Distinct style flavors musical at Wells-Metz

Tonight’s musical premiere at Wells-Metz Theatre combines dynamic writing and unconventional singing to offer fresh takes on its familiar themes.

“Island Song” begins 7:30 tonight in partnership with the Bloomington Playwrights Project. Tickets are available online and at the theater box office, $15 for students and $25 for non-students.

The production will conclude the 2013 Indiana Theater Festival season, which runs each summer.

Actors Maddie Baldwin, Brian Bandura and Kaitlyn Mayse, who play Caroline, Cooper and Antonia, respectively, said “Island Song” is a very different production from their past projects.

“This is the first workshop show I’ve done, so writers are still changing things,” Bandura said. “All the other things I’ve done, like, things are set, this is the order of songs. It’s a lot of constantly being on your toes.”

Mayse said it’s the first time this production has been staged.

“Before, it’s been a concert version where people sing from sheet music,” Mayse said.
Baldwin said the concept of “Island Song” is very basic, but the way it’s staged is what sets it apart.

“It’s about five different New Yorkers and their own stories about how they live in New York and how they deal with day-to-day issues,” Baldwin said. “They all have different issues. Mostly we all do our own solo songs, and your character develops throughout the show, but it’s all within the dialogue of the songs. So that’s something that’s different.”

On a deeper level, “Island Song” is about the overlap in different people’s lives, Baldwin said.

“At the end we all come together and we realize that we’re all in the same boat,” Baldwin said. “We’re in a big city trying to make our way as individuals.”
But the lineup can change, Mayse said.

“We’re going to meet the writers today and we’re going to have four hours where they can change stuff,” Mayse said on Wednesday.  “So it’s crazy. You kind of just have to let go.”

Follow reporter Janica Kaneshiro on Twitter @janicakaneshiro.