Elliot Lorenc's 'The Ballad of Iron Jo' will premiere on April 25 at Bag&Baggage Productions, showcasing a contemporary folk musical drawn from a lesser-known Grimm fable. Directed by Mandana Khoshnevisan, the play employs a DIY aesthetic, featuring four actor-musicians handling multiple roles and instruments, including quirky items like buckets. Its score is a mix of 1960s folk revival tunes, allowing flexibility in performance. The production's design, led by artist Signe Larsen, includes an innovative puppet mechanism, epitomizing the ethos of using available resources creatively, which reflects the narrative's critique of corporate monopolization.
The unifying ethos of Iron Jo's production seems to be this: Use the tools you have at your disposal. This DIY sensibility mirrors the play's moral message.
Folk music includes a long, rich tradition of repurposing everyday artifacts into musical instruments - buckets, washtubs, spoons, saws, cigar boxes - and this scrappy quality extends to all dimensions of Iron Jo.
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