‘Lizzie: The Musical’ – Music by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt; Lyrics by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner; Book by Tim Maner; Additional Music by Tim Maner; Additional Lyrics by Alan Stevens Hewitt; Based on an original concept by Alan Stevens Hewitt; Orchestrations by Alan Stevens Hewitt. Produced by Brian Boruta; Directed and Choreographed by Ilyse Robbins; Music Director Lianne Bunting; Lighting Designer SeifAllah Salotto Cristobal; Sound Designer James Cannon; Scenic Designer Erik D. Diaz; Costume Designer Bethany Mullins. Presented by The Umbrella Stage Company at 40 Stow St., Concord, MA, through November 5th.
by Mike Hoban
“Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks,
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
That gruesome child’s rhyme from the late 19th century is both the inspiration and the opening lines from Lizzie: The Musical, Umbrella Stage Company’s early Halloween present to rock musical fans. This punk rock-flavored headbanger of a show shakes up the genre much the way the 1973 musical stage production of The Rocky Horror Show did 50 years earlier. Only instead of being fueled by dark humor and (then) norm-pushing sexcapades, it’s a far more serious feminist revenge story – and just as entertaining.
Read more “True Crime Meets Rock n’ Roll in Umbrella’s ‘Lizzie’”