Fortuna the Time Bender vs. The Schoolgirls of Doom

The latest and perhaps most ambitious production from Milwaukee writer-composer Jason Powell, <I>Fortuna The Time Bender vs. The Schoolgirls of Doom</i> is a proudly campy spin on the contemporary superhero story, done in the style of a classic Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Powell's Schoolgirls of Doom might be evil twins of <i>The Mikado</i>'s Three Little Maids from School. Their villainous English Headmaster, who took to crime when his philosophy degree proved useless (“You can't make a living being thoughtful anymore,” he laments), rehearses his history in a patter song for which the very model is the modern major-general of <i>H.M.S. Pinafore</i>. Powell composed specifically for the voices and sensibilities of a pre-cast ensemble of gifted opera, music theater and rock singers, including Jon Stewart, Melissa Kelly Cardamone, Nathan Wesselowski, Katy Johnson, Lisa Buchmeier, Rana Roman and Diane Lane.