The WTF Karaoke Musical
to
The Wicked Witch 416 W South St, Raleigh, North Carolina 27601

Sarah Koop
Promotional image for WTF Karaoke Musical
How’s this for a genre-bending theatrical fundraiser: Allow anyone—anyone with $25 in hand, that is—to invent a character and propose the karaoke song for them to sing. Then leave it to Women’s Theatre Festival artistic director Ashley Popio to add connecting scenes and dialogue that string all those characters and songs together into a one-night-only musical-theater extravaganza. The logistics are relatively simple: There’s no pre-show rehearsal for this gig. Instead, actors’ lines and lyrics will simply pop up, karaoke-style, on the screens onstage. (That ought to keep the show fresh.) “In a cultural moment where women feel their voices aren’t being heard, there’s something wicked and amazing about singing loud and raising women’s voices instead of shutting up,” says the festival’s executive director, Johannah Edwards. The deadline is midnight November 7 if you want to be a participant; the entry form’s at po.st/WTKM. To view the outcome, general admission seats are $10; a VIP table for two’s $50. —Byron Woods