Esther Stephens as Kate SheppardKate Shep­pard, “the lead­ing light of the New Zea­l­and women’s suf­frage move­ment” tells her story in this rock music­al by Luke Di Somma and Gregory Cooper. Dir­ec­ted by Kip Chap­man, (with Jen­nifer Ward-Lea­l­and this season’s Rehears­al Dir­ect­or) the show is ter­rif­ic.  All the ele­ments of the best music­als are here – a well con­struc­ted dra­mat­ic arc, catchy and affect­ing songs, bril­liant per­formers, backed up by strong design choices. One song I’m angry, the next I’m try­ing not to ugly cry, then I’m in tears from laugh­ing.

The Gang Ensemble – Amy Straker, Phoebe Hurst, Camer­on Douglas, Kyle Chuen – are ener­get­ic, fun, and use their voices well in the dif­fer­ent songs styles. (It seems redund­ant to say they can sing, but WOW, they can sing. I appre­ci­ate that they get to be show­cased indi­vidu­ally as well as show off their ter­rif­ic har­mon­ies.) They’re on stage first as they set up for Kate Shep­pard. There’s a lot of respons­ib­il­ity rid­ing on per­former Esth­er Steph­ens’ abil­ity to con­nect with the audi­ence. No wor­ries though because she’s fant­ast­ic.  Her voice is clear and spark­ling and she effect­ively shows us the emo­tion­al jour­ney of her char­ac­ter. Geof­frey Dolan plays Richard Sed­don, the vis­ible vil­lain in this piece. Blustery and pom­pous- he’s per­fect. All of the singing cast are com­mit­ted to the emo­tion of the show even when they’re dan­cing (won­der­ful music­al cho­reo­graphy by Olivia Ten­net.) They’re backed by a skilled band. Music­al dir­ect­or Andy Man­ning is a bit hid­den behind his key­board while Tim Heeringa (gui­tar), Emma Hat­t­away (bass gui­tar) and Camer­on Bur­nett are vis­ible but not intrus­ive.

Cos­tume design­er Lisa Holmes dresses Steph­ens in pale clothes and eleg­ant hair. Her cos­tumes are often won­der­fully tex­tured and are linked to the style of the time. For the ensemble, their inspir­a­tion is punk styles – lay­ers of den­im with rips, and mesh, studs and straps. Richard Sed­don is appro­pri­ately booted and suited…I’m not going to spoil what he wears for his first appear­ance. Ori­gin­al light­ing design­er Brendan Albrey set the found­a­tion which Abby Clear­wa­ter has adap­ted  for the Opera House space. It keeps the focus where it’s needed while high­light­ing the excite­ment and drama of the show.

Kate Shep­pard had rad­ic­al ideas for her time that still res­on­ate today. “All that sep­ar­ates, wheth­er of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhu­man, and must be over­come.” After the show I heard people talk­ing about the peti­tion and the elec­tion and the events of the show as real and imme­di­ate con­cerns. This is a test­a­ment to the clev­erness and affect of the pro­duc­tion.

I laughed, I cried, I cackled, I shouted. Mar­velous.

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