PORT TOWNSEND — A new rock opera titled “Murder Ballad” exploring the complications of love, the compromises we make and the betrayals that ultimately undo us is opening at the Key City Playhouse this week.
“Murder Ballad” will run Thursdays through Sundays for four weekends. It opened Thursday and will run through July 2 at the playhouse at 419 Washington St.
Thursday through Sunday evening performances start at 7:30, with two 2:30 p.m. matinees scheduled for June 24 and July 1.
Tickets are $20 for Thursday and Sunday shows and $24 for Fridays and Saturdays. Tickets are available at www.keycitypublictheatre.org or by phone at 360-385-KCPT (5278).
The Key City Public Theatre show will be one of the new ballad’s first West Coast productions, featuring the return of the partnership of Denise Winter and Linda Dowdell, the duo behind last December’s “Spirit of the Yule.”
What’s this stormy ballad all about?
Sara has a relationship with Tom, but once she settles down and gets married to the more normal and safer Michael, she starts to wonder what she’s missing.
After reigniting her passion for Tom on a whim, Sara finds herself in the dangerously murky depths of love.
“Murder Ballad” premiered Off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club in November of 2012, where it was a New York Times Critic’s Pick.
Ben Brantley said the play was “a small but savvy musical that panders in style to those of us who lap up febrile accounts of fatale attractions.”
Of the 2016 British premiere, Broadway World’s Debbie Gilpin said, “Rock music is the perfect foil for a show in which passions boil over, allowing each character in turn to vent their frustration or profess their love in a dynamic, yet believable, way.”
KCPT’s Christa Holbrook is the Narrator, last seen on stage in multiple roles in 2016’s “Spirit of the Yule.”
Dillon Porter is Tom, who is returning to KCPT after performances in January’s “The Aliens” and March’s “PlayFest 21.”
Aba Kiser is Sara, and Greg Stone is Michael.
Additionally, Winter, as director, has decided that in order to maximize the intimacy of the performance and to create the atmosphere that a rock opera like “Murder Ballad” deserves, KCPT will be placed into its cabaret configuration.
For the first time since 2012’s “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” patrons will have the opportunity to see an immersive KCPT main stage performance on the set with a functional bar that will be open for refreshments before the show and as soon as it concludes.
