March 11, the Alliance Theatre will be taking theatergoers over the rainbow in a production that is loyal to the film while also putting its own folk art twist on the tale. From the patchwork pattern that covers the stage floor to the Altoids-tin abdomen of the Tin Woodsman, this version definitely borrows heavily from its surroundings while paying homage to what has become one of Hollywood’s most memorable films. Director Rosemary Newcott (the Alliance’s Sally G. Tomlinson Artistic Director of Theatre for Youth) takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the folk art influences of the play and more.

Your interpretation of The Wizard of Oz is very loyal to the 1939 movie, but it also puts a folk art visual spin on things. That actually seems like a natural fit, but why did you choose to incorporate folk art into the production? Were there any challenges in doing that?

I’m married to a folk artist, so it’s all over my house and I look at it all the time. When you’re looking to design a show you’re always looking at what possible ways you can go, especially when you’re taking an iconic movie like that. You can’t put the film on the stage. So between looking at my husband’s art and basically playing off the Tin Man, who is a piece of folk art as he originally existed – and even if you look at Baum’s drawings there’s some kind of folk art sensibility to his original illustrations – that connection was what inspired this show.

He was about Americana and sought to create this American fairy tale when he wrote The Wizard of Oz. One of my earliest memories is seeing that MGM movie with my family. Talk about pop culture, that film’s images and lines and characters are so integrated into who we all are, certainly on a national level but even internationally, that particular movie and story has just been so constant. In the long run, it’s about how a family and how relationships work, where you find your home and what’s important to you. From that perspective, it’s very connected to the way that a folk artist uses the elements around his or her home to create. When we looked at that, which is just taking out of the earth and creating from wherever you live, it seemed to be such a perfect connection to what that story is.

The Wrestling with Pop culture logo by KRK Ryden has a yellow brick road-like path leading into a giant luchador’s mouth. So I definitely understand how much this story is part of pop culture.

I get it! And it’s so funny, I directed a show in La Jolla, California called Frida Libre. It’s supposed to be Frida Kahlo as a young girl and this other character is aspiring to be one of those Mexican wrestlers. So we played around with that imagery a lot. Of course, out there every other child was Mexican so they really loved it.

You mentioned that your husband is a folk artist. What’s his name?

His name is Tom Marquardt, but he’s got an art name which is TMarq.

You mean like a wrestling gimmick?

Yes! It’s his other persona. He used to do a lot of folk art festivals, but he’s not doing so much of that anymore because the market’s so bad. We did get up to Paradise Garden and got to meet Howard Finster. His persona actually greatly inspired Brandon O’Dell’s Wizard. He watched a lot of videos of Finster and rather than going for the guy in the movie, we just went for more of a Finster-looking gentleman, which is where the costume designer went.

There are some obvious differences between the cast of the movie and the cast of your play. Was that done intentionally to stay with the folk art theme or was it just a matter of who had the best audition?

My mind is always somewhat partial to multicultural casting because I feel like probably 80 percent of my school audiences are African American. We all want to see ourselves up there, but because folk art reflects home, I felt like that needed to be there because that diversity is so reflected in our culture. I would have been even more diverse if I could. There are certain conditions of singing, dancing and acting that you need to have in there, too. But I’m grateful for the amount of talent this city is providing, especially with a lot of actors who are also talented musically. The amount of young people who are triple threats is growing, which is outstanding.

The entire cast is very good, but Brad Raymond as the Cowardly Lion stands out quite a bit.

He’s quite wonderful, and he’s not Bert Lahr. When I first got into that audition process, almost everyone was coming in and trying to do Bert Lahr imitations. You can’t do that! So it was great when Brad came in with something that was uniquely his own twist on it, even though it sort of honors Bert Lahr in some respects.

There are certain parts of the movie that you obviously can’t recreate in this setting, such as when the Wicked Witch of the West catches the Scarecrow on fire, or the Witch having an entire army of green guys. But you captured the feel of the movie without having little people in the cast. Did you have the idea to have puppets and other tricks from the beginning?

