Head Over Heels: Music of The Go-Go's at Oklahoma City University

OCU Presents Romantic Musical Comedy
Head Over Heels for Valentine’s Weekend

Head Over Heels, an irreverent jukebox fairytale featuring the music of The Go-Go’s, will open Oklahoma City University’s spring season of operas and musicals Feb. 14-16 in Burg Theatre.

The show is billed as a “bold and fierce new musical comedy from the visionaries that rocked Broadway with Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Avenue Q and Spring Awakening.” Set to the iconic 1980s music of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Go-Go's, the score includes hit songs “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” and “Vacation.”

The Valentine’s weekend performances at OCU’s Wanda L. Bass School of Music are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets ($15) are available from www.okcu.edu/tickets or 405.208.5227. The Spotlight production, featuring simple costumes and sets, is rated PG-13 for suggestive language and adult situations.

Karen Coe Miller directs the cast of 25; Chuck Koslowske is music director. Miller calls the show “a kind comedy with a serious message. It is about leaning lessons in humility, forgiveness and courage in order to follow the beat of one’s own heart.”

Head Over Heels premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and transferred to Broadway in 2018. Jeff Whitty wrote the show’s original book, which was adapted for Broadway by James Magruder. He called the musical “a show with an open, generous, inclusive heart for heartless times.”

OCU’s season continues with two productions on the Kirkpatrick mainstage: the Feb. 21-23 opera twin bill Strawberry Fields and Gianni Schicchi, and April 11-13 season-finale musical: Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.

The Bass School of Music’s Oklahoma Opera & Music Theater Company, the nation’s oldest campus-based troupe, is celebrating its 73rd consecutive season. OCU has been honored with 13 National Opera Association
production awards, and selected multiple times by Playbill for its “Big Ten” honor roll of top schools educating Broadway performers. For details, visit www.okcu.edu/music.

CAST
Featuring Ryan Walshaw (Micah Phillips u/s) as Basilius, Tyler Hoverson and Garrison Mack as Musidorus, Scott Bratton and Ellis Stumbo as Dametas, Eitamil Abel and Connor Irwin as Pythio, Emma Maki and Anna-Marie Wright as Gynecia, Maggie Pfeiffer and Zoe Roebuck as Pamela, Maggie Cook and Mabel Tyler as Philoclea, and Ella Thulow and Lauren
Rogers as Mopsa. The Ensemble: Alli Echelmeyer, Catherine Gernetzke, Morgan Pierce, Alexa Roemer, Catherine Schenk, Leigha Trejo, Isaac Lynne, Ezra Moore, Myles Nzoiwu and Micah Phillips.

MUSICIANS
Chuck Koslowske, piano
Michael Mariniello, guitar
Orion Turner, percussion

CREATIVE TEAM
Director: Karen Coe Miller
Music Director: Chuck Koslowske
Choreographer: Grace McLean
Assistant Choreographer: Matthew Compa
Lighting Designer: AJ Blessing
Fight Choreographers: Reagan E. Townley, Jordan Smith
Intimacy Director: Amy Osatinski
Voice and Dialect Coach: Chaslee Schweitzer