Most of the Broadway entertainment Austin gets is filtered through several degrees of artistic separation before it gets here, but this time there's just one: Go-Go's bassist Kathy Valentine.
This vibrant lifelong Austinite is one of the city's greatest exports, and one of the reasons girl groups even exist in rock-and-roll. Her pioneering band, The Go-Go's ("We Got The Beat," "Our Lips Are Sealed"), blazed their way through the Los Angeles, new wave, and early punk scenes in the '80s — not without their share of drama, as outlined in Valentine's fantastic and vulnerable All I Ever Wanted: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir — and even landed on the Broadway stage.
Never hampered by the status quo, this group inspired a wacky Midsummer Night-esque jukebox musical that put a trans performer in a leading role for the first time on Broadway — at least, that's according to Valentine andPlaybill, regarding beloved drag artist Peppermint — and told a story that could hardly be queerer.
Fittingly for Austin Pride, a local rendition of Head Over Heels opened at Zach Theatre on August 9, and will continue through September 10. Valentine, who wrote the song the musical is named for, served as musical director for the local production, and plays bass onstage in the band every night.
"It's been done in high schools, [and other productions] all over the place," says Valentine. "So I'm really, really proud of that."
It's not just as good as the Broadway show — some drag-loving audience members may find it even more exciting thanks to louder costuming, hilarious gender-bent performances, and a sublimely joy-inducing set redesign consisting entirely of pool floats.
“I always associate The Go-Go's with summertime in Austin," says producing artistic director Dave Steakley, "and when I thought about this show, I wanted to stage it in Barton Springs, a completely impractical idea." (Let's keep this idea on the back burner, though, because this writer would pay a lot to see that.)
Something gay is happening here...Photo by Suzanne Cordeiro
The 16th century, but make it camp
This play, despite the prevalence of similar ideas like the 2006 film Marie Antoinette and the Broadway musicals Hamilton and Hadestown, is hard to nail down in a simple summary. Like the others, it modernizes an archaic story using the popular music of a completely different time and place. This time, though, it's written in verse.
Head Over Heels adapts The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, a 16th-century prose romance characterized by dramatic sex, politics, and cross-dressing. Each production decision, at least in the Austin show, brings the portrayal more dramatically off the rails for genuine laughs.
In adapting the musical once again, Steakley wanted to strengthen the visible connection to The Go-Go's with more references, and lighten the production up overall for more of a sense of play. "I wanted the inflatables [because] I thought it would invite a communal experience, and it would take off the preciousness of the language and the 16th-century," says Steakley.
Valentine adds, "I couldn't really picture what he was envisioning. But as soon as I saw it with the lights and the video incorporated, I was like, Oh my God, this is so cool."
The director likens his idea to a longtime Austin icon in silliness, Esther's Follies. The vaudeville theater started, in its own words, as "an improvisational free-for-all of fun with singers, poets, dancers, mimes, musicians, and comics ... around a lawn sprinkler in a campy tribute to aquatic-choreographer Esther Williams." That was in 1977, the year before The Go-Go's came together. It then staged its venues accordingly, with lots of references to pools and fish.
The set design in this local rendition is a feat of endless creativity. Whereas the Broadway show expresses its splendor more literally, with opulent furniture and draping, the Austin show goes as campy as possible. Every time a new set piece appears, the surprise is renewed, whether it's an abstract reimagining of a prop or an unexpected shape from the deepest aisle of the largest H-E-B. Even audience members clutch cheerful little flamingo floats as drink holders.
The animals on set are well taken care of. This steed is re-inflated daily, and there are repair kits backstage.Photo by Suzanne Cordeiro
Musicians take center stage
Besides the eye candy, the Austin show is unique for putting the band onstage. Valentine and the all-woman band (obviously) were visible for nearly the entire show, on a platform at the back of the stage. She and guitarist Eve Monsees, bandmates in Austin-based rock band The Bluebonnets, venture forward several times to be more present among the actors, eliciting cheers from the audience each time. ("Kathy!" someone from the audience exclaimed the first time, as is it were a reflex.)
Valentine's acts as music director were mostly in hiring the band and tweaking the arrangements to resemble a rock concert again, which usually meant more solos. For the Broadway production, the songs had been carefully arranged to make sure audiences could understand the lyrics, losing some of their edgier character.
One of the numbers even gave Valentine a chance to play a song live for the first time. "The ballad at the end — 'Here You Are' — we never played that song live," she says. "The record company said they wanted a ballad, and we weren't really ballad writers. The way it fits in the story, I think, is really, really well done. It's a big [and] highly emotional moment, and the vocals are beautiful."
Seeing the musicians among the characters also makes their contribution feel more real in the fictional world. Instead of a musical set to disembodied Go-Go's songs, these ladies are like bards helping to push the story forward. It's also realistic about what people are coming to see; the show is fun, but real-Go-Go Kathy Valentine is irreplaceable.
Eve Monsees (left) and Kathy Valentine (right) interacted with the stage much more than in the Broadway version — which was not at all.Photo by Suzanne Cordeiro
"This has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I've ever had, and I absolutely love it," wrote Monsees in a text to CultureMap. "What a thrill to stand next to Kathy onstage playing Go-Go's songs behind such an amazing cast. I'm just so proud of everyone involved and love sharing this experience night after night."
The first Saturday audience was similarly starstruck, lost in nostalgia about The Go-Go's and their youth alongside their songs. The most common refrain in the lobby after show was, "I had to stop myself from singing along."
Head Over Heels is playing at the Zach Theatre until September 10. Tickets (starting at $25) are available at zachtheatre.org.