It was abosolutely part of the plan, but very tricky. I’m grateful to have Reay Kaplan and Patrick McColery, who have both puppeteered extensively. And Michael Haverty, who did this amazing piece based on Alice in Wonderland that was about his mother at 7 Stages last year, helped us with conceptualizing the puppets. We started brainstorming for this a little less than a year ago. We’d just gather at my house, look at folk art and talk about how to invent this in a way that honors the movie and can still represent that populous. Munchkinland was the trickiest one because it’s a whole culture of little people. If I could cast children, I would. But I can’t, so this was the only way to go. The invention happens because of your limitations, so it reminds me of folk art in that we were taking what little we had and creating from it. The resources at the Alliance obviously helped, too. I’m grateful for the artists and they take such pride in it. It really took a while to evolve Toto because he is handled so much in the show, but I love what they came up with.

The show wraps up this weekend. What do you have planned after that?

We’re taking it on tour to LaGrange and that will be fun for the kids and families out there. It’s at a school that can accommodate some of our scenic elements, but we can’t bring all of them. Hopefully it will be something we can pack up and revive. It’s so connected to everybody I hope it’s something we can bring back.

Right now I’m developing a new piece for our Theatre for the Very Young component, which serves 18-month-old to 5-year-old children. It will play in the Black Box Theatre on the third floor of the Alliance. It’s amazing for me because how do you entertain 18-month-old kids? It’s very installation based and very hands on. They wander right into the space and they’re part of the show. I’m partnering with Lauri Stallings from gloATL for The Tranquil Tortoise and the Hoppity Hare. It’s kind of a dance piece created specifically for younger kids.

Right after that I’m off to The Kennedy Center to remount a production called Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems, which is a piece about a baby and her Knuffle Bunny. Then who knows what’s next? There’s always something cooking up.

For more information, go to www.alliancetheatre.org.

Fantasy and reality are almost indistinguishable in “The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls”

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By Jonathan Williams

Playwright Meg Miroshnik

Once upon a time. It’s the way many fairy tales begin, so it’s only fitting that the Russian equivalent of that phrase is used to begin The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, the 2012 winner of the Alliance/Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. The world premiere of the play (on the Alliance Theatre‘s Hertz Stage through Feb. 26) draws strong parallels between the events of Russian folk tales and the events of the lives of contemporary Russian girls, to the point that it becomes difficult to distinguish between metaphorical fantasy and literal reality. Even though these stories are uniquely Russian, American audiences are likely to recognize elements from stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Bears and Hansel and Gretel. But what might be more difficult to grasp is just how similar contemporary Russian life can be to the folk tales embedded into its culture. But, as Nastya (played by Bree Dawn Shannon) reiterates, “This shit happens.” Playwright Meg Miroshnik conceived of The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls after visiting Russia a few years ago. As the play’s first run winds down, she talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the show’s fairy tale influences and going to see Empire/Platinum Championship Wrestling with one of the stars of her play while she was in Atlanta.

I’ve seen Diany Rodriguez, who plays Masha, several times at the Academy Theatre. But not in any of the plays there.

PCW! Yeah, she took me along. It was actually one of my favorite things I did while I was in Atlanta.

Oh, so you went with her. How many of those shows did you go to?

I just went one Friday. It was really great.

I got used to seeing her there every Friday night, but I had no idea she was an actress. So when I saw her come out at the beginning of The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, I realized why I hadn’t seen her at the wrestling shows in a few weeks.

It was really fun to see her at those shows because she’s such a small person, but she’s just so careless with her aggression when she’s taunting the wrestlers. It was kind of great for her character [whose abusive boyfriend becomes a bear], actually, to see her like that. Even knowing how theatrical the event was, at a couple of points I got a little scared for her because she was so aggressive with these big guys.

Your play is obviously a little bit different from wrestling, though it does blur the lines between fantasy and reality in some similar ways. A lot of the fairy tales referenced in your play are familiar to American audiences. Do children in Russia grow up reading pretty much the same stories?

Annie (Sarah Elizabeth Wallis) stands up to her Auntie Yaraslova/Baba Yaga (Judy Leavell)

I think a lot of them are sort of cousins of fairy tales that Americans grew up with. The Russian fairy tales in this show are Masha and the Bear, which is the story Diany tells (of course it’s modified to exist both in a contemporary Moscow and an older Russian folk tale world.); The Wise Little Girl, the riddle story Katya tells, is a fairy tale; Baba Yaga is true to the fairy tale; and the story that Nastya tells of the fearful bride is (aside from the retribution of the ending, which I added) is almost word-for-word the Russian fairy tale.

