Stage set for music theater, Aspen Fringe style

The 15th annual Aspen Fringe Festival is coming to the Wheeler Opera House this weekend and for the first time will incorporate musical theater into its two-night JuneFest.

Taking place at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, AFF’s JuneFest will once again bring a spread of multidisciplinary performances to the Wheeler’s stage — dance, film, opera and the addition of musical theater — with this year’s fest centered around the musical works of award-winning composer Craig Bohmler.

David Ledingham, AFF founder and executive director, said that following the success of last year’s JuneFest — when the two-part festival for the first time honed in on the works of a single artist, Tony Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens — he wanted to replicate that format again this year and do so around an artistry that the Fringe Festival hadn’t ever done before.

“I just feel like it gives people an understanding of what the artist is really about, what their sensibility is and what themes they have in their works,” Ledingham said. “And it's just so creative — it allows people to have a much deeper experience — and a lot of it is new work and works they've never seen, especially this year.”

While people may be familiar with some of Bohmler’s musicals, Ledingham continued, for audience members to get to see the different avenues and areas of the composer’s artistry — and in this two-day, deep-dive Fringe fest format — is inspiring, he said.

Born and raised in Texas, Bohmler picked up the piano in his youth and composing music as a teen. The American composer specializes in opera and musical theater, and in addition to four operas and 12 musicals, he has written numerous concerti, wind ensemble, choral and symphonic works.

Currently based in Phoenix, Arizona, Bohmler was the composer in residence for Arizona Opera from 2013 to 2017, where his opera “Riders of the Purple Sage” premiered, and he received the 2019 Arizona Governor's Arts Award for individual artist.

Bohmler has Aspen connections, too. He spent a handful of years at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he “really trained and cut his teeth as a young composer,” Ledingham said.

Returning to the valley for this year’s JuneFest, Bohmler has been working with the local performers who are cast in the AFF production, and the composer will be playing his own music live at the Wheeler this weekend, as well.

Like previous years, JuneFest is split into two parts. Friday evening will feature a performance of the musical comedy, “Enter the Guardsman,” which is the humorous telling of an actor who, convinced the bloom is off the marital rose, decides to disguise himself as a guardsman in order to prove his actress wife’s infidelity.

Based on a play by the celebrated and controversial Hungarian playwright, Ferenc Molnár, and with music by Bohmler, lyrics by Marion Adler and a book by Scott Wensworth, “Enter the Guardsman” won first prize in the International Musical of the Year competition and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1998.

The AFF iteration, directed by Brad Moore, features local cast members Franz Alderfer, Meredith Daniel, Lyon Hamil, Sally Maxwell, Mike Monroney, Isabella Poschman and Ledingham, who himself has performed the musical twice before regionally, he noted.

“It’s just really funny, the music is amazing and we'll be doing what they call a concert version of the show, because it's only one performance, but it's going to be a pretty detailed production,” Ledingham said. “And the other part of this, which is really cool, is that Craig will be playing the piano, he’ll be playing his own music that night.”

Saturday will run as a musical salon, during which a cast of local and visiting performers will enact scenes and excerpts from Bohmler’s body of musical theater works, including “Gunmetal Blues” — an “old detective, film noir kind of story,” Ledingham said — and “Mountain Days,” which is the tale of naturalist John Muir (whose words are in fact etched into the boulders at John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen).

Plus, the cast will be performing songs from Bohmler’s other musicals, like “A Beautiful Place,” “All the More to Love,” “Gretel and Hansel” and more.

“There’s just really a lot to choose from,” Ledingham said. “And it's not just songs, but it's actually kind of like scenes from these different musicals that include a song, but it really gives you a flavor of these various musicals that [Bohmler] has written.”

The salon evening will also include a dance performance by the New York-based Soulskin Dance troupe. Titled “Blue Eclipse,” the multimedia dance piece, choreographed by Adrianna Thompson (Ledingham’s wife), features dancers Itzkan Barbosa and Federico Garcia and combines the film of Jaco Stydom with a nuanced music composition by Bohmler.

In addition to the live performances throughout Saturday’s salon, there will be screening excerpts from the Emmy Award-winning film, “Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera,” for which Bohmler composed the music.

“So, two nights, two separate shows — very, very different — and that's why we really encourage people to buy a Fringe pass, to come to both events,” Ledingham said, “because it's just, you know, you just don't get this anywhere.”

Ledingham, an award-winning actor who has performed in a handful of musicals and was also part of the Crystal Palace’s final season, said that when he founded the AFF 15 years ago, his original idea was to create a multidisciplinary festival around great works that are “a little bit more on the fringe,” he said.

While this year’s marks the first musical theater-themed fest, it’s a discipline Ledingham has celebrated in this valley since the Crystal Palace days.

“One of the things about Aspen and this valley is that there's so many talented singers, and in part that is due to the Crystal Palace — there's no question about that,” Ledingham said. “The influence the Crystal Palace had on this valley was phenomenal, and there's just so many incredible singers here, and I wanted to create a platform for them at the Fringe Festival to contribute to this season, to this JuneFest.”

AFF’s JuneFest will take place at the Wheeler Opera House on Friday and Saturday. A festival pass is $78 and includes admission to both nights. Single tickets to either “Enter the Guardsman” or the musical salon night are $48. Tickets can be purchased at aspenshowtix.com.

Jacqueline Reynolds, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer