To that end, says Mahoney, who wrote the script, "the stories hop back and forth, and the action jumps around in the way a real bar situation would. There are no traditional scenes; everything bleeds together. It's like an environmental piece, in the sense that the bar is the stage for all the action." And the audience-participation part? "I had the insane logistical idea of adding participation," Mahoney continues. "The audience will be encouraged to sign up and sing. And since we're operating it like a real karaoke bar, we won't use the same songs every night. God only knows how that's going to go."
The ultimate message, he adds, will be something like real life, too: "You see all these normal people sitting there, and they look like they're working on their homework or something, and then they get up and bust into an AC/DC number. How does giving everyone a chance to be the star of their own video or scene in a musical tie into our regular fears and feelings of disappointment in life?" Find out when the The Singing Room opens at 8 p.m. tonight at Brooks Center Arts, 1400 Williams Street; performances continue Thursdays through Saturdays until May 18. For tickets, $12 to $18, go to horseandcart.co/products-page.
Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Starts: April 27. Continues through May 18, 2013
