Arts & Culture
From Ithaca to SoHo: A Fairytale Journey
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By SAM BROMER
This October, New York’s SoHo Playhouse will feature Far From Canterbury, a new musical with music, lyrics and book by Danny Bernstein ’14, in a series honoring the best of last month’s International Fringe Festival. Directed by Juliana Kleist-Mendez ’12, produced by Dana Lerner ’14, and with choreography by Ilana Gilovich ’12, the musical originally premiered at Cornell last spring. Since then, Bernstein says, the show has evolved for the better: “It’s a bit quicker, the dialogue is cleaned up, [and] there are six new songs.” Indeed, since its premiere at Cornell, the show has matured from a strong college production into a strong new musical, ready for the professional world of theatre. Far From Canterbury is based loosely on Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” and takes place in a fantastic medieval land where fairy tales function a bit like Fox News: to a large segment of the population, they’re treated as fact, but reality is a bit more complicated. At its heart is an unconventional hero’s journey.