A lot of them are very familiar to American audiences, but the things I was interested in were sort of different. Baba Yaga was the first character that really inspired me to write the play and I was really interested in the idea of a witch. She feels kind of like Hansel and Gretel‘s in a lot of stories, especially stories where little girls are forced to stay with her. But she’s also a secondary or tertiary character in a lot of other stories that focus on male heroes, where she’s just this background character that is very helpful and grandmotherly. So I was interested in that dichotomy. I felt like it was very different than the fairy tales I had grown up with where the witches were just bad. I thought she was a little more complicated.

There are certain phrases that are repeated, particularly one where older women tell younger women they can smell their bones. Phrases like that sound a little odd to an American audience, but are those common phrases in Russia?

The idea of a girl having the smell of the roots about her actually does come from Russian folk tales. My hopes with reusing some of those phrases was that they then take on very different meanings. Like when Valentina is telling Katya she smells her bones and that disgusting body spray, it kind of exists in both the fairy tale and the real world in that way. Hopefully those phrases become a little more familiar as they’re repeated throughout the play.

Considering that you are weaving fairy tales into reality, how literally is the audience supposed to take some of these stories? Since it’s pointed out a few times that the American protagonist Annie speaks Russian with an accent, is that meant to imply that maybe she is taking metaphorical things literally because she’s not as fluent in the language?

It’s interesting to talk to audience members afterward and see how literally people take it, especially the ending. It’s been pretty split. The balance I’ve always described is it’s 20 percent fairy tale and 80 percent real world in the beginning of the play and that ratio is very quickly inverted so that by the end we’re living in an 80 percent literal fairy tale. I wanted the situations to be able to exist in both contexts, so after they kill Valentina and Baba Yaga you get that line of “two suicides in one night,” drawing a parallel for the audience of what this would be if it were just a metaphor. Of course there are some design elements that point us towards more literal interpretations like, obviously, having a bear on stage tips the balance there. But I wanted both to exist throughout the play.

I also noticed a lot of reference to eyes, such as the evil eye pendant Annie’s mother puts on her coat before sending her to Russia and Baba Yaga’s line about the potatoes having eyes when Annie is trying to run away. It reminded me a little of Edgar Allan Poe, but is that a common theme in Russian folk tales?

Aunti Yaraslova (Judy Leavell) gives Annie (Sarah Elizabeth Wallis) reason to think she's a witch

There’s a sense of superstition that pervades the whole play and the evil eye was an important part of that for me. Since it starts out as a fairy tale does, with the heroine setting out on a journey and receiving a warning, I thought that was an important way to do that. And that type of superstition in the culture is definitely real. There are very specific things you don’t do because of bad luck. The way Olga buys into the literal existence of the fairy tale world is a question we want to be asking from the beginning. But I had actually connected the evil eye to the potato eyes before. Although there’s a similar expression to potatoes having eyes in Russian, it’s not exactly the same.

Now that this play is coming to a close, what is your next project?

The next thing I’m working on is in Chicago next month for an adaptation of a Shostakovich libretto that I did for the Chicago Opera Theater called Moscow, Cheryomushki. It’s a musical comedy and I loosely adapted it from the Russian original. It’s funny that these two Russian-themed pieces are happening so close together.

I lived there for a couple of years, which is wear the idea for the play came from. And that’s how I’ve sort of fallen into a couple of projects that were Russian related. I actually got to go back in December because the play was workshopped and will be produced by a theater in Moscow, although it’s a radically different production. The Alliance production is really showing the play at its best, so I hope someone else will pick it up. It’s a crazy ride, but on paper I think it may look like an impossible ride. Although it’s crazy and unexpected at times, I think this production really shows that it can work.

For more information, go to www.alliancetheatre.org.

“Ruth and the Green Book” is an uplifting reminder of an oppressive time

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By Jonathan Williams

These days most of us have the convenience of Facebook and other such resources that allow us to connect and communicate with people all over the world for pretty much any reason. But for black travelers in 1950s America, The Green Book was the best way to find out where it was safe to go while road tripping across the country.

