Our 2019-2020 Applause Series opens this Friday with a one-night only concert of Kiss of the Spider Woman. The Applause Concert Series presents challenges and opportunities different from your standard production. The concert format makes the production more like the musical equivalent of a staged reading, with the added feature of a full orchestra on stage with the actors. This allows a clearer focus on the musical’s score and story through minimal props, costumes or scenery.
The emphasis on the score is part of the beauty of the Applause series. Kiss of the Spider Woman, in particular, has a stunning score. This production was chosen to open this Applause Series season because it is written by the same writer/composers of Cabaret. Music Director, Chris Youstra, explains that the creative team wanted to explore more of the hidden treasures inside Kander and Ebb’s library, and Kiss of the Spider Woman was a good fit. Both Cabaret and Kiss of the Spider Woman contain deeply visceral music. The orchestra for the Applause Series Concerts is always seated on stage, and its audible and physical presence become a set piece that moves the story forward. The music for Kiss of the Spider Woman is graphic in its own way, so it therefore replaces the blood and gore a standard production calls for. Our concert series requires the audience to use their imagination and listen to the motifs that are written into the score. These motifs become an added character that moves the story along. Simple gestures, modest choreography and the most basic costume pieces keep the narrative clear while the music takes center stage. Director of Kiss of the Spider Woman and OTC’s Associate and Artistic Director/Casting Director, Jenna Duncan, is excited to be heading this concert as a woman, given that the story centers around a men’s prison with male narratives. She argues that the emotions in this piece are universal and aren’t gendered. One of the main characters is Luis Alberto Molina, a gay window dresser who offers a queer lens onto what it means to love someone and the pain that one endures. No matter anyone’s sexuality or gender, these are human truths. For Jenna, this is an opportunity to acknowledge that all humans can identify with the themes of this production such as the systemic issues related to imprisonment, falling in love, and sacrifices people have to make. A concert version of this production allows these truths to lie heavily in the beautiful orchestrations and lyrics, rather than in the design elements of a conventional production.
