Towards the end of the first WYSIWYG run (Spring 2014) April had a brief discussion with Tony Domenick and Evan Duggan about more collaboration and somehow they got on the topic of Sisyphus. The idea intrigued her and the songs for the show came out naturally. About six months later, she had put together the story-line and a preliminary set of songs, but by then Tony was headed to California, Evan was already in Chicago and they told her to just go for it. So April connected with her dear friend Mary Scott from Denver's Performing Arts Project and she was happy to get involved with developing the book.
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| April and Mary (2017) |
A few years and several readings later April hired Brandon Bill as director and they mounted the show as "
Sisyphus the Musical" at the Aurora Fox theatre in June 2017. She had never put together a complete full length Broadway Musical of that scale before and this was a fun group to bring that show to life, but eventually she realized she had to revisit the underlying concept and create a whole new work.
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| Cast of Sisyphus the Musical (2017) |
By the end of 2024 "Absurd Hero" had emerged as the title and the new show is now scheduled to debut at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. One challenge would be to simplify and streamline the show for the 60 minute format. Topics like politics, mythology and philosophy might be considered a bit heavy for broad audience appeal, but we knew that the Fringe would be a perfect place for some out of the box thinking. We created a modern setting, meaningful story arcs with fun plot twists for each character. April selected a subset of songs from the original show, added a few new ones and modified the lyrics to support and move the new story along.
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| Absurd Hero Logo (2025) |
Making Sid the Absurd Hero meant integrating some of the fundamental concepts from the treatise on Absurdism by Albert Camus, who famously uses the Greek myth of Sisyphus as an example of the Absurd Hero and the human experience. In our modern day version of Sisyphus, Sid a politician, must take care of the homeless problem for city hall. To Zeus and his homeless friends, Sid is Sisyphus and many events that take place during the show can be found in the myth. A delusion that plays out in the homeless gods minds and the spectacle of the stage. Sid must please Zeus, city hall and teach the citizens that they are in control of their future and to accept their fate, whatever it may be.
