For the second time this decade, a Wichita State Opera and Musical Theatre production has taken to the road at the invitation of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. “The Wild Party,” based on a 1928 poem that was promptly banned in Boston, is competing in the KCACTF regional Jan. 20-26 in Council Bluffs/Omaha, Neb.

 

“This is a real honor,” said Marie Allyn King, director of WSU Opera and Musical Theatre, and the director for “Wild Party.” “Only five shows in our eight-state region have been asked to go.”

 

Region 5 of the Kennedy Center competition covers Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. WSU’s Opera and Musical Theatre students last competed regionally with “Pippin,” which traveled to host city St. Louis in January 2005 and was selected as an alternate production for the national KCACTF in Washington, D.C. Only three university productions received invitations that year to perform at the national festival.

 

The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival annually involves more than 600 academic institutions and 18,000 students from across the United States. For more information go to www.kennedy-center.org/education/actf/.

 

It’s quite an undertaking to get any show on the road, said King. A benefit performance of “The Wild Party” on Jan. 18 raised the travel expenses for cast, crew and orchestra, and shipping for the set and costumes.

 

 In the play, composer Andrew Lippa weaves the original poem's cautionary message about boozing, brawling and debauchery into a central love triangle. He balances decadent production numbers with tender solos and duets, giving hearts to the libertines whose credo was “no limits, no boundaries, no compromise.” The musical received 13 Drama Desk nominations including best musical, best actress, best actor and best director, winning Lippa awards for best music and lyrics.

 

The play centers on the destructive relationship between Queenie, a sexually ambitious and antagonistic vaudeville dancer, and Burrs, a vicious, violent clown whose act follows Queenie's. After a hangover-induced fight and ugly domestic rape, Queenie throws a bathtub gin party intended to humiliate her man. Their guests represent the colorful milieu of New York’s vaudeville world: promiscuous, uninhibited and violent. When Queenie's cocaine-addicted friend Kate arrives with her latest potential conquest, Mr. Black, Queenie decides to make Burrs jealous by seducing the newcomer, a nice guy who wants to protect her. The evening spirals toward intoxicated excess and carnal indulgence, reflecting an anxious restlessness behind the hedonism during Prohibition.

 

“The Wild Party” features an all-student cast with Emily Therrien as Queenie, Alex Stoll as Burrs, Kimber Van Cleve as Kate and Taurean Everett as Black.Other students in the cast are: in the role of Madelaine, Emily Smith; Eddie, Marius Ausbie; Mae, Melanie Caldwell; Oscar, Joey Yates; Phil, Ross McCorkell; Dolores, Shera Hasse; Sam, Jeremy Wright; Jackie, Maurice Sims; Max, Josh Atkins; Nadine, Alex Johnson; Kegs, Aaron Glover; Reno, Christina Hink; Queenie’s lovers, Daxton Bloomquist and Matt Starkey; Sally, Laura Leisinger; Irma Lipschitz, Sara Turner; The Neighbor, Zack Powell; cops, Brandon Holmes and Todd Mika.

 

Andrew Palermo of New York City’s dre.dance (www.dredance.com) is guest choreographer, courtesy of the Harold and Dorothy Hauck Fund for Music Theatre. King directs and Philip Taylor conducts. Scenery is by David Neville, lighting by Meghan Richardson, costumes by Shannon Smith.