The full cast of "Belladonna: The Musical," an original true-crime tale of 17th-century Italy. Credit: courtesy photo

If you laughed half as hard as I did at Saturday Night Live‘s recent roasting of Moulin Rouge, you probably also share my weariness with so-called “original” musicals that have been cobbled together from pop playlists and old movie scripts. AdventHealth’s newly announced 2024-2025 Broadway series at the Dr. Philips Center doesn’t look like it will shake up that tiring trend, with the quirky breakout hit Shucked as the only all-new standout among the jukebox shows (shuffling music by Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond, Cher, Bob Dylan and ABBA) and film adaptations (like The Lion King, Some Like It Hot and Mean Girls).

However, if you aren’t willing to wait for the big touring productions to bring something fresh to Orlando, two local companies are currently presenting area premieres featuring songs and stories you haven’t seen or heard before. And with both debuting in the wake of International Women’s Day, they each also happen to place female characters at center stage.

Belladonna: The Musical, running at Orlando Family Stage through March 17, brings to life the little-remembered tale of Giulia Tofana (Devyn Schoen), a notorious producer of undetectable poisons (known as “aqua tofana”) in 17th-century Italy, who aided over 600 abused wives in dispatching their SOB spouses.

Haunted by her overbearing mother (Caroline Clay Brooks), and her bloodthirsty mentor (Krystal Kennedy), Tofana struggles to hide her side hustle from her precocious stepdaughter Gigi (Zoe Dunn), as well as from Sophia (Sara Diaz), a serpent-tongued socialite intent on gossiping Giulia into her grave.

This brand-new musical, which is a co-production with MAC Boys Entertainment, was initially inspired by a true crime YouTube video that producer-director Di’ana Rodriguez watched recounting the historical Tofana’s tale. She brought the idea to her mentor Angel Partie, a professor of screenwriting and communications based in Delaware, and together they co-wrote a television pilot. Later, choreographer Christopher Payne introduced the pair to Savannah Pedersen (best known for her 2018 Orlando Fringe Festival hit F*ckboys) who helped translate their teleplay into a stage musical starring an all-female cast.

The resulting production’s two best assets are its engaging storyline — which interweaves issues of class and gender with fraught familial emotions — and the diverse musical score by Pedersen and Rodriguez (with lyrics by the pair and Partie), that draws on sonic influences ranging from 1970s singer-songwriters and popera to folk-flavored hip-hop, yet has its own distinctive melodic voice. And although it’s described in the program as a “work in progress,” the production values and technical elements (designed by the creators in collaboration with Sean Duncan and Tim Bowman) are unexpectedly polished, especially the well-produced backing tracks, which happily don’t overwhelm the unamplified ensemble’s multilayered harmonies.

The talented Schoen plays Tofana like a more self-aware Sweeney Todd, emphasizing her guilt-ridden character’s inner conflict. However, she’s often overshadowed throughout the first act by the antics of her elder advisors, and doesn’t even get to deliver her “I want” song until the barn-burning Act One finale. She’s upstaged again after the intermission by Diaz’s star turn as the avenging antagonist. Brimming with potential, Belladonna would be best served by a restructuring of its script, which still betrays its screen-based origins with jarring jumps in time that are bracketed by momentum-killing scene changes, even omitting the narrative’s dramatic climax and skipping straight to an uncathartic coda. I’m looking forward to seeing a future version this show, with a fully fleshed-out plot and a tighter focus on its protagonist.

Although she may not have the body count of Belladonna, Central Florida Vocal Arts and Opera del Sol’s latest production likewise centers on another female figurehead in the eternal battle between the sexes, and her fraught relationship with a sworn frenemy. Derrick Wang’s acclaimed one-act contemporary opera Scalia/Ginsburg — which premiered in 2015, the same year the libretto was published in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts — will finally receive its Southeastern regional premiere March 15-17 at the Dr. Phillip Center’s Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater.

This comedic exploration of the improbable friendship between late U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia is described by CFVA executive director Theresa Smith-Levin as “surprisingly light-hearted, and a perfect introduction to the operatic genre for new audiences.”

“Given the political climate, it can feel like we are helpless to create a more positive and connected community. Conversations around a proverbial dinner table devolve into quarrels or even worse, tense silence declares some topics completely off-limits. Sometimes, a performance or piece of art can spur a difficult conversation in a productive direction,” says Smith-Levin, who partnered with the Alterity Orchestra for this show.

“In that spirit, Opera del Sol’s production of Scalia/Ginsburg aims to remind audiences that two very unlikely friends can still find common ground in their shared humanity.”


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This article appears in Mar 6-12, 2024.