The first-ever go-go musical, Wind Me Up Maria runs Nov. 3-12 as part of Georgetown’s Department of Performing Arts 2016-2017 season, and features the music genre that originated in Washington, D.C.
In a riff on nanny storylines of musicals such asThe Sound of Music orMary Poppins, the show, Wind Me Up, Maria, isabout a D.C. native and a rising senior at Georgetown who takes a summer position as a live-in tutor. She ends up with a Washington family and teaches the children about go-go music.
Myiah Smith (SFS’20) of Northeast Washington, D.C., plays “Maria Anacostia,” the star of the show.
Acclaimed playwright-directorNatsu Onoda Power, a Georgetown associate professor of performing arts, and Charles “Shorty Corleone” Garris, lead singer for the D.C.’s premier go-go bandRare Essence, co-created the musical –involving collaborations both inside and outside the university.”
“I’ve been wanting to do a go-go musical for a while,” explains, Onoda Power, also artistic director of the university’s Davis Performing Arts Center. “This musical has a narrative much like musicals such asThe Sound of Musicor Mary Poppins, in which an outsider comes into a family and improves their lives.”
“It’s kind of a personal story,” Onoda Power says of how the go-go musical came to be.
Long before they were married, her husband, chef Tom Power, opened a restaurant in a hotel downtown that rented its banquet halls to go-go shows.
He began listening to the music and many years later shared it with his future bride, who fell in love with him and go-go at the same time.
Chuck Brown, the “Godfather of Go-Go” who died in 2012, played at their 2008 wedding.
“When I first attended his shows, I was so struck by how theatrical they were, and I realized it was exactly the kind of theater I wanted to make,” Onoda Power says. “It was nonstop and every new thing was more energetic and better than the last.”
The go-go musical and the other productions this year all follow the theme of “Discover and Celebrate.”