Musical theater has always been inclusive. Sometimes it broadcasts the message, the way Oscar Hammerstein II did in South Pacific: ”You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.” Mostly, it simply has been a welcoming home for artists, characters, and spectators of different races, religions, sexual orientations, and gender identities.

Now along comes a musical reimagining of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the University of Michigan, which runs for four performances October 10-13 at Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Inclusion is a key theme here, and unlike most musicals that we can label—classic American musicals, rock musicals, opera-style musicals, for instance—it includes just about every kind of music and dance style, too.  

The musical begins as the Shakespeare play does. Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria and disguises herself as a Cesario, a man, so she can gain employment with Duke Orsino. She falls in love with Orsino, who yearns for Olivia, who in turn loves “Cesario.” 

Director Jessica Bogart says this Twelfth Night is not set in one specific era or locale but “in an imagined city we call ‘the magical now' ... an abstract location that allows characters to discover their true selves and true strengths. The source material itself has this gorgeous exploration of gender and identity.”   

How closely does it follow that source material?

”It’s a somewhat loose adaptation of the original Shakespeare,” says choreographer Jason Reiff, explaining that the work, conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub, with music and lyrics by Taub, “has taken liberties with Shakespeare's text and brought forth certain aspects of that story, mostly Viola coming to terms with her full self rather than what the world expects.”  

“This show is all about finding community [and] looking at the world through someone else's shoes,” says lighting designer Sydney Geysbeek.  

Since song lyrics help forward the story, significant portions of the play were cut.

“Shaina Taub’s stylistic mash up with the music is congruent with this all inclusive world Shakespeare has created,” says Bogart.

Music director Maurice Draughn says “the musical tapestry honors the original essence of the play” using “a full array of different American folk idioms: Dixieland Jazz, gospel, pop, soul, and rock music.”

Draughn says all these styles evolved from jazz, so it is fitting that the music begins in historical New Orleans with a funeral dirge. But it doesn’t stay bleak: In the last number, the audience will be clapping along in celebration.

Throughout the show, the music “invites the audience to enter this land of Illyria,” Draughn says, while tapping into different time periods from the '60s to the '90s, he adds.  

“At the very beginning, Orsino, Viola, and Olivia are singing about how Viola is presenting as a man,” Geysbeek says. Their songs overlap and they stand in three pools of light. Geysbeek searched for the colors, textures and angles that reinforced the mindset of each, “three distinct visual spots … morph into one.” 

“The production reflects the eclecticism of the music,” adds Bogart. “We investigated different postcolonial societies ... [and] came to understand why Taub did not want the play to be set in a specific era. They wanted to magnify this beautiful mashup.”

Reiff, who doesn’t have a trademark approach to choreography but accommodates the style of a show, now had to adapt to a slew of styles, among them swing dance, lindy hop, hip-hop, ballroom, even a New Orleans-style funeral procession. All this, Reiff says, is to create a world in which people “embrace each other for all their uniqueness.”   

He knew many of the styles prior to signing on to do the work, learned others by studying YouTube videos, and took classes in swing styles. “It’s an extraordinarily entertaining piece of theater,” he says.  

Camille Charara pulled most costumes from U-M’s large stock, shopped for a few, and built one costume for Olivia when she is mourning for her brother. When she falls in love “she needs to be in half-mourning, trying to entice him but still in dark colors," Charara says. 

But black is a rare color on this happy island. Charara says the costumes are colorful, modern, and young, something she attributes partly to the youthful outlook of her student assistant costume designer, Kayti Sanchez.

Orsino’s court is in orange. When Olivia’s court is mourning, red and white are mixed with black. “Antonio, who has followed Sebastian to this island, is a little more grunge in gray and black, not because he’s in mourning; it’s his aesthetic. Sebastian and Cesario wear peacock blue," Charara says.

“What’s so great about this production is that it’s really easy to laugh," she continues. "There’s so much humor in it … [and] physical comedy. In one group number, everybody is in matching costumes.” 

Geysbeek says after reading the script, they looked at images on Google and Pinterest. They noticed how light caught a girl’s face in one image and tried to re-create that through stage light. They used purples, blues, amber, and warm tones, then decided her lighting plot had to support “scenes of identity, love and grief, and coming together in terms of hardship. It’s also a beautiful love story.”  

Draughn says he’s enjoyed working on a show with “a very creative use of mixing and melding two different idioms, one American, one Shakespearean, creating a body of work that can speak to every community.” 

Davi Napoleon, a theater historian and freelance writer, holds a BA and MA from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from New York University. Her book is Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theatre.

“Twelfth Night” runs this weekend October 10-13 at Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, 911 North University Avenue, Ann Arbor. For more tickets, showtimes, and more information, visit smtd.umich.edu or call 734-764-2538.