A few years ago, as I was on the hunt for a small-cast show, I often went back to the phrase, "Something like THE GLASS MENAGERIE." After what was probably much too long, I came to the realization that we could just do... THE GLASS MENAGERIE. Part of the problem in finding a similar show is that there really isn't much out there that combines the fantastic roles and magical-realism of the memory play concept, and certainly nobody that does it as well as Tennessee Williams.

"The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic."

I love memory plays. There is a freedom in expression that comes from not being locked into the literal events of the past, but rather seeing one character's interpretation of those moments. As we worked through the text, one thing we focused on was that we were not, for example, seeing the real versions of Amanda or Laura, what we are watching is Tom's memory and interpretation of their actions. So, if Amanda seems harsh at times, that is because Tom, even if he is now older and wiser, has ingrained those memories that way. Similarly, is Laura really as sweet and innocent as she appears? In reality unlikely, but to Tom that's who his older sister was. In keeping with Williams' original production plans, we've done some other things to call back the memory aspects of the play, whether that be the music that flows under the scenes, the occasional moments where Tom will step out and watch the action rather than take part in it directly, or even little touches such as the complete lack of text on any paper prop throughout to show the lack of details in his memory. It's a world that is not realistic, but to the characters living in Tom's head, it's the only world they've ever known.

"Hold him over the light, he loves the light! See how the light shines through him?"

My relationship with this play goes back to college, where I designed projections for our production. In fact, that was the first credited theatrical design I ever did. So we can blame the hundreds since on this play. I came back to it a couple years ago when I played Tom down the road in Lakewood. And now, here we are again, back in an alley in St. Louis. I rarely have a great desire to come back to a play after I've done it, I'm always looking for the next thing, but there are a few exceptions, and THE GLASS MENAGERIE has certainly proved to be one.

"I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide world - you've had to make sacrifices, but - Tom - Tom - life's not easy, it calls for - Spartan endurance!"

Theatre has changed in the past few years. Audiences aren't coming out in the same way, expenses have gone up, and the pool of actors and technicians who are actively working has shrunk. But now, at the end of our 15th season of producing independent fringe theatre, I am eternally grateful to the people who make that possible. Whether it be the actors who take a chance to work small, the designers working in an intimate arena, or the audience in the seats, be they 4 people or 150, who come to be entertained, to be moved, to laugh, sometimes to cry, but always to experience the magic that is live theater. Thank you, I can't wait to do it all again when we return to the Dukesbay Theater next season.

"And so goodbye..." 

All the best,

​Niclas

​As theaters begin to tentatively reopen across the world, we’ve all been left with a peculiar choice: Do we dust off the scripts that have been sitting for 2 years or do we forge ahead in a new direction? Is the creative fire still burning for an old project after so long, or is it better to rage ahead with something new and exciting? Uneasy lies the head that plans a season.

I had this ambitious project pencilled in for this season some time ago, so for me the question wasn’t necessarily whether or not to recover our lost projects, but whether or not I wanted to wait any longer for the War of the Roses. Frankly, I’m sick of waiting. We will be bringing back most of the titles that were lost, but for this moment: I really wanted to do the kind of ambitious season that only a fringe company like New Muses can do in this region. There are certainly advantages to being small and flexible.

You’ve probably never seen the Dukesbay Theater stripped to the bare walls before. This series, this saga of five plays and nearly 400 characters, tells a story of glorious scenery, magnificent battles, and luxurious appointments. But the roots, the text written to be performed before a restless crowd, to stride upon a wooden O, not unlike our own, lives on its own. As it was hundreds of years ago, there are no barriers between the actor and the audience, no walls to hide behind. Our wooden O becomes a grassy plain, or a lavish court, or the fields of France. The actors watch from the shadows, but the characters ascend the boards. Thank you for joining us. Please enjoy the War of the Roses.

