The ‘60s saw an American launched into space, a wall built through Berlin and one of the biggest cultural revolutions our nation has ever seen. Now fans of the bygone era can revisit their roots with San Luis Obispo’s rollicking musical “My Generation.”
The show, which follows a young couple in the difficult transition from the squeaky-clean 1950s to the political and social tumult of the ‘60s, is directed by Kevin Harris.
“The show takes place between 1960 and 1969,” Harris said. “It follows three leads through the decade, and touches not only on the major events, but also the music of the decade and the major social shifts.”
From John F. Kennedy’s assassination to Vietnam, the musical covers many dramatic turning events and doesn’t shy away from the drug culture of the era. In one eerie scene, a lead character named Max Hirsch drops acid while singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” under technicolor lights.
Designed for an audience both appreciative of the arts and of the decade, the show is also meant to turn a larger profit than most of the other productions, Harris said.
Harris said this is the Theatre’s main fundraising effort for the year. The revenue from the well-received show will comprise approximately 7 percent of the budget for the upcoming year. Though money is also made from the Theatre’s other shows, the spring fundraiser tends to be the most lucrative. This year, raffles offering everything from wine to private cast performances were given away, and discounted student tickets were not sold.
But structuring a play around such a divisive decade has its own challenges. While the Theatre wants to remain true to the decade, it also doesn’t want to alienate any members of the audience, Harris said.
“It can be very difficult to find the correct balance,” Harris said. “We were lucky in that we were able to approach the complexity of the era though characters.”
Harris said the Theatre put on a political Reader’s Theatre play in 2011 called “I Am Rachel Corrie.” The play, about a young American activist killed in Palestine, caused the Theatre to lose some seasoned subscribers. Harris, who has also worked with community theaters as far away as Palestine, has been with the Little Theatre for three years.
“My Generation” will star some familiar faces on the San Luis Obispo Little Theatre stage.
Redzuan Abdul Rabin, who plays Billy, a young Vietnamese-American struggling to come to terms with his ethnic identity, has been featured in a number of SLO Little Theatre plays before. Rabin is a Cal Poly theatre arts alumnus.
“It’s been a lot of fun to traverse the ‘60s,” Rabin said. “It’s an up-and-down role, with a lot of great songs.”
Marcus DiMaggio plays lead character Hirsch. Hirsch is a young professional disillusioned with the stifling world of early 1960s pop music.
A Cambria native, DiMaggio has been involved with San Luis Obispo Little Theatre since high school. This is his fifth show with the Theatre.
“It’s not a story so much as a snapshot of three people in the 1960s,” DiMaggio said.
He said his character struggles to find his place as a man in the decade, while his wife Amy struggles to find a balance between having a career and a child.
Amy, DiMaggio’s on-stage wife and real-life sister Kerry, was the one to introduce him to theater. He said while he expected playing her husband would be strange, it has actually helped his performance.
“Because I know her so well and she knows me so well, we have a high level of chemistry, which is so much of how things run on stage,” DiMaggio said. “We channel our connective energy and make it work.”
As one of the longest-running community theaters in the nation, The San Luis Obispo Little Theatre has been bringing entertainment to the Central Coast since 1947. It recently celebrated its 65th anniversary.
The theater has been home to more than 600 productions, and this latest musical will allow show-goers to support the continuous-production venue through ticket sales and raffle purchases.
“My Generation” runs at the San Luis Obispo Little Theatre until March 25. Tickets are $35.