Melodrama may have enjoyed its theatrical heyday more than two centuries ago, but the artform is alive and well in Oceano, where for the past 50 years The Great American Melodrama has been presenting classic melodramas and vaudeville shows to enthusiastic audiences. Over the years, the theater company has morphed into spoofing classic melodrama and contemporizing its vaudeville shows, but to celebrate its golden anniversary, the cast and crew are returning to their roots.
“For the 50th anniversary, I feel like we should really honor where the Melodrama started but also show the variety of what we’ve done over the 50 years, because we haven’t done classic melodrama in probably 10 years,” Eric Hoit explained.
Hoit’s been a part of the Melodrama for 45 of its 50 years as an actor, director, and in administrative roles, and for this show, he’s going to direct the first two segments. The show begins with A Four-Legged Fortune, written by Dion Boucicault. It premiered in London in 1866.
“I wanted to do a real classic melodrama, so we took one that we’ve done a few times, and I condensed it into one act, which was challenging, but I feel really happy with what we’ve got,” Hoit continued. “Then I’m directing the first vaudeville, which is material that could have been in vaudeville from the ’20s and ’30s when vaudeville was at its height. It’s not all necessarily written then, but stylistically it would not be anachronistic to that period.”
The show’s final segment is a contemporary vaudeville, with lots of “references to pop music,” veteran actor Billy Breed explained. “It’s kind of what a lot of our vaudevilles have morphed into over the years. We’re giving the perspective of what potential vaudevilles of the future will be. They’re parodies of popular music right now, lots of rap music, some from Hamilton.”
“The third act’s really cool because it is—as imagined by [writer-director] Eric Stein—snippets of shows that could be done in the next 50 years,” actor Toby Tropper added.
“Eric Stein’s doing an amazing job,” Hoit said. “What he wrote is hysterical. Anybody who’s ever been to the Melodrama and enjoyed it will not be disappointed. And if people have not been to the Melodrama, they should definitely come check this one out, because they’ll have a great evening and see what we’re all about.”
Since most of the recent Melodrama fare has been spoofs on classic melodrama, this return to its roots promises to be good old-fashioned villain booing and hissing fun.
“I play a horse trainer in it, and it’s about horseracing and shenanigans behind the scenes with the villains wanting to sabotage one of the horses. Drama ensues,” Breed explained.
Suzy Newman, a fellow longtime Melodrama actor, explained that she gets to play another of the villains in the melodrama. “I’m Mrs. Mulligan. In the original script, it was Colonel Mulligan, and it was a man. I think the only women in there were housemaids or ingenues.”
“I’m playing the [other] villain in A Four-Legged Fortune, [Captain] Grindley Goodge, which is a great name,” Tropper said. “I’m also emceeing the show, which is always a lot of fun. And then I’m in the vaudeville portion and, well, all three acts. I’m playing everything from a sea otter to a pirate. I’m running the gamut.”
In addition to a lot of longtime Melodrama performers, the show features some newcomers too, such as Annaliese Chambers, originally of Birmingham, Alabama. She’s a semi-recent musical theater graduate of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
“Since graduating college, I’ve kind of just been bouncing around from gig to gig all over the country, so I’ve worked in Washington State, Indiana, New York—you know, I go where the gig is.”
She also did an international tour in Asia, but then she got in contact with Melodrama Artistic Director Johnny Keating.
“I did my first show in April of last year, and I just fell in love with it, so I’ve just kept coming back,” Chambers explained. “I play the ingenue archetype in the first act. I’m the young lover, you know? ‘Woe is me.’ That kind of vibe. The second act, my big number is a tap dance that I think the audience is really going to enjoy. And then the third act, I’m playing a monarch butterfly who’s not very good at flying, and she’s a parody of Alanis Morissette and Avril Lavigne, so I’m singing a couple songs. I’m really excited for the third act; I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Newman is excited about the variety of the show: “It’s going to go by fast. The melodrama is really fun. It just whizzes by, and [the audience will] get to yell at the villains. There’s a horse in it, but not a real one. In the original one, they did have horses.
“It’s going to be beautiful. They’re just putting all kinds of costumes on us, lots of fun sets. I think when people leave, they’ll feel like they just saw a jam-packed show.”
“You’ll get a really good taste of what the Melodrama does, a really broad spectrum,” Breed explained. “The first act melodrama is not a parody of a melodrama. It’s a serious melodrama with some comedy in it. So, you’ll get a taste of what a traditional melodrama is like, which we don’t see that much at the Melodrama Theatre anymore.
“Whether you’re a repeat customer or a new person, I think it’s going to fit everyone’s appetite for what they want to see on the stage of the Melodrama.”
“We’re aiming to present the best of what the Melodrama is,” Hoit added. “We have a dynamite cast. I mean an all-star cast. We’re showing some of the favorite things people have seen but a lot of new stuff as well, and we’re showing the variety that the audiences have come to love over the last 50 years.”
“It’s celebrating the magic of the Melodrama,” Tropper agreed. “I would say if you’re a big fan of the Meloverse at large, this is the show for you because we’re pulling out all the stops.” Δ
Arts Editor Glen Starkey loves melodrama in all forms. Send cheers and claps to gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Education Today 2025.