| Kid Victory | |
|---|---|
 Kid Victory logo (2017 Vineyard Theatre Production) | |
| Music | John Kander |
| Lyrics | Greg Pierce |
| Book | Greg Pierce |
| Productions | 2015 Signature Theatre 2017 Vineyard Theatre |
| Awards | Outer Critics Circle Award - Outstanding New Musical (nominated) |
Kid Victory is a musical with the story by John Kander and Greg Pierce, and music by John Kander, book and lyrics by Greg Pierce, co-produced by Vineyard Theatre and Signature Theatre.
The musical premiered at the Signature Theatre, Arlington, Virginia from February 17 to March 22, 2015. [1] The show was subsequently reworked and performed Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre from February 1, 2017 to March 19, 2017. [2] Direction was by Liesl Tommy with choreography by Christopher Windom. [1] Its 2017 showing was described by its producers as a "hauntingly mesmerizing original musical" about "breaking out and breaking through". [2]
Kander and Pierce met when Kander visited students at his alma mater, Oberlin College, where Pierce was a student. They kept in touch as Pierce graduated, moved to New York, and began his career in theater, acting and writing. The two wrote a chamber musical together, The Landing, which ran Off-Broadway in 2013. [3] For Kid Victory, they looked at many kidnapping cases. Kander observed :"I think the thing that appealed was that there’s nothing about adjusting back into life, or very little in terms of our research. When you think about it, that’s the main thing. Terrible things happen to people, but what happens then? How do you manage? Who do you become?" [4]
17 year old high school senior and sailboat enthusiast Luke returns to his small, Kansas town after an unplanned, unannounced one-year absence. Luke finds it difficult to reconnect with friends and family or to focus on school work. He experiences recurrent flashbacks of his year-long absence and the events and relationship leading up to it. Luke had been communicating on the internet with Michael; his screen name was "Kid Victory". As he tries to readjust, Luke develops a growing friendship with the town misfit, divorcee Emily. His parents, Eileen and Joseph, finally understand that to reconnect with their son, they must confront unnerving truths about his disappearance. [2] [5]
Sources: Playbill; [6] BroadwayWorld [7]
| Character | Arlington, Virginia (2015) | Off–Broadway (2017) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luke | Jake Winn | Brandon Flynn | |
| Mom/Eileen | Christiane Noll | Karen Ziemba | |
| Dad/Joseph | Christopher Bloch | Daniel Jenkins | |
| Emily | Sarah Litzsinger | Dee Roscioli | |
| Suze/Girl | Laura Darrell | ||
| Andrew/Boy | Parker Drown | Blake Zolfo | |
| Gail/Woman | Valerie Leonard | Ann Arvia | |
| Detective Marks/Man | Bobby Smith | Joel Blum | |
| Michael | Jeffry Denman | ||
Note: Songs listed as performed in the Off-Broadway production, 2017 [8]
Kid Victory at the Signature Theatre was reviewed by The Washington Times . The reviewer wrote: "This is dark material, made no less traumatic by the fact that this is, after all, a musical. The songs by Mr. Kander and Mr. Pierce vacillate between the morbid and the light of foot... Liesl Tommy’s direction takes full advantage of the Signature’s expansive stage, allowing her to block multiple scenes simultaneously, often in inspired counterpoint. This has the effect of giving the audience a choice of where to direct attention and seeks active participation...the story and the production are strangely lacking in empathy between material and audience.". [9]
For its 2017 production, Kid Victory was reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter [10] and by The Guardian [11]
Ben Brantley in his review for The New York Times of the Off-Broadway production, wrote: "...the subject of 'Kid Victory' feels especially unpromising for any musical that doesn’t aspire to grim, grand (guignol) opera or creepy camp. And this latest teaming of Mr. Kander and Mr. Pierce ... definitely has other aspirations, toward a laudable but elusive psychology delicacy... Mr. Kander mines a number of musical veins, including the jaunty jazz and vaudeville pastiches for which he is best known, with results that are scattered, a bit bewilderingly, among the characters." [12]
The Off-Broadway production received 2017 nominations:
John Harold Kander is an American composer, known largely for his work in the musical theater. As part of the songwriting team Kander and Ebb, Kander wrote the scores for 15 musicals, including Cabaret (1966) and Chicago (1975), both of which were later adapted into acclaimed films. He and Ebb also wrote the standard "New York, New York".
Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera.
Paula Vogel is an American playwright who received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play How I Learned to Drive. A longtime teacher, Vogel spent the bulk of her academic career – from 1984 to 2008 – at Brown University, where she served as Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor in Creative Writing, oversaw its playwriting program, and helped found the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. From 2008 to 2012, Vogel was Eugene O'Neill Professor of Playwriting and department chair at the Yale School of Drama, as well as playwright in residence at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
Chita Rivera, is an American actress, singer and dancer best known for originating roles in Broadway musicals including Anita in West Side Story, Velma Kelly in Chicago, and the title role in Kiss of the Spider Woman. She is a ten-time Tony Award nominee and a three-time Tony Award recipient, including one for Lifetime Achievement. She is the first Latina and the first Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honor and is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include The Producers, Crazy for You, Contact, and The Scottsboro Boys. She is a five-time Tony Award winner, four for Best Choreography and one as Best Director of a Musical for The Producers. In addition, she is a recipient of two Laurence Olivier Awards, five Drama Desk Awards, eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, and the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater. She is a 2014 inductee in the American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.
The Vineyard Theatre is an Off-Broadway non-profit theatre company, located at 108 East 15th Street in Manhattan, New York City, near Union Square. Its first production was in 1981. It is best known for its productions of the Tony award-winning musical Avenue Q, Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive, and Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell's Obie Award-winning musical [title of show]. The Vineyard describes itself as "dedicated to new work, bold programming and the support of artists." The company is the recipient of special Obie, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel awards for Sustained Excellence, and the 1998 Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Grant. It celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007.
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The Scottsboro Boys is a musical with a book by David Thompson, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. Based on the Scottsboro Boys trial, the musical is one of the last collaborations between Kander and Ebb prior to the latter's death. The musical has the framework of a minstrel show, altered to "create a musical social critique" with a company that, except for one, consists "entirely of African-American performers".
Jeffry Denman is an American actor, director, choreographer and author.
Anne Kauffman is an American director known primarily for her work on new plays, mainly in the New York area. She is a founding member of the theater group the Civilians.
Jordan Harrison is a playwright. He grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington. His play Marjorie Prime was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an American playwright. He won the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play for his plays Appropriate and An Octoroon. His plays Gloria and Everybody were finalists for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama respectively. He was named a MacArthur Fellow for 2016.
The Chita Rivera Awards for Dance and Choreography celebrate outstanding dance and choreography in theatre, both on Broadway and Off-Broadway and in film at an annual ceremony in New York City at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Now carrying the namesake of two-time Tony-winning dance icon Chita Rivera, The Rivera Awards will be presented under the auspices of American Dance Machine, an organization dedicated to the preservation of great musical-theater choreography.
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Liesl Tommy is a South African-American director. Primarily known for her stage work, Tommy became the first woman of color to be nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, for directing the Broadway production of Danai Gurira's Eclipsed (2017). She made her feature film directorial debut with the biopic Respect, based on the life of singer Aretha Franklin, starring Jennifer Hudson and released in August 2021.
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