Cinderella: a hip-hop tale of an illegal alien,” the latest from Five Star Boogie Productions, tells the traditional tale of Cinderella with a few twists and a lot of shaking.
The show features dances, from break to Bolshevik, music that blends the hottest hip-hop beats and actors with more flavor than Baskin-Robbins.
The cast boasts all the classic characters and some creative additions. The heroine, Cinderella, is an adopted illegal alien from the Philippines. The prince, on the other hand, is now a slang-talking, hip-hop thumping, looking-for-love white boy from Skokie, Ill.
The Filipina protagonist lives with her twin stepsisters, Mocha and Loca. Mocha prefers marijuana, while Loca prefers “muchachos.”
Pat Bukaka, the written-in antagonist, heads Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The wannabe-suave evildoer is the stereotypical villain, so excessively cheesy that he leaves the audience longing for macaroni. “Taco Bell Shaft,” as Mocha calls him, and his two goons resolve to rid the country of all foreigners. “Diversity is overrated,” Bukaka says, looking out into the show’s regularly multiethnic audience.
Northwestern alumna Czarina Mirani – writer, choreographer and lead actress – and director Erica Watson wanted the show to demonstrate that females in the hip-hop community can be strong and smart, as well as sexy, rather than merely eye candy for rap videos.
“The implication that a woman has to choose between her sexuality and her credibility – but couldn’t have both – is ridiculous,” Mirani says.
The three sisters, who together make up the “P-control” dance troupe, run the hottest club in town. The sisters’ unity is threatened, however, when the INS warns Cinderella that she has until midnight of the following day to leave the country.
Rather than accept their unfortunate fate, the “P-control” embarks on the quest for a green card, only obtainable through marriage to a legal citizen.
Cinderella gets her chance – and her hubby – when the prince extends invitations for his party to her sisters and her. “I want a woman,” the 18-year-old king-to-be says.
This Cinderella, unlike the original, isn’t bashful about finding her man. “You gotta grab them by the balls and say, ‘Hey, look at my ta-tas,'” the leading lady says, offering her advice on picking up men.
The plot moves the show along, but the dancing holds it together.
Most of the shows sold out during the initial run, which began October 2001 at the Bailiwick Arts Center; however, when the show reopened in March 2002 at the larger Theatre Building Chicago, Mirani recognized the need for more structured dance routines.
Every character gets the opportunity to floss his or her boogie-down skills, underscored by music from DJ Real One, during a memorable ten-minute dance battle. The P-control’s sensual lap dance, performed in skintight black lace, highlights the routine and seduces the prince.
Mirani and Watson envisioned the dance-saturated format when she cast dancers who could also act, instead of actors who could also dance.
Mirani and Watson removed the improvisation that prevailed during the original production. The extemporization, according to Mirani, significantly increased show times.
Chicago native Jana Susic, 20, saw the show when it opened in October and again in May after it reopened. Susic says she came back for the dancing. “The show wouldn’t be as good without it,” she said.
Mirani improved the acting, costume and set design and stepped up the marketing effort for the second run.
She relied heavily on guerilla and word-of-mouth marketing to promote the show at the Bailiwick. The marketing team handed out fliers at clubs and placed them under car windshields.
“We promoted the way you would promote a party,” she said.
Mirani added traditional theater-goers to the target audience when “Cinderella” moved to the Theatre Building Chicago. She took out ads in newspapers and dropped “BYOB” from the bottom of the promotional posters and fliers.
The advertising strategies and fresh, hip-hop image drew new audiences to the theater. People who had never seen a show bought tickets. Younger people came to see their culture represented on stage while older spectators came to see what today’s youth thinks is cool, according to Mirani.
Cinderella received a lot of support from the hip-hop and dance communities. The support from these groups and the multiethnic cast – featuring Asian, Hispanic, black and Caucasian actors – helped the show appeal to a diverse audience.
While several hip-hop theater productions preceded “Cinderella” in the Chicago scene, Mirani maintains the Five Star Boogie production is authentic. Artists who lacked proper hip-hop backgrounds, she says, produced the other shows and relied on their perceptions and stereotypes of the culture. Regardless, Mirani expects the hip-hop theatre genre to grow in the future.
“If some theaters see it’s a trend and that it’s hot, they will try to go into it,” she said.
Apparently, the Theatre Building Chicago agrees. The second run of “Cinderella,” originally set to conclude May 4, has been extended through May 18. nyou