Based on the book of the same name by Atlanta-based author Calvin Alexander Ramsey, the Center for Puppetry Arts‘ production of Ruth and the Green Book tackles this tough topic in a refreshingly lighthearted fashion that includes live actors, puppetry, imaginative props and choreographed musical numbers. Playing through Feb. 26, the story begins with Ruth (played by Tara Lake) as an adult recalling the eye-opening trip from Chicago to Alabama she took with her family as a child. When she flashes back to her past, the actors become puppeteers and the audience is transported back to a time when Jim Crow laws made segregation a requirement in the South.

Ruth’s family had never had to deal with such things in Chicago, where her dad had a good job that made it possible to live comfortably, eat well and even drive around in a nice new car. But when she and her family head south to visit relatives, they encounter a racist gas station attendant, a motel that turns them away to sleep in their car (which makes for spooky scene fueled by Ruth’s imagination and the sounds she hears in the woods at night) and more and more places with signs that read “Whites Only.” With the innocence of an 8-year-old, Ruth struggles to understand why people can be treated in such a way simply because they are black. But once a black gas station owner introduced them to The Green Book, they are able to finish their journey under more favorable conditions (even if it means going way off route to support more tolerant businesses).

Photo by Clay Walker

Despite the oppression of the times, Ruth and the Green Book never gets oppressive or preachy. Instead, it manages to capture the family’s determination in an uplifting way through the use of humor and music (thanks to composer/actress S. Renee Clark) that even includes a somewhat hokey rap number (probably to help younger audience members connect a little better to the otherwise unfamiliar times).

Like the book it’s based on, Ruth and the Green Book is an example of the triumph of a family (a microcosm of an entire race) overcoming odds that are frustrating, to say the least. The fact that the story is told mostly through the use of puppets just makes it that much more entertaining and a little easier to digest.

For more information, go to www.puppet.org.

Pat Young becomes a true “Guitar Hero” with Hero for the Heart

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By Jonathan Williams

For the past few years, many video gamers have wasted countless hours living out their rock ‘n’ roll fantasies on Guitar Hero. But for Atlanta-based improv actor Pat Young, his heart is really in it when it comes to playing this game. In fact, Guitar Hero was one of the many things that made his relationship with his father that much more special.

Pat Young channels Axl Rose in Guitar Hero

Originally from Connecticut, Young moved to Atlanta after earning a theatre degree from Florida State University. The aspiring actor chose Atlanta over Orlando (“where I would have been owned by a big giant mouse”) as a stepping stone towards eventually pursuing a career in film and television in New York or Los Angeles. But after moving to the unfamiliar city, Young soon found himself once again turning to his father for reassurance.

“I was very close with my dad,” Young recalls. “He was very supportive of me and everything I did. I moved to Atlanta in 2006 and I didn’t have any friends or a job. I was doing OK until a week later when my car died. He ended up coming down to help me and a few months later came down to visit again. I was telling him about Guitar Hero, which had just come out. I told him it was the coolest video game I had ever seen. The next morning I found him playing ‘Smoke on the Water.’ I thought it was hilarious. It was just like the South Park episode.”

Over the next few years, Young got some of the acting and improv opportunities he was looking for. He’s been in Relapse Comedy Theatre productions such as History of the Devil and regularly appears in Stone Mountain Park productions like Dr. Busybody’s Boogiebot Blast, Wake the Bear and A Crossroads Christmas Carol. But while he was hitting high scores in his professional life, he was hit with a personal whammy when his father was stricken with a heart disease.

“He ended up passing away in November of 2009 from atherosclerosis,” says Young. “Before he died, we talked about making bucket lists and doing stuff we’d always wanted to do. I’d always wanted to break a world record [and] I wanted to try and do something that combined those three ideas: Guitar Hero, my dad and breaking a world record. And I wanted to maybe help other people who are going through or have experienced heart disease.”

Hero for the Heart logo by Joanna Davidovich (www.cupojo.net)

Beginning at noon on Feb. 23, Young will attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for playing Guitar Hero with an event called Hero for the Heart, a benefit for the American Heart Association. The current record is a little longer than 50 hours, but Young plans on playing for 72 hours on the stage of the Horizons School‘s theater, with a goal of raising $5,000 in the process. And the timing couldn’t be better – Young’s father’s birthday would have been Feb. 26, and February is American Heart Month.

