The troupe behind Shadowbox Live does everything in a big way. They pour their heart and soul into every single show, and they crank out new material faster than most people can keep track of it. So when it came time for the group to celebrate their 25th anniversary, they knew they’d need to do something even bigger and better than usual.
To that end, the group, led by Executive Producer & CEO Stev Guyer, is resurrecting a rock opera original known as Evo, which was created back in 1996 and toured the country before landing in New York City for an off-broadway show.
“We had 26 people in the troupe back then and we headed out in an enormous Ryder truck with set pieces and costumes and no real understanding of what we were doing,” laughs Guyer. “We did seven shows with stops in DC, Cleveland and Chicago. It was a good experience, but really hard and not as nice and neat as a tour ought to be.”
Guyer is working on re-imagining, re-orchestrating, and re-writing Evo to give the musical a darker modern story. The original follows a husband and wife through a “dream-like carnival of the human subconscious”. The show explored the couple’s relationship with each other, as well as their relationship with society as a whole, including the dark underbelly of mankind.
The updated version of Evo will change some things around, but Guyer says that the core at the center of the show remain intact.
“We’ve kept the essentials — there are 13 conflicts between instructional behavior and societal expectations and we’re still exploring them, but in a different way,” he explains. “The ‘everyman’ individuals in the original became our foil, but the problem was that we didn’t give them an arc, and that’s not very compelling or satisfying. Our new ringleader of the show will be going through the experience as she’s leading us, as she’s the spokesman for the show, but it’s also for her own catharsis and self-medication, which becomes more dynamic.”
Guyer also says that the updated version of Evo will allow him to say more musically than he was able to 18 years ago in 1996, which will be expressed through the impressive musical talent that Shadowbox has been able to curate over the years. Katy Psenicka will also reprise her role as the co-choreographer of the show, bringing her own wealth of experience back to the revisitation.
To get this party started, Shadowbox is turning again to Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform that the group utilized to launch their original musical Underland in 2013. As a nonprofit arts organization, Shadowbox was able to crowdsource over $18,000 to put toward the production of their sixties-era take on the classic Alice in Wonderland tale. With Evo, Shadowbox is looking to raise $17,100 that would help recreate the sets, props, costumes and other materials that were destroyed in a fire in 1999.
“The production elements of this show are immensely demanding and go far beyond what we are normally capable of affording for our mainstage shows,” explains Guyer in his Kickstarter statement. “To do everything that we wish to do with this show — to create a perfect experience of light and sound and costume and set — we are starting again from nothing.”
Backers of the campaign can pledge at certain levels to get video updates on the production, tickets to the show, invites to live behind-the-scenes events, season passes, and even a chance to perform on-stage as an extra during one of the shows.
“We have been taking on challenges like this for twenty-five years,” concludes Guyer. “That burden is on our shoulders. You trusted us with Underland, and just as before, we believe that we are up to this challenge. And, maybe most importantly, we’re looking forward to it.”
For more details, or to donate via Kickstarter, CLICK HERE. For general info, visit www.shadowboxlive.org.