The man who brought us “Caucus, The Musical,” has a new production that’s going on the road to at least four Iowa cities this spring.
Robert John Ford is the creator and producer of “Utopia, The Iowa Musical Revue,” which will open next weekend.
Ford says, “It is a musical revue in the sense that it’s a series of short sketches and parody songs, similar in nature to ‘Saturday Night Live’ or The Capitol Steps, where we pick an Iowa topic and do a short sketch or song about it.” Ford says “Utopia” will cover everything Iowa from the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential showdown to college rivalries.
“We’re celebrating all aspects of Iowa life, the people, the places, the traditions, and we’re poking a little fun at Iowa along the way,” Ford says. “Each sketch is unique and they’re about three to five minutes long. We talk about one Iowa thing and then we move on to a new subject and we just have a lot of fun with it.” The production is evolving. Over the past ten years, it’s included a total of 60-some sketches and 75 songs, so this latest incarnation is a sort of “best of the best.”
“Initially, we weren’t going to do anything that had anything to do with politics but we found a couple of songs about political figures but they’re not political in nature, and we thought, ‘We’ll include those, definitely,” he says, laughing. The production will run March 23rd through the 25th at the Webster City Community Theatre. The show will also go on in Fort Dodge on April 6th, in Newton on April 7th and 9th and in Pocahontas on April 21st.
(Thanks to Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)