Renewsical sings a song of sustainable energy
Welcome to Cheap Seats, where every Thursday we’ll talk to folks behind the scenes of the stage events opening around town, in order to give you a flavor of the productions that won’t be found in any of the promo materials.
Renewsical: A Musical About Sustainable Energy, Barrymore Theatre (July 30)
Promo pull quote: “The Renewsical is an interactive stage performance that teaches the technology of energy efficiency, sustainability, and renewable energy in order to inspire action toward a healthy economy, cleaner environment, and a brighter future.”
What it’s really about: Renewsical is a musical variety show that does pretty much exactly what it promises to do: It teaches the audience about renewable energy. But instead of going the PowerPoint route of An Inconvenient Truth, it has puppets gigantic and small, songs about energy, and acted-out information about how different renewable energy technology works. “We want people to learn that renewable energy isn’t just some hippie movement,” said writer/musician Ed Lemar, who co-wrote the musical with Madison artist Robin Lee. “It makes sense. It saves money. It creates jobs. It makes for better and healthier living.”
Fun fact: Your U.S. government, in an indirect way, paid for Renewsical. Lemar attended a sustainability conference at Northland University in Ashland, Wisc., that was offering an Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored grant for projects that taught sustainability. Lemar, who had been batting around the idea of doing a sustainable-energy musical project, wrote up Renewsical and received the grant.
And it’s not just songs about wind power with Lemar and his collaborators. “[The biggest challenge] has been trying to coordinate the tour, driving all around the state and trying to make as minimal impact as we can,” Lemar said. “We’re teaching energy-efficiency and sustainability so we’re trying to make sure we live by that. We’ll be carpooling to the shows; I think we can get all 14 of us into two vehicles. It’ll be cozy.”
Best reason to try it: The show on Friday at the Barrymore is your only chance to see it in Madison, as Renewsical is on something of a tour this weekend (it hits a school in Northern Wisconsin on Thursday, and Winona, Minn. on Saturday), and the Madison show is the third of a total of six scheduled performances. You also don’t need to be scared off by the promise of a musical teaching you about wind turbines; Lemar says it isn’t meant to be preachy. “It’s not doom and gloomy, like, 'If you don’t do this, the world is going to end,'” he said. “There’s no satire about what post-apocalyptic Wisconsin would look like if we don’t use renewable energy. That stuff is so cliché. We stayed far away from that. We just want people to have the information and then make up their own minds.”
