'Solana' concludes the Indiana Festival Theatre season

The Department of Theatre and Drama concluded the Indiana Festival Theatre season yesterday with “Solana,” a musical that has been at the Wells-Metz Theatre since last Thursday.

Director George Pinney and cast have polished the musical for three weeks.
IU alumni and Grammy-nominated songwriters Michael Heitzman and Ilene Reid, who wrote the musical, attended the final performance of “Solana.”

Though the cast recently learned a new act, they performed with precision and clarity.

“I thought it was really well put together,” first year graduate student Austin Wilson said.

The play highlighted the value of family and the importance of making the right decisions.

Chloe Ellsworth, played by Stephanie Mieko Cohen, took the audience on a journey through both her struggles and triumphs.

Ellsworth was an adopted Asian-American who struggled with an identity crisis after finishing college and returning home to Middle Valley, Ind. As a young writer, her head was filled with multiple story ideas, yet she couldn’t come up with one to transcribe to paper.

Her boyfriend was the perfect man, yet she couldn’t decide whether or not to marry him. She wanted to know more about her birth family, but she couldn’t decide whether or not to pursue it. Ellsworth struggled to make important decisions.

Growing up as the much-loved daughter of Albert and Adele, played by Aaron Densley and Chloe Williamson, Ellsworth was stunned when her long-lost grandfather arrived on her doorstep and anointed her princess of Solana, her native country.

Ellsworth made the decision to return with her grandfather to Solana and discovered the truth about her identity and real family there.

Following Heitzman and Reid from New York, equity actors Herman Sebek, Raymond J. Lee and Cindy Cheung worked with IU students for the show.

“That’s what’s so exciting about premiere musicals,” Pinney said. “Developing musical theory at Indiana University, being able to take a piece and manipulate it, see it, change it. It’s just nice that way. Especially here because to do this in New York would cost $100,000.”

Bidding “Solana” a fond farewell, the audience cheered and rose to their feet as soon as the performance ended.

“I thought the musical was great,” Wilson said. “It was really heartfelt.”