I saw Jill Anna Ponasik at the Alchemist Theatre a while back. She was wearing a T-shirt with a colorful print on it. There on the front of her shirt heroic figures rendered by Mike Zeck were rushing forward out of somewhere in 1984. I was going to say hello, but she was kind of busy. She’s been kind of busy for a long time now. Since that production of Fortuna the Time Bender vs. The Schoolgirls of Doom with Ponasik’s Milwaukee Opera Theatre which was staged at the Alchemist last May, she’s been very busy. This past month she went from super-hero-based operetta to a drama with Milwaukee Chamber. She’d co-directed that production, which was logistically quite complicated. Drama mixed with characterization through music in a show that isn’t a musical. This coming month she goes from comic operetta to drama to operatic drama as she stage directs Rossini’s Cinderella with Skylight Music Theatre. It’s being staged with costume designs by Cesar Gallindo that were inspired by Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball of 1966.
The big takeaway here? The best way to be busy is to be ubiquitous. And the best way to be ubiquitous is to be versatile. The next show for a very busy director opens next month with Skylight Music Theatre.
Rossini’s Cinderella runs Sep. 19 - Oct. 5 at the Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center. For more information, visit Skylight online.
