Bonnie and Clyde

The Dirty Thirties was a time for antiheroes. By the Great Depression’s height in 1933, more than quarter of the population couldn’t find jobs, and millions of citizens had been wiped out financially after the stock market crashed and a third of all financial institutions in the United States failed. Sudden, unexpected poverty forced many into homelessness and shantytowns; even more people regularly sought food in breadlines and soup kitchens to avoid starvation. In a world where so many were robbed of hope and simple agency, it’s not surprising that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, two self-styled gangsters from West Texas, were regarded as folk heroes for robbing banks. In 2009, composer Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel) and playwright Ivan Menchell (The Cemetery Club) penned a musical steeped in bluegrass, blues, gospel, and rockabilly to immortalize the couple’s three-year run from the law. Jeri Lynn Schulke directs Reanna Kicinski and Ty Myatt in the title roles. —Byron Woods