“I will be playing Guitar Hero the entire time,” he says. “There will be other people jumping in from time to time and there will be people playing online as well. But I’m the only person that is going to be playing for 72 hours.”

But even if you aren’t into Guitar Hero, there will be other ways to help the cause. Hero for the Heart will also include a silent auction featuring art by the likes of Stephanie Anderson of Neon Armour body painting, and there will be different contests throughout the event with prizes such as Guitar Hero bundle packs, DJ Hero items and, for the person who donates the most money to the cause, the Golden Fiddle Award, a Les Paul controller custom painted by Young, who is becoming a true Guitar Hero over the next three days.

The Human Fuse sets Ringling’s Fully Charged show aflame with flaming human crossbow

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As Cirque du Soleil, Cavalia and other international performance groups have put a sexy and sophisticated twist on the circus of old, the idea of seeing clowns, elephants, acrobats and other such performers feels a bit nostalgic. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still find a three-ring circus spectacle like the ones many of us grew up seeing. In fact, with up to three different shows on tour at any given time, when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to town, you can still expect to find some of the most death-defying feats you’re likely to ever witness. They don’t call it “The Greatest Show on Earth” for nothing.

One of the most amazing feats in Ringling’s Fully Charged show comes from “The Human Fuse” Brian Miser, a man who started out on the trapeze, but has become known for his human cannonball trick. But his routine has evolved to the point that he is now being launched across the arena at 65 miles per hour from a giant crossbow – while he’s on fire! Why would someone do such a thing? Well, Miser talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about how he got to this point in his career and what he has planned for the future.

At what point in your life or your career did you decide you wanted to be shot out of cannons for a living?

Well, when I was on the trapeze I was the acrobat who did the flips and got caught. My shoulders were getting worn out and I wanted to still fly through the air. I was always intrigued by the human cannonball and I got into fabricating and figured, “Well, at least I could still fly through the air if I was a human cannonball.” So I designed and built my own cannon 15 years ago.

You’ve added a few things to your show over the years. Now you’re shot from a giant crossbow while you’re on fire. How did that come about?

Yes. The neat thing about the crossbow is that it’s an open concept. It raises up to a 42-degree angle and you can see me get on top of the crossbow. Then you see me actually ignite on fire, then I burn for three seconds, then I am propelled across the arena at 40 feet high and I fly 110 feet in distance. I’m totally on fire the whole time, about 20 seconds total.

That definitely sounds entertaining for the audience, but I’m not sure about you.

It’s fun for me, too.

Anytime I see athletic spectacles like that, whether it be skateboarding tricks, pro wrestling or someone being shot out of a cannon, I always wonder how do you practice and figure out you are good at something like that?

I’ve been acrobatic since I was eight years old, so for me it kind of came natural. You have to have a lot of body control to know where you’re at, you have to know if you’re going to over-turn or under-turn because I’m actually flying like Superman. But I’m rotating at the same time that I’m doing a flip in the air and I land on my back on an airbag. So I have to be able to control the projection to make my body do the right thing and land the right way. It’s so dangerous that I don’t shoot anymore than I have to. I have a dummy that I shoot in case I need to test something or I’m not sure how high or far I’m going to go.

You met your wife while working in the circus and she used to work with you, first as the one who pulled the trigger, then joining you as the first double human cannonball couple. Was it more comforting or more stressful working so closely with your wife?

She’s actually retired. We have an 8-year-old daughter and my wife is going back to nursing school. So I’m actually traveling by myself now, but I wish she was here. It was much more comfortable with her.

Had you not made a career out of being an acrobat and a human cannonball, what other career paths do you think you might have followed?

Well, I will be driving a monster truck next year.

Oh, cool. I just interviewed Madusa a few weeks ago, who is a former professional wrestler who now drives a monster truck.

Yeah. The circus and Monster Jam are both owned by Feld Entertainment, so they want me to go perform at Monster Jam next year.

Would you still do the human cannonball stuff or devote yourself just to driving a monster truck?

