Doc Danger is on the Air!

×

Expand

Photo by Ross Zentner

Maybe Doc Danger and the Danger Squad was intended as an old-time radio play from its inception? The story for the musical by Milwaukee’s Jason Powell is composed from reinvented elements of pulp fiction circa the Great Depression. Enter the titular adventurer, Doc Danger, joined by laser pistol-packing Satellite Sally and her sidekick Clare de Lune, jungle princess Jesai of the Jaguars and a mysterious detective, the Lady in Black.

Of course, there must be villains. Cue the maniacal laughter of Professor Z and his nefarious robot plus his henchwomen Penny Dreadful and Beetle Queen. The evil professor is plotting world domination. Can Doc Danger thwart this heinous scheme? Doc Danger’s point of departure is in its empowered female characters. They aren’t waiting to be rescued but are driving the action.

Doc Danger was performed by the Milwaukee Opera Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center in 2018 and was scheduled this spring as MOT’s season finale. Events intervened. Rather than cancel, the piece was quickly rewritten for performance as an old-time-radio-play. Four episodes are coming soon. With Jason Powell narrating, every cast member recorded their lines while sheltering from home. Doc Danger will be streamed free on MOT’s website and on social media.

I asked MOT’s Artistic Director Jill Anna Ponasik about Doc Danger’s reinvention as a radio play.

Can you describe some of your thoughts at the time COVID hit? Did you realize immediately that drastic adjustments to Milwaukee Opera Theatre’s plans were needed? Was there a sense of panic? Or were you determined from the onset to find a way to carry on?

The first few weeks of the COVID-19 crisis felt like a slow avalanche of steadily worsening information. It was clear early on that live performances of Doc Danger wouldn’t be possible. What took us by surprise was the research about the specific perils of singing, which meant that we couldn’t even space actors apart in the same room to create a recording, we’d have to figure out a way to create the product remotely. At that point, I will admit to some panic, but we never considered cancelling completely. We were too determined to keep the artists contracted and working, and to make something, rather than sit idle.

You’ve performed Doc Danger before. What brings you back to it? What do you find compelling about it?

Yes, we premiered Doc Danger in 2018. It’s a piece we commissioned from area writer Jason Powell. We have discovered over the years, that when we introduce a new piece, it takes a little while for people to figure out what it is. We have stumbled into a useful rhythm of remounting original pieces about two years after they premiere. This practice gives audiences a chance to develop an attachment to the work and provides our artists with opportunities to hone their skills by revisiting roles.

Besides being stuffed to the brim with Jason’s typical wit and delightfully tuneful songs, Doc Danger is an ode to creativity itself. What is the evil villain’s sinister plan? To scrub people of their originality and make the world boring! That’s funny, but if you look closely, so many of the serious situations which plague us today could be categorized as a failure of imagination. A failure to imagine leadership that isn’t exclusively white and exclusively male. A failure to imagine systems that are more equitable than the ones we already know. A failure to imagine what life might be like for someone else.

Any thoughts at this point on the 2020-21 season? The future of live theater?

So many thoughts! The pandemic took hold just as we were finalizing ideas for our 20-21 season, which we have now scrapped because everything either felt impossible or irrelevant (or both). Instead of working indoors, we’re returning to the woods with our friends at Danceworks for an art-song and dance infused nature hike this fall.

In the winter, we’re going to keep area artists employed by issuing a number of “Distance Commissions,” short pieces of music-theater that can be rehearsed and performed with strict social distancing in place and shared with small audiences online. In the spring, we hope we’ll be able to return to indoor live performance with Preludes, the piece we had to cancel just before it was to open because of the pandemic. And next summer, we plan to celebrate the conclusion of the season with a new translation and adaptation of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo to be performed with Aperi Animam. Dating from 1607 and often recognized as the first work of opera, we thought L’Orfeo might have some secrets to reveal that could be of use to us today as we battle our way through physical illness, economic recession, and social unrest.

Live theater itself isn’t going away. It’s an essential human need. But the institutions we have been relying on to create and deliver theater will not be the same at the end of this pandemic as they were going into it. If they survive, they will be leaner. If they are willing to lead with bold creativity, they may be stronger, fairer, and more exciting when this is all over.  

Episode One of Doc Danger and the Danger Squad debuts on June 25, followed by additional episodes on July 2, July 9 and July 16. For more information, visit milwaukeeoperatheatre.org.

To read more Theater stories, click here.

To read more stories by Dave Luhrssen, click here.