ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.: Is the world prepared for Mickey Messer, or Mick the Knife? Gutbucket Productions, an LLC based mostly in New Mexico, has introduced plans to stage Threepenny Mickey, described as a “pop opera hybrid” of Brecht and Weill’s basic Der Dreigroschenoper, higher referred to as The Threepenny Opera, with the groundbreaking Disney brief Steamboat Willie, the primary movie look of the animated character Mickey Mouse. A workshop manufacturing is deliberate for this June at Albuquerque’s Financial institution of America Theatre (clearly a great place to ship the memorable line, “What’s the robbing of a financial institution in comparison with the founding of a financial institution?”), after which producers have their sights set on a Broadway run through the 2024-25 season.

“With each Threepenny Opera and Steamboat Willie getting into the general public area in 2024, we’re excited to carry these two iconic Twentieth-century works collectively onstage in a means that was by no means attainable earlier than,” stated Max Tribble, who along with his spouse, Pleasure Tribble, runs Gutbucket Productions, an immersive occasion firm that additionally produces a line of novelty celebration hats. “We expect audiences will likely be shocked how effectively these two contrasting items of IP complement one another.”

Tribble, who along with his spouse Pleasure is creating the variation himself, stated he’s utilizing a literal translation of Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann’s unique dialogue and lyrics by German scholar Berengar Bauer, and is peppering the tuneful Weill rating with musical interpolations, together with “Turkey within the Straw,” the track heard in Steamboat Willie when a goat swallows a ukulele. Tribble stated he’s reimagining the play’s motion, initially set on the streets of London, to happen on a small steamboat, with actors dressed as farmyard animals to level out the “commodification of our wishes.”

“The story and songs will likely be principally recognizable as Threepenny,” Tribble defined, “however the setting and look of the present will likely be modeled intently on Steamboat Willie.”

Audiences hoping to see a full panoply of Disney icons built-in into the Brecht-Weill basic—Tigger Brown, say, or Goofy Tawdry—could also be upset, as Steamboat Willie has few named characters, therefore only a small quantity that are actually freely out there for repurposing. These embrace Mickey, restyled right here as Mick the Knife, a brutal however good-hearted thief and cutthroat; the oafish boat captain Pete, recast because the self-righteous bourgeois beggar Pete-chum; and Mickey’s well-known mouse girlfriend, who will sing the chilling track of retribution “Pirate Minnie.”

Associated