The advantage of adapting the two parts of Shakespeare’s Henry IV into a single play is that Part II is an immediate sequel, so really all we had to do was condense the world into two hours. The mix of comedy and action is unique to this particular play and I think it sets the world off nicely. The theme which runs throughout the show is expectation, and I think Shakespeare has done a marvelous job of showing three sides of the coin. King Henry IV is breaking under the weight of a crown he never really wanted, watching his alliances crumble as he struggles to keep his promises intact. His son, Hal, thrust into the spotlight as heir to the crown, deliberately destroys his own image to soften the expectations he faces. And an old knight, Falstaff, far from his glory days with Henry’s father shows the burdens of a life trapped in low expectations. This isn’t a play about rising above. This is a play about coping under enormous pressure, and not always succeeding.

"In memory everything seems to happen to music." Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

I love memory plays. There is a different type of emotional resonance with memory than we normally experience in the theater. Ultimately, this is a play about searching for closure, and because of its unique structure, The Last Five Years pulls very strongly from two variations on remembered experience. Jamie remembers from the beginning so he can experience the full story before finally saying goodbye. Cathy, on the other hand, is searching for the understanding she needs to move on. She travels backwards through the relationship, searching for clues as to where the cracks had opened. Processing and memory are not universal constants, and I think that Jason Robert Brown, beyond just writing incredible music and lyrics, has hit upon a throughline that is much deeper and more resonant than the individual pieces. And for a director that's a wonderful path to follow.

Every theater company has a few white whales. There are a lot of shows that don't end up in front of an audience for whatever reason, most are only known to a handful of people. Sometimes you say okay and move on, and sometimes you decide to hold on for later. I've been holding on to this show for over a decade and 5 or 6 attempts to get it to the stage. In fact, the Christmas tree you'll see on the set was bought for eventual use in this show in 2010. There have been many things that got in the way, including an ongoing pandemic that shut down a March 2020 production we had been planning to unleash as a surprise for the audience. But sometimes waiting on your dreams can be a good thing. Sam's incredible performance, Zachary's assured musical direction and beautiful accompaniment, and this stunning set which came out of our partnership with Green Theatre Now are all the latest additions to a magical show and wouldn't have existed in the past. It's been a long time coming, and I'm so happy that New Muses finally has this show on the stage. 

Thank you for being in the audience. Thank you for being vaccinated and getting us back to live performance. Enjoy the show.

​-Niclas Olson

I hope you’re ready for something a little different. Comedy, in the theatre, tends to take a more high-brow approach. From Wilde to Simon to the contemporary musical theatre, laughs are regularly built from wordplay amidst an absurd situation. But the writers of Evil Dead: The Musical have gone a different route. By embracing the camp and silliness that grows throughout Sam Raimi’s original trilogy, they’ve ventured into the world of gross out collegiate comedy. And they’ve done so by seizing every opportunity to take the smallest moment of absurdity and push it into the stratosphere. This is comedy built on sight gags, amazing puns, melodrama, and crudeness. It’s refreshing to see on stage, and further proves that there is something for everyone in the canon.

It’s always a pleasure to work together with our team here at TLT. Nena, Michelle, Jeffrey, Dylan, Blake, and Frank have all pushed themselves to the limit to bring you the astounding gorefest you are about to witness. Lean back, take a breath, and get ready for laughs, blood, and rock & roll.

P.S. To everyone in the splash zone… get ready.

​I’ve been thinking a lot about ghosts this season, specifically theatrical ghosts. Before opening of HAMLET back in January I talked with the cast about the tradition we join as we perform and produce classic works. I told them to think back over all the great actors who had played those roles. THE SEAGULL is very much the same. When I think back over the actors who’ve taken on these mammoth roles, I’m drawn to the ghosts of those performances, each influencing the next as the play breaths with each new incarnation. From the time Konstantin Stanislavski remounted THE SEAGULL in 1898 at the Moscow Art Theatre, rebranding a resounding failure into what we now know as a masterpiece, this play has grown from the roots of its ancestors… Which is why, tonight, we find ourselves in a beaten and disheveled shell of an old theatre. Even though the characters in the play are living in their moments, at a lakeshore, or in the cold of a winter storm, the characters (in a much larger sense) are treading the boards for the umpteenth time and we are merely witnesses to their world. 
 
