The Ohio Light Opera 2019 Season, part 1

Short break from Shakespeare this week! The Ohio Light Opera, my favorite obscure operetta and early musical theatre festival, is about to open their season this weekend! To celebrate, I’m taking a look at their playbill, starting with some (relatively) heavy hitters.

First up, a Rodgers & Hammerstein classic.

Fun fact: I, a mixed race child of Asian and Caucasian parents, was well into my twenties before I realized Nellie’s problem with Emile was miscegenation. Apparently, I am totally clueless.

Next, some fluffy Gershwin!

I love me some Gershwin, so I am looking forward to this. I’ve seen Crazy For You, the updated, “new and improved” version of Girl Crazy, but I’ve never seen the original.

And now, the opposite of fluffy Gershwin: serious Sondheim.

Tune in Thursday for the rest of the OLO 2019 season, featuring a Gilbert & Sullivan classic and a bunch of REALLY OBSCURE stuff.

Into the (Shakespearean) Woods, part 3

Today's comic concludes my cheerfully inept and haphazard Shakespeare/Sondheim Into the Woods parody (see part 1 and part 2). I've had a great time doing it and nobody has complained vociferously about it, so I might sneak in a couple more Musical Shakespeare parodies in the future.

Rosalind's song is based on On the Steps of the Palace, while Helena and her suitor's are singing a version of Any Moment.

The witches are singing Children Will Listen, and the final chorus is pretty much a re-hash of the opening chorus. This concludes my foray into Shakespeare/Sondheim crossovers! I hope you've enjoyed it.

I'm going to be taking the next two weeks off, in order to enjoy the holidays and get caught up on some long-overdue Tickle Brain projects. I hope to have comics up on Christmas and New Year's, and will probably be posting random stuff on Tumblr and Twitter (including my ongoing Shakespearean Advent entries) but will not resume regular comic updates until the new year. The very best holiday wishes to all of you!

If you want to make sure you don't miss anything over the holidays, sign up for my e-mail newsletter! All the cool kids are doing it. Well, my friends and family and a couple other people are, anyways. 

Into the (Shakespearean) Woods, part 2

Today I am unapologetically continuing my totally illogical and poorly-thought-out Shakespeare/Sondheim Into the Woods parody mash-up (begun in Monday's comic).

For those of you not familiar with Into the Woods, the first song is "Hello Little Girl" and the second is "Agony". Tune in again on Friday for one final Into the (Shakespearean) Woods comic, in which I will totally fail to neatly wrap up all the disparate plot lines. 

Into the (Shakespearean) Woods, part 1

As you've probably figured out by now, I love Shakespeare. I think Shakespeare's plays are super-fun. However, they are by no means the be-all and end-all (if I may borrow that phrase) of theatre. My many other theatrical loves include the musicals of Stephen Sondheim. I have thus spent a lot of time recently in sweet anticipation of the upcoming film adaptation of Sondheim's Into the Woods, a musical which emotionally traumatized me when I first saw it at the age of seven, but which I have since come to love. 

So, this week I am presenting a mash-up of Into the Woods and some of the many Shakespeare plays that involve people running... into the woods. I have no idea how this is going to turn out, so I apologize in advance if it's terrible. 

If you're not familiar with Into the Woods, I highly recommend watching the 1990 film of the original Broadway production, starring Bernadette Peters. You can hear the original inspiration behind today's comic's lyrics here. 

The saga continues in part 2 and part 3.

In other news, the seventh issue of The Weekly Tickle Brain e-mail newsletter is going out today! This week's issue features more of my Tumblr advent shenanigans and a seasonal recommendation for the world's best Shakespeare-themed holiday movie. If you haven't signed up yet, now's your chance! (Which is not to suggest that you'll never be able to sign up again, or anything...)