Cast And Creative Team Announced For CARMINA BURANA At Skylight Music Theatre

Skylight Music Theatre announced the cast and creative team for Carmina Burana running Friday, March 15 through Sunday, March 31, 2019 in Skylight's beautiful Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway, in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward.

Carmina Burana is a collaboration between Skylight Music Theatre, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Danceworks Performance Company and Chant Claire Chamber Choir. These four organizations have united to reconceive the Carl Orff masterpiece for Skylight's intimate Cabot Theatre stage.

The production features an intergenerational cast of 62 performers. On stage will be 17 Skylight artists, seven Danceworks dancers, four Chant Claire guest artists, six percussionists, two pianists, and one conductor. They will be joined by 25 Chant Claire Chamber Choir members singing.

Skylight Artistic Associate and Carmina Burana Stage Director Jill Anna Ponasik said Carmina has been reimagined as "total theatre" in which music, dance and words are inseparable. Composed in 1937 and based on a series of medieval poems, Carmina takes an unflinching look at the pleasures and perils of the human condition. "We are approaching this piece as if it was written for us now, not something foreign and from another time and place," she said.

Most often presented in concert halls as a choral cantata, Carmina features the recognizable song "O Fortuna," a tremendous, thundering choral anthem often used in television commercials and film scores.

Ponasik described the collaborative version of Carmina at Skylight this way: "Is it an opera? No. Is it a musical? No. Is it a concert? No. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event that unites theatre, dance, music, and visual images in performance."

Skylight Music Theatre Artistic Director Ray Jivoff said, "I think audiences will be riveted by this Carmina. Each musical moment is connected to an action onstage."

Ponasik added that this version "will feel as though it is speaking to you in a way that is immediate, direct, and instantly relatable. Even though we are using the original languages of Latin, French and German, the message will be clear. We are bringing Carmina Burana up close and will see ourselves in the performers onstage. Their experiences are ours."

Carmina Burana consists of 25 musical sections, none longer than four minutes in length, each relating to the turning of fate's wheel and the unpredictability of the human condition.Carmina touches on the full scope of existence from birth to death, joy to despair, and everything including love, fear, the seasons, and the moon.

Tickets are $30 - $75 (plus tax and fees) and can be purchased in person at the Broadway Theatre Center Box Office, 158 N. Broadway, by calling (414) 291-7800, or visiting www.skylightmusictheatre.org