“For us our work isn’t about whether we write or act, it’s not the fame or the glory that matters, it’s the strength to endure.” (Nina, Act IV)

e​I find it interesting that many of the plays we produce were either censured or outright banned at some time in their life. Moliére, with his penchant for satirizing those around him, found his work regularly challenged and banned. TARTUFFE, with it's blatant disregard for the morals of high society and especially those who used religious hypocrisy as a means to an end was no exception. Fast forward to 2019... suddenly we see the perfection of the charlatan's art. We have everything from religious figures talking large groups of people into financing outrageous expenses like planes, trips, and mansions. We have politicians who will outright lie, knowing full well they will be caught, but with no fear of consequences. Is Tartuffe and Orgon's story still relevant today? In many ways, I feel like the most dated element is the scale of the deception. The good news is, when we see it on stage with the marvelous performances this cast has developed, it's much much funnier than real life. Thank you for joining us, enjoy the show. - Niclas

​It’s a funny thing to make a promise to yourself. After our first production of HAMLET in 2010, I promised that if we made it to ten seasons I would do it again. It was about 2 years ago that I realized it was actually going to happen, and began to ponder how my relationship to this play had changed over time. When I was directing, and playing, HAMLET for the first time, I came at it with an edge of fire, unleashing a Hamlet in a gritty world who was vengeful and as a reviewer put it, “unhinged.” But something has changed, as I’ve gotten older I begin to recognize the melancholy and loneliness Hamlet feels in stilted dreams, surrounded by public scrutiny and an unclear future. Hamlet, to me, is become a man who waits for the perfect moment to act, but wonders if that moment has passed him by. His world has become ornate, royal, and as he says, “a prison,” but in reality a prison fashioned by his own mind and the public eye. This is a magical text. I’ve now journeyed the path twice, I could do it another hundred and still never be satisfied. Thank you for 10 seasons, 2 Hamlets, and more to come.  - Niclas Olson

​A lot can change in two years. When I first decided to bring LYSISTRATA to the stage about two years ago, I did so because it checked all the boxes: fun high energy comedy, great roles for women, and just enough social commentary that it felt like a good fit for us. Fast forward, and as women’s rights have leapt (and rightly so) to the forefront of the national consciousness through the Women’s March and #metoo movement, LYSISTRATA feels a whole lot more relevant than anything written over 2000 years ago has any right to be. This story, of women proclaiming their independence and taking over the reins of government is at times shocking, uncomfortably modern, and also hilarious. Aristophanes’ seamless mix of contemporary issues and raunchy slapstick comedy has been a pleasure to discover with this phenomenal cast. So please sit back, have a great time, and maybe take a bit of inspiration from the women of Greece to stand up for what you believe in. - Niclas Olson

One of my favorite things about the gothic novels is the use of an epistolary technique. By treating the story as a combination of journal entries and letters, these novels invite the reader to take part as an observer, participant, or close friend. In FRANKENSTEIN, we find Captain Walton and his sister Margaret. They journey along with us as an audience and are drawn in, becoming other characters in the story as the need arises. From a theatrical standpoint, this technique is a love letter to the power of imagination, and returns this story to its roots of first person narrative. Walton tells his story to Margaret, Victor tells his story to Walton, and the Creature tells his story to Victor, and then the chain reverses until we are back to that first coupling of writer and audience. Perhaps you could think of this play as epistolary theatre. As an adaptor, the first decision to make is whether one plays to the common perception of a character or story, or returns to the source and presents the story as the author first placed it on the page. After deliberation, I decided to pursue the latter; and further made the decision that, wherever possible, this script would use the text Shelley had written. And in approximately 95% of the final text, that is exactly what happened.
 
Thank you for attending independent theatre. As we take the stage tonight I can begin looking ahead to our upcoming 9th season (titles will be announced on 8.20). I can’t wait to see you there.