I’m actually doing the cannon and driving a truck. Either at the beginning or at some point during the event, I’d still do the cannonball thing. I’m getting ready to celebrate 31 years as a professional entertainer and this is all I’ve ever done since I was eight years old. But to answer your question about what I’d be doing if I wasn’t doing this, I do a lot of fabricating and building equipment and designing equipment. It’s kind of like my hobby, and what I would probably be doing if I wasn’t a human cannonball.

For more information, go to www.ringling.com.

Wrestling with Pop Culture has complimentary passes to Fully Charged at Philips Arena Feb. 15-20 and at the Gwinnett Center Feb. 23-26. Just comment below with your favorite circus performer. We’ll randomly pick winners from correct answers until all of our passes have been claimed.

Emilie Autumn teaches us how to “Fight Like a Girl” on new album and tour

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By Jonathan Williams

It’s often the crazy ones that grab our attention most, right? Especially when said crazy one is also quite a talented musician. And that’s not even mentioning her visual appeal, which is equal parts Victorian femininity and a brash glam rock aesthetic.

Emilie Autumn is admittedly rather odd. Actually, odd is an understatement when describing her pink-haired eccentricities and openness about the time she has spent in the modern-day equivalent of a Bedlam-like insane asylum. But rather than remain in a Girl, Interrupted-like state of depression, Autumn has been able to parlay her troubled experiences into an imaginative musical production that has evolved into something that is just as much a theatrical burlesque revue as an industrial rock concert. Along the way, her corsets and violins have appeared alongside Courtney Love (how fitting), Metalocalypse and Resistance Pro‘s Billy Corgan (you might also know him from his work with a little band called the Smashing Pumpkins).

Currently on the Fight Like a Girl tour with her backing band the Bloody Crumpets, Autumn is introducing her fans to material from her upcoming album (also called Fight Like a Girl) with an even grander theatrical performance than you may have previously seen from her. Using her 2010 autobiography The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls as inspiration, Autumn’s conceptual album is being brought to life on stages across the country through Feb. 26. Amidst the insanity of this demented touring tea party, Autumn takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the tour, the album and how her bipolar disorder sometimes blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.

When I saw you in Atlanta a couple of years ago, it was your first United States tour…

Oh, that was quite a scandal. They apparently called the cops on us at some point, which was ridiculous. I think you’ll be quite surprised with our new show, not just because of how far we’ve come, but how awesome it is when we’re in a venue that isn’t being awful. When I’m not having to scream at the venue for being an idiot, everything is pretty magical.

We’ve done several European tours, where we’re much better known and much more successful. Because it’s a little bit eccentric and different, people there are quite a bit more open to it. You’re allowed to be a little bit more creative there, which is why when the Opheliac record hit, it hit in Germany and it happened very, very fast. So we did a couple of tours in Europe and the U.K. before we ever set foot back in the States. And we kind of ended up being an import, though we are from here. Of course, it’s grown a great deal since that time. But even in South America we’re far more known than we are here. It’s a very different world and that last tour was definitely a new experience for American audiences.

You’re often described as being “famously bipolar,” so I wasn’t sure if all the drama was just part of the show.

No, that was all completely legit. It is kind of funny – and I’m not ashamed of this in any way – that a large part of what I’ve fortunately been able to figure out and build a career around (so I don’t have to hide that stuff and can make use of it, not only to myself, but also to other people), is also something beautiful. That’s my ultimate revenge against the experimenting, sexual abuse and things like that is to actually make into something that is artistic and beautiful. So everything is very real, but able to be used to tell a good story.

Most people who are bipolar don’t necessarily want that to be known about them, but you choose to almost celebrate it in a lot of ways.

Yeah. Celebrate is a bit of strong word, but in a way I see why you would say that. It’s not a celebration because, God knows, like I say in my book, “no high is worth this kind of low.” It’s more about not being ashamed of it, because I’m not. Depression is serious business, but it’s something you can develop through life. Bipolar disorder is completely genetic. You’re either born with it or you’re not and there’s no getting rid of it through any amount of medication. It’s always going to be there, but it’s a matter of deciding after so much incarceration and suicide attempts, if you’re going to die or if you’re going to fight and live. What this is about is not being ashamed of it and also taking advantage of my job as an entertainer, which is one of the only jobs I could have where I wouldn’t have to completely be in shame and hide my psychological medical history.

