Skylight Music Theatre Announces Cast, Creative Team For ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME

Skylight Music Theatre today announced the cast and creative team for the regional premiere of Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, a highly inventive off-Broadway musical that crisscrosses continents and time in an improbable and enchanting love story.

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me runs January 14-30, 2022, in the beautiful Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway, in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward. Skylight is Milwaukee's professional Equity music theatre company. Safety requirements are in effect, including masks while indoors and proof of vaccination or negative Covid test.

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me won the Best New Musical of the 2017 Off-Broadway Alliance Awards. With ingenuity, modern pop music, and cutting-edge video, Ernest Shackleton Loves Me is a romantic adventure linking a struggling modern-day, single-mom composer/violinist and the early-1900's, intrepid, banjo-playing, Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton. Digital projections of actual footage from Shackleton's expeditions are incorporated into the multimedia set design.

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me is written by Joe DiPietro, (Tony Award-winner for Memphis and author of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change), with lyrics by Val Vigoda and music by Brendan Milburn.

Longtime Skylight collaborator and producing artistic director of Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Jill Anna Ponasik, will direct. Ponasik directed Skylight's acclaimed productions of Oklahoma!, Carmina Burana, Ruddigore, The Tales of Hoffmann and Tosca.

"This may be the most FUN I have ever had researching a production," said Ponasik. "To dive into the adventure of the Endurance Expedition, specifically the roles hope and optimism played in the men's unlikely survival, has been thoroughly refreshing, and I can't wait to share that energy with live audiences."

Skylight's production will be the first time the show is presented in the Midwest. "The musical explores the unexpected similarities and sacrifices made by artists and explorers," said Skylight Music Theatre Artistic Director Michael Unger. "It is as much suspenseful, historical travelogue, as fantastical love story. We are thrilled to stage the regional premiere of this imaginative, heartfelt, wild ride of a show here at Skylight."

Making their Skylight debuts will be Matt Daniels as Ernest Shackleton and Janice Martin as Kat. Both professionals are graduates of Juilliard.

Daniels has performed throughout Wisconsin, including with Milwaukee Rep and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre; at numerous national Shakespeare Festivals; and at independent stages in New York. Based in Milwaukee, Daniels is the director of the Young Company at First Stage.

Martin tours around the country with her own award-winning show (A Janice Martin Cirque Show) showcasing her talents as a violinist, pianist, singer and aerialist. Based in Wisconsin, she has performed with numerous symphonies, including winning a violin competition at age 15 that allowed her to perform on stage with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

Music Director is Eric Svejcar, a Brooklyn-based composer, pianist, and arranger who music directed Skylight's 2021 staged concert reading of Paul Williams' Fortunate Sons. On Broadway he conducted the Roundabout/Deaf West production of Big River and played first keyboard for The Little Mermaid.

Performances run January 14-30, 2022.

Single tickets and subscriptions are on sale. Subscribers get the best seats at the best prices. Purchase at the Broadway Theatre Center Box Office. Call (414) 291-7800 or visit 158 N. Broadway, Monday - Saturday, from noon - 6 p.m. or email tickets@skylightmusictheatre.org.

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