Editor’s Note: What Works Studio, the publisher of What Weekly, is proud to have Shannon Light Hadley on our team, who is also the kickass Marketing Director for the Baltimore Rock Opera Society.

 

The Baltimore Rock Opera Society brings its newest production, The Rock Opera 6-Pack, to the Creative Alliance for the final two weekends of May, starting May 21st. This production is a showcase of six 25-minute mini-rock operas, which BROS had the Solomonic wisdom to split into an A-Weekend (May 21–24) and a B-Weekend (May 28–31).

As usual, BROS is trying new things with this production. In addition to choosing a venue outside the company’s typical marketing channels and their Station North comfort zone, BROS is breaking away from their established style (large-scale, epic hero’s journeys) to show Baltimore just how much talent lies within their ranks. The six short-form rock operas that make up the 6-Pack cover an impressive amount of creative territory without sacrificing the BROS’ trademark mastery of the ridiculous.

Even the music setup went through a transformation; since the 6-Pack is split into two weekends, two separate bands were assembled to provide music for each of them.

Much like I did for my article written in advance of The Electric Pharaoh, I will disclose that I am an active BROS member. That said, my fingerprints on this production are limited to some script feedback, set building/painting, and infuriating everyone around me with terrible puns.

Now then, to business. The 6-Pack‘s A-Weekend features Determination of Azimuth (written by Heather Graham), Revival (written by Mark Miller), and Sidelines (written by Jack Sossman). The A-Weekend’s band includes John de Campos, Lauren Aycock Anderson, Johnathan Smeltzer, Paul Joyce, Cory Tappen, Tyler Merchant, Patrick Staso, Jessica Keyes, and Lauren Schiszik, with Katie Hosier as the vocal coach.

Determination of Azimuth is about the life and work of NASA research mathematician Katherine Johnson, who was the first woman, and first African-American, to work in Spaceflight Operations. Heather, a NASA space wizard herself, told me that much of the show’s dialogue “is taken almost entirely from flight transcripts [and] Johnson’s academic papers, as well as interviews and conversations with her.” While there is a lot of math in the show, Heather stressed that Azimuth strives to encourage curiosity, rather than lecture.

“This is a story of triumph,” Heather said. She feels very strongly that Johnson’s work should be celebrated, both because of continuing public interest in space travel and because “the struggles she faced are unfortunately as real as ever.”

The music, composed by Horse Lords’ Andrew Bernstein, is “a prog-rock, polyrhythmic exploration featuring drums, bass, guitars and cello,” and Heather describes the show’s design concept as a cross between Sesame Street and Einstein On the Beach. “It’s going to get weird,” she says.

Mark Miller’s Revival is set within, well, a tent revival, and is the story of a faith healer who encounters a demonic possession. Miller, a talented Baltimore comedian and longtime BROS member, told me that his show “explores what it means to have faith, and the dangers of misplacing that faith,” but stressed that “this show is not preachy…it’s a lot of fun.”

Director Craig Coletta agreed, adding that Miller’s script “looks at ways belief can be either an asset or a detriment to people,” and BROS Magician-In-Residence Lucas Gerace called attention to the script’s handling of the “delicate balancing act necessary to maintain independence and agency while…giving oneself over to a belief.”

Revival‘s music was described to me as “the BROS version of gospel,” featuring elements of soul, bluegrass, Sacred Harp, and a 4-person choir alongside the evening’s live rock band. Mark told me to expect “4 part harmonies with as many as 12 people on stage singing at a time,” and that the audience will be given hymnals in case their spirits lift them into singing along.

Sidelines, a parting gift from Jack Sossman before he leaves us for the Tisch School’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program, parodies our culture’s treatment of sports in a hilarious musical romp, set to a fist-pumping, Disney-inspired mix of arena rock, glam rock, and hair metal. “There’s something inherently larger-than-life about the way we tackle the idea of competition,” Jack told me, calling the familiar sports media arcs of failure and redemption “a microcosm of the human experience, but with uniforms.”

Not surprisingly, Sidelines draws as much from Sossman’s theatre experiences as his observations of professional sports. “Sports stories are about coming together as a team and fighting against unbelievable odds to create and achieve something no one thought possible,” he said in an email. “In its [own] goofy way, everyone on the Sidelines team set out to show what it means to be a part of BROS, fighting against our rivals Exhaustion, Time-and-Money-Constraints, and Woes to win the big game.”

And that’s just the first weekend. The 6-Pack‘s B-Weekend contains the production’s other three mini-rock operas: The Battle of Blue Apple Crossing (by Nairobi Collins), The Legend of Jessie Jean (by Matthew Casella), and RATS! (by Naomi Davidoff). The B-Weekend’s band includes Jay Weixelbaum, Alex Fine, Nick Jewett, Nick Johnson, Allison Guitard, Jason Chimonides, Aran Keating, Naomi Davidoff, and Andres Lobo, again with Katie Hosier as the vocal coach.

The Battle of Blue Apple Crossing is a retelling of Robert Johnson’s crossroads legend that is also, as Nairobi Collins explained to me, “a musical exploration of the purpose of art and its meaning through a religious vs. primitive scope.”

Anna Platis, the show’s set designer and makeup designer, added that Blue Apple also touches on “the classic BROS theme of the divine transcendence and power of True Rock.”

Like Azimuth, Nairobi’s show is informed by a desire to increase diversity within BROS. “I wanted to see a play with more African American people and themes in it,” he told me. “BROS does its best to bring in talent of any type, but we have a hard time getting larger numbers of black talent.”

If anyone would know how to articulate all of those things at once, it would be Nairobi, who has been involved with BROS since its inception. He also has an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore and a wealth of musical knowledge across a wide spectrum of styles, both of which are evident in Blue Apple. The music—ranging from 1930s stomp blues to 1970s electric blues—is as deep an exploration of theme and genre as the script.

The Legend of Jessie Jean is, according to Matthew Casella, “about a handful of bad dudes swapping tall tales around a campfire about this mythic bounty hunter named Jessie Jean.” Wanting to see BROS take on and subvert Western film tropes, Casella wrote the show’s title character as “an outlaw boogeyman, the thing that goes bump in the night, a wild west Batman.”

The show incorporates shadow play into its visual presentation; as one set of actors performs on stage, a second set of actors performs behind a screen, creating interpretive shadows with props and their bodies to illustrate the stories being told. “I haven’t personally seen anything quite like it before,” cast member Abby Cocke told me, “and I think it will make a big impression on the audience.”

The show’s soundtrack is another huge selling point. Casella refers to the show’s blend of iconic spaghetti Western music, outlaw country, and stoner metal as “death-country” and “a love letter to Ennio Morricone.”

Finally, RATS! is a show about singing rats. Really. A quirky show with shadow puppets, liquid light show projections, punk/surf rock/psychedelic-influenced music, and an “intoxicating color palette,” RATS! is all about fun. Naomi Davidoff, who is also the 6-Pack‘s overall costume designer, told me that her show concerns “a motley crew of hard-rocking rodents just trying to dance, party and fall in love,” all while avoiding a sinister exterminator.

Is it silly? Sure. But the show’s dominant theme of “maintaining fearlessness to be your ratty old self” is timeless, like an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical stripped of its pretentious bloat. “What could be better than a raunchy, nasty, anthropomorphic BROS show with an adorably heroic underside?” Naomi asked me. As of this writing, that’s still pretty hard to top.

Naomi also made sure to compliment her show’s diligent Creatures Department. So did her assistant stage manager Devin Martin, who told me that they have been making “wonderful rodent and insect appendages that, paired with the actors’ movement, is going to be ridiculous and unsettling.” Similarly, they both had plenty of good things to say about the oversized, literally trashy set designed by Joe Martin.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, every mini-rock opera in the 6-Pack has its own creative team staffed with veteran BROS members, newcomers, and peripheral members of Baltimore’s theatre community who, thanks to the 6-Pack’s diverse offering of shows, now have more chances to contribute.

This is very much by design. I have been privy to more than one conversation about what BROS has learned after eight years and ten productions, and how to apply those lessons in the years to come. As their creative community grows, so does their audience, which creates both a necessity and an opportunity to tell new kinds of stories. No arts organization can be all things to all people, but BROS has a pretty good idea of what they do well, and they owe it to their expanding audience—and themselves—to continue growing and developing beyond that.

In that sense, The Rock Opera 6-Pack is more than just another entry in the BROS’ 7,000-year mission to melt faces. It is a response to the city of Baltimore’s enthusiastic, open-armed support of a community accustomed to rejection. Behind every set piece, puppet, amplified guitar chord, and speck of glitter is a resounding “thank you” to Baltimore for allowing the BROS to dream big, and a promise that they will now dream even bigger.

Tickets for both weekends of the 6-Pack can be purchased here.