Even though it shouldn’t be this way, once it’s on the books that you’ve been locked up in an insane asylum, any legitimate job background check would find this and one would have a difficult time getting certain positions because you’re seen as mentally unstable. In the medical world, one has an extreme mental illness. That’s how’s it’s seen, so I just wanted to use my own luxury of being creative and artistic and being able to turn this into something that could help other people. I get to run around with crazy hair and paint a heart on my face every day and get away with it. As long as I’m a good entertainer, I can incorporate this into a story. The same way you didn’t know it was real or a storytelling thing, a lot of people won’t and that’s OK. But for those that do and end up identifying with it, everybody needs some compassion and something to make them feel like they are not bad because of life situations.

A lot of people are, in fact, made to feel like they are evil for a lot of the side effects of these things. Or just for being really individual and not the social status quo. It’s shocking that in this day and age we would even be talking about this, but it’s very, very true. There’s super scary stuff we still don’t talk about and being in this position to be this ridiculously open about it – writing a book, talking about it, singing about it – and yet not to be woefully dwelling on it. Not everything is about this. It’s more about situations and telling a good story, and the story happens to include me and my life. But it’s about something so much bigger now, this Asylum World, which is something that a lot of people have been able to come to see as, not only my sanctuary, but theirs as well. Especially when they come to the shows because it’s understood and I say, “This is a night that you come and celebrate your absolutely crazy individuality and realize how beautiful it is and don’t apologize for anything.” It’s come really far to clearly be able to send that message in a really entertaining Broadway sort of way.

That was exactly what I thought when I saw you before. It reminded me of something that might be seen on Broadway, in Las Vegas or even at Disney World.

It has become like a Broadway musical and that is actually the goal within a few years is to have a cast of 40 and have this be legitimately on a Broadway stage. It just can’t fit into rock venues any more, so this is all kind of rehearsal for that.

It’s definitely much more of a rock opera and I’m really pleased that even in that setting, which was far from ideal, that you saw that. It makes me really happy that we were able to convey that, and it’s just gotten more massive and epic, along with the new record, which was built to be part of the ultimate Broadway show that this is becoming. It needs a residency somewhere to where it isn’t just traveling around in various theaters. It’s a wonderful experience to go to all these different places, but ultimately it won’t be able to fit into a lot of the places we play. In order to have the massive sets every night and be able to do the complete show with all the fire and the aerials and all that, it’s going to need to be in a place that is at least a similar size and setup each night. It is a rock show, especially now because we have some serious rock and metal songs on the new album. But it’s all meant to be a rock opera and it’s become very evident. This tour is to be part of the three-hour musical and the record was written to be the soundtrack. It’s epic and cinematic and not meant to fall into any particular rock or industrial format.

What else can you tell me about the new album and when it will be available?

We’re performing the music on this tour and the album will come out right after this tour. I actually wanted to do this a bit backwards and I think it’s been working in a really cool way. In the past, because the Opheliac record’s been available, anywhere I’ve gone everybody has known every word to every song. So they’d sing along with us from the time we walked out. I wanted to see what it would be like if that were not the case. Like any band, we include the old favorites from the previous record, but a majority of the songs are new. So I wanted to experiment with what it would be like for people to go into a show and not know the music yet, not necessarily scream and sing along and for people to actually have to listen and learn the story along with everyone else. Of course, after the first show that wasn’t the case thanks to YouTube, but it was a nice try.

What’s the story that’s being told on the new album?

It’s called Fight Like a Girl. A lot of people abbreviate it to FLAG, which is kind of cool in its own way. It tells the story of a particular part of my book, which is like the bible of the Asylum World and me and everything I have to do with. The album and the show begins with that amazing moment when all the inmates of this Victorian insane asylum for girls, through some really extraordinary circumstances, find that they, in fact, have the power to open the main cell and release each other. So they’re all standing there realizing, “Holy fuck! There’s, like, a thousand of us and maybe 50 members of the staff. If we break out of here right now and get a hold of the weapons and tools they use on us, we become the scary ones. There’s power in numbers and the numbers are on our side.”

