Towards the end of the first WYSIWYG run (Spring 2014) April had a brief discussion with Tony Domenick and Evan Duggan about more collaboration and somehow they got on the topic of Sisyphus. The idea intrigued April and the songs for the show came out naturally. About six months later, she had put together the story-line and a preliminary set of songs, but by then Tony was headed to California, Evan was already in Chicago and they told her to just go for it. So she connected with her dear friend Mary Scott from Denver's Performing Arts Project and she was happy to get involved with developing the book.
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Edinburgh Fringe Performance
April and Mary (circa 2017)
A few years and several readings later April hired Brandon Bill as director and mounted the show as "Sisyphus the Musical" at the Aurora Fox theatre for a two week run in June 2017. April had never put together a complete full length Broadway musical of that scale before and this was a fun group to bring that show to life, but as the months turned into years she started looking at the underlying concept of the show and at some point decided to create a whole new work.
Cast of Sisyphus the Musical (circa 2017)
By the end of 2024 "Absurd Hero" had emerged as the title for the new work and in November it was accepted into the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Our first challenge was to simplify and streamline the show for the 60 minute format. Topics like politics, mythology and philosophy might be considered a bit "highfalutin" for broad audience appeal, but we knew that the Fringe would be a perfect place for some out of the box thinking. We created a modern setting, meaningful story arcs with fun plot twists for each character. April selected a subset of songs from the original show, added a few new ones and modified the lyrics to support and move the new story along.
Absurd Hero Logo (2025)
Finally, we created a structure that supported the fundamental characteristics from the treatise on Absurdism by Albert Camus, who uses the Greek myth of Sisyphus as an example of the Absurd Hero and the human experience. In our modern day version of Sisyphus, Sid, an aspiring politician, must take care of the homeless problem for city hall. To Zeus and his homeless friends Sid is Sisyphus. A delusion that plays out in his mind and the spectacle of the stage. Sid must please Zeus, city hall and teach the homeless that they are in control of their future, to live in the moment and to accept the outcome, whatever it may be.
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