Over the Ledges borrows a stage so the show can go on
Over the Ledges Theatre Company had to make some quick, unexpected changes to their season this year. On May 20, the City of Grand Ledge closed the Ledges Playhouse where Over the Ledge Theatre Company has performed for the past 10 years.
Folks at Riverwalk Theatre reached out to Artistic Director Joseph Dickson and offered him a place to perform two of his summer shows.
This weekend they open “Songs About Stuff: The Music of Wally Pleasant,” which will run July 7-17 at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays.
The show features music and lyrics by hometown favorite Wally Pleasant. An MSU student, he became a fixture in the indie scene in East Lansing and Lansing during the 1990s. He’s a singer who defies most conventional genres, though he sometimes sports the label of post-punk folk singer or college rock performer. He would eventually produce several CDs and win an Emmy for his Biggby Coffee commercial.
In 2019, when we were still oblivious to the oncoming pandemic, the artistic director of Flint Repertory Theater, Michael Lluberes, created a musical featuring Wally Pleasant songs, with the title taken from the album of one of his early works, “Songs about Stuff: The Music of Wally Pleasant.”
It is a love letter to Gen X-ers that can still make other generations smile and be tickled by the quirky humor. You don’t even have to have played Pac Man or owned cassette tapes to get his music—though it helps.
The musical includes such songs as “Psycho Roommate,” “Bad Haircut,” “I Wanna Be a Pop Star,” “Stupid Day Job" and "Denny's at Four a.m.”
The Over the Ledges production is directed by Adam Carlson with music direction by Sharon Garner and it will be performed at the Riverwalk Black Box stage. Carlson saw it in Flint and pitched it to Dickson. It was added to the 2022 season, whereupon he cast Courtlandt Lyons, Storm Kopitsch, Anasti Her and Jeff Kennedy.
They’ll be bringing “Songs about Stuff: The Music of Wally Pleasant” to the region where he first gained his fame. It’s a chance to spend part of your weekend remembering that the world is filled with things that are quirky, fun and good—that even annoying things can be twisted in a way to make you smile and keep you from taking anything too seriously.
Encore!
● Ixion is holding auditions for the first show of their 2022-2023 season—“Incognito” by Nick Payne, directed by Heath Sartorius. They will be Sunday, July 17, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the downtown Capital Area District Libraries in the basement auditorium. The show needs two men and two women of any age. Performances will be Sept. 16, 17, 23, 24.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Over the Ledges borrows a stage so the show can go on
