Off Night Productions premiered their cabaret, “Love Songs, Reimagined,” on Sunday at the Constellation Playhouse. The mellifluous hour-long show featured six singers and a band performing 18 gender-bending love songs traditionally sung by the opposite sex.
The Monroe County-based production company, a women-led nonprofit, produces contemporary theatre and music on the off nights of the traditional performance week — Sunday, Monday and Tuesday — with the aim of tackling the limitations of the theater industry.
Cassie Hakken, associate artistic director of Off Night Productions, directed the cabaret, while IU alumna and Off Night debutant Deborah Jenkins directed the music.
The main vocalists were James Dalfonso, Andrew Keeler, Shannon O’Connor Starks, Mia Stewart, Claire Summers and Cora Winstead. The band consisted of pianist Eric Nichols, bassist Aisling Fowler, guitarist Leo Messier and drummer Matt Swolsky.
All six singers joined the band on stage for the first song on the setlist, “The Origin of Love” from the film “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” and subsequently performed the remaining songs with varying groupings of singers.
Hakken said the cabaret was Off Night’s first musical endeavor. She said the show follows an emotional arc, taking the audience through different stages of love — from infatuation to deep commitment, to uncertainty and even heartbreak.
“Because we’re gender-bending, a lot of it means that women are singing about loving other women and vice versa,” Hakken said. “It just emphasizes queer love stories in a really nice way that I think is particularly important right now.”
Hakken said they held open auditions, with vocal ability and stage presence being the primary considerations rather than appearance or traditional casting norms. Jenkins said once the singers were selected, they adjusted the song choices to best fit the performers’ voices and styles. She said rehearsals for the show started Jan. 19.
Jenkins said while adapting the music for the show, many of the arrangements diverged from traditional Broadway styles.
“We have songs that you wouldn’t realize would make a fantastic rock ballad,” she said. “And things that became a lot folkier, a little less big Broadway musical style.”
Hakken said the gender-bending aspect of the production added different layers to the songs.
She said, for example, “If I Can’t Love Her” from “Beauty and the Beast” is traditionally a song the Beast croons about his loneliness and reclusion from the world, but Mia Stewart makes it feel like a coming out song about her repressed feelings toward other women.
Jenkins said they initially adjusted the keys of all the songs to better suit the singer, ensuring the final keys were set during both individual and group rehearsals.
“There are songs now that I don't think I could go back to and listen to the original,” Jenkins said. “Because the story is so much more compelling this way and I think we so often are interested in telling our own story that we don't listen to someone else's from a perspective that we've never had.”
Hakken said the lighting on stage emphasized certain parts of songs. The performers added theatrical flairs to their singing, often performing choreographed dances while sometimes interacting with the audience.
To close out the performance, the six performers reunited for the last song “I Believe In Love” by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
“The power of love and spending time together with the connections in our community that really matter most is really important right now,” Hakken said. “I think it’s really important that we’re showcasing queer love stories, especially right now and in Indiana.”
Eric Starks, husband of performer Shannon O’Connor Starks, said he was fascinated by the show’s concept.
“It’s nice to see the community members being able to come out and perform and be able to hear the band together,” he said.
The show will run at 7 p.m. every day until Feb. 12. Tickets can be bought from the Buskirk-Chumley Theater website.
