TheatreZone musical explores the motivations of Bonnie & Clyde to embark on their robbery spree turned murder

TheatreZone opens its 19th season with "Bonnie & Clyde: The Musical." Set to a Tony Award-nominated musical score of power ballads, jazz and Texas hillbilly blues by legendary musical composer Frank Wildhorn, "Bonnie & Clyde" follows the arc of youthful fantasies gone horribly wrong.

Those fantasies were actually quite laudable. Bonnie was an aspiring actress and poet. Clyde played ukulele. His passion was to become a musician. But they grew up poor kids in the middle of the Depression, and tried to take short-cuts to fortune and fame. It’s this focus on their backstory and motivations that, in TheatreZone Artistic Director Mark Danni’s opinion, makes "Bonnie & Clyde" a really great piece of musical theater.

“Their journey is, of course, tragic,” remarks Danni. “We always know how it ends. But it’s interesting to glimpse into the motives behind what they do. Of course, there’s been books written, documentaries done and movies made. This was very interesting to have it musicalized for the first time. The composer, Frank Wildhorn, who wrote the music to this, is really, really good at taking stories like this and writing very dramatic music, but also filling it in with flavorful music that’s for the era of the ‘30s in Texas.”

Robert Koutras plays Clyde Barrow. He’s been wild about Wildhorn for as long as he can remember.

“I didn’t realize it, but I first fell in love with his music because he wrote ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go’ by Whitney Houston and he wrote a lot of pop music in the ‘80s,” says Koutras. “And then Jekyll & Hyde was when I was a kid that was coming out, and I fell in love with that.”

Brittany Ambler plays Bonnie Parker, and she makes this observation about Frank Wildhorn’s musical score.

“It’s gorgeous. It’s energizing. It tells the story…,” effuses Ambler. “And it’s also really hard. As I’ve been practicing it, and learning it, it is very … it is a strenuous, active show, which makes it exciting for me, as a performer. But it’s all about the marathon and not the sprint.”

Ambler has many favorite numbers. But the one that immediately springs to mind as best is Bonnie’s duet with Clyde’s sister-in-law, Blanche Barrow, played by Rachael Lord. Titled “You Love Who You Love,” it comes near the end of Act One.

“It’s truly how Bonnie is feeling. She’s like I know that he’s maybe not the greatest. He’s a troublemaker. He’s whatever. But I cannot help but love him. And it’s just so like raw and emotional and I’m very excited to sing this song.”

Koutras is looking forward to performing his smoldering sonnet titled “Bonnie.” Besides the vocals, he gets to play the ukulele, which he’s been furiously practicing just for this number.

The score is distinctively Texas and perhaps even a little hillbilly, particularly in the up-tempo numbers. And the underscoring that sets up the action has an ominous western movie feel. But Mark Danni emphasizes that the score is still quite modern.

“When we get into the full-out ballads and moments of soliloquy and internal strife between characters, it is a modern score, just with a beautiful orchestration that is accomplished,” Danni observes. “So I think that the audience is going to hear some variety of such great music, of flavors of toe-tapping stuff and listen to that banjo going to powerful moments of strife where characters are trying to deal with their inner turmoil.”

That inner turmoil is most evident in the incredible number at the end of the show, “Dyin’ Ain’t So Bad.”

In real life, Bonnie penned a poem titled “The Trail’s End” while on the run with Clyde. Wildhorn and lyricist Don Black incorporated the final stanzas of Bonnie’s poem into “Dyin’ Ain’t So Bad.”

 While we all know how the story ends, Bonnie & Clyde: The Musical provides such keen insight into the infamous couple’s thoughts and motives that you’ll be talking about this show long after the final curtain.

"Bonnie & Clyde: The Musical" plays January 11 through 21 at TheatreZone in Naples.

MORE INFORMATION:

• Go here for play dates and times.

• Based on the book by Ivan Menchell, the musical recounts the electrifying true story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow from the unique perspective of the duo’s relationship against a background of extraordinary music.
  
• “Bonnie and Clyde are 20th Century legends whose criminal escapades captured the fascination of the country during the Great Depression,” TheatreZone Artistic Director Mark Danni observes. From two small-town nobodies to Texas law enforcement’s worst nightmare, the pair’s bold and reckless behavior turns their thrilling adventure into a downward spiral as they achieve the fame they sought, albeit ill-begotten.
  
• “Bonnie, of course, wanted stardom,” Danni points out. “So when she saw herself in the papers, even though it was for bad things, and people wanted her autograph, she did like that.”
  
• Forced to stay on the run, the infamous duo’s notoriety grows, and their inevitable end draws near. “The show depicts their criminal exploits as well as their backgrounds and romance, which are keys to understanding their characters,” says Danni. “In addition, the relationship between Blanche Barrow (Rachael Lord) and Buck Barrow (Matthew Blake Johnson), Clyde’s sister-in-law and brother, is also expertly drawn in the book by Ivan Menchell.”
  
• “The music in Bonnie & Clyde is rousing and dramatic,” Danni adds. “Power ballads and jazz and blues numbers evoke the era and capture the relationships between the couples. The beautiful orchestration by John McDaniel uses guitar, mandolin, banjo, violin, flute, and many more instruments to express the emotions in the musical.”
  
• Bonnie & Clyde’s composer Frank Wildhorn and lyricist Don Black received a 2012 Tony Award nomination for “Best Original Score” and 2012 Drama Desk Awards nominations for “Outstanding Music” (Wildhorn) and “Outstanding Lyrics” (Black).
  
• TheatreZone’s six-person band is conducted by Charles Fornara. Musicians are Joe Otero (guitar, banjo, mandolin); Erik Berg (violin); Zachary Deeter (clarinet, English Horn, flute, piccolo, alto sax, soprano sax); Adam Costello (bass clarinet, clarinet, tenor sax); Joe Choomack (bass), and Scott Crawford (drums).
  
• TheatreZone always uses live music in their performances. But while the audience will hear the orchestra, it won’t actually see them perform. “Our orchestra is on stage but not seen in this production,” Danni explains. “Depending on the set designs throughout our season, sometimes you see the orchestra completely. Sometimes you see them sort of through things. For this show, they are not seen. They are behind walls, but they are on stage at the rear of the stage.”
  
• Most people know the story of Bonnie and Clyde from the 1967 neo-noir crime film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. The musical provides more psychological depth to the couple’s union and motivations.
  
• Go here for Brittany Ambler’s riff on her character, Bonnie Parker.

To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.

Spotlight on the Arts for WGCU is funded in part by Naomi Bloom, Jay & Toshiko Tompkins, and Julie & Phil Wade.