So they go on this rampage and have this thing called the Tea Party Massacre where they just slaughter everyone in order to gain their freedom, take back the asylum and end the years of torture. That’s how it begins, and we start with the song “Fight Like a Girl,” which really just says, “This is what’s about to happen.” Then we have a song “Time for Tea” because the clock strikes four, it’s tea time and time to go. Then they go on the warpath and take down everyone. After that we go to a flashback – in the show and on the record – of how all of this began and how this really started for me. Then my Victorian counterpart and I switch back and forth. The book is made up entirely of diary entries between myself in the modern world and my counterpart experiencing the very same things in 1841. Then we bring ourselves up through the show and the story right back where we started at the fight. That brings us to the end, after we’ve taken back this prison and tried to make it a sanctuary, the question is, “Where do we go from here? Just because we’re alive doesn’t mean that we’re living. Now that we have no one left to fight, how do we know who we are? We’ve identified with being prisoners for so long.” So it comes down to the song “One Foot In Front of the Other,” which is the answer to “How do you fucking go on with all this stuff in your head and the horrors that have happened?” The answer is that there is no answer. It’s simply one foot in front of the other foot in front of the one foot in front of the other foot. It’s a sort of march into the future that happens.

For more information, go to www.emilieautumn.com.

Puppets, music and dance tell the tale of “The Fabled Cinderella”

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The enchanted tale of Cinderella is familiar across many cultures and age groups. Having been retold in many different ways, this folk tale about a young beauty who is oppressed by her stepmother and stepsisters until a charming prince returns her magical glass slipper has become one of the most iconic of pop culture mainstays. Following in the slippered footsteps of Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet, the Enchantment Theatre Company‘s interpretation transports the viewer to Cinderella’s fabled realm by using puppets, elaborate costumes and extravagant set pieces.

Jere Flint

With an established collaborative relationship with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that dates back to the ’80s, the Philadelphia-based troupe returns to the Woodruff Arts Center‘s Symphony Hall on Feb. 12 for two performances of The Fabled Cinderella with the ASO and staff conductor Jere Flint.

Featuring music from Prokofiev’s ballet and other folk music, The Fabled Cinderella tells this magical tale with little dialogue (other than narration between each act), letting the story unfold through music and dance.

“We use different things to tell the story,” says Enchantment artistic director Landis Smith, who also plays the prince. “The stepmother and stepsisters are big body puppets that some of our actors wear over their shoulders and operate the arms and the head. The stepsisters are really just ridiculously funny. The first time they come on stage, the audience just starts to laugh. Most fairy tales have a dark side to them. The way we handle it is with humor. The stepmother and stepsister are very exaggerated and funny.”

In order to keep the audience fully immersed in this fantasy world, the rest of the actors wear equally over-the-top costumes and masks.

“It’s fun telling the story the way we do,” says Smith. “Sometimes a puppet or mask is better at portraying a larger-than-life part like the wicked stepmother or the nasty stepsisters. It’s easier to have those kinds of tools and in some ways more convincing than trying to do it realistically.”

Though The Fabled Cinderella is similar to the Cinderella tale most of us know, there are some subtle changes to some of the characters.

“The prince in this show does parlor tricks,” says Smith. “That’s how he breaks the ice with the girls. He’s very shy and gradually gets his nerve when he sees Cinderella. Another thing that’s different in this story is you don’t get to see Cinderella’s mother or father. You do see how they were a family together, but the mother passes on and the father remarries and brings home the stepmother and stepsisters. They’re not too nice and they subjugate Cinderella to the hearth and make her do all the dirty work because they’re selfish and mean.”

Smith also says that, despite its childlike whimsy, The Fabled Cinderella has been known to delight audiences of all ages.

“Part of our mission with the Enchantment Theatre is to bring people together of all ages and all backgrounds so they can enjoy a story that everybody can understand,” says Smith. “I’m 60 years old and still get to do what I enjoy doing. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to play the prince, though. I think I’m getting a little old for that, but I hope it’ll work this time. I’m not as skinny and young looking as I used to be, but I do wear a mask, which helps me cheat. My wife used to play Cinderella, but now she’s the puppeteer for one of the stepsisters. Maybe next time I’ll be one of the stepsisters and one of the younger people will play the prince.”

For more information, go to www.atlantasymphony.org or www.enchantmenttheatre.org.