Posted by Julie in Indianapolis Opera, News, Review
Team Gardner, perform in Indianapolis Opera’s premiere of HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANDA JUNE: “The cast knew what they had to do, and seemed fully invested in the show both dramatically and vocally. Jake Gardner maintained stunning bravado with the right hints of vulnerability as Harold Ryan.” “A crucial aspect of the action comes from the world beyond, a heaven that clearly was also beyond Vonnegut’s capacity for belief. It’s a paradise of bland pleasures flecked with the occasional harmless disaster, such as the tornado that the third Mrs. Ryan (given a fine tipsy lilt by Jill Gardner) tells us about.” Read the full review at Jay Harvey Upstage…
Posted by Julie in Indianapolis Opera, News
Wonderful and informative article on the upcoming Vonnegut premier, HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANDA JUNE, with Indianapolis Opera. “He (Vonnegut) constantly told me (Composer Richard Auldon Clark) “The words are important. The story is the most important.” Read the full article from the Indy Star here.
Posted by Julie in Indianapolis Opera, News
Happy Birthday Wanda June began life as a play by Kurt Vonnegut in October 1971 at New York’s Theater de Lys. The play was Vonnegut’s first attempt at a stage work. Written to protest the Vietnam War in 1970, the play blends the sacred and the profane to produce off-the-wall and strangely funny satires. Wanda’s plot is based loosely on the Greek legends of Odysseus and Penelope—it involves the unexpected return of a mercenary career solider/hunter named Harold Ryan and his wife, Penelope. When Harold left Penelope, she was a ditzy carhop; when he returns after eight years lost in the Amazon, he finds that she has gone to college, majored in…
