"If tomorrow we talk about music before we talk about politics in this theater, I think we will have carried out an historic change," Mr. Lissner said.
"And that's what's amazing about my experience in this theater the last two months.
"I think about how much money this theater has to generate on a weekly basis to break even," he said.
(Or are they?) Much about this MCC Theater production is as unconventional as Mr. Gaiman's story: the wry composer Stephin Merritt wrote the music and lyrics; the downtown actor and playwright David Greenspan wrote the book; and Jayne Houdyshell ("Well") has been cast as the 9-year-old heroine, while Mr. Greenspan will portray the second world's "Other Mother".
The truly and spectacularly bad thing about this political theater was that Obamacare cards do not, in fact, exist.
The second-worst thing about this political theater was that Republicans were utterly and hopelessly clueless about what they were trying to achieve.
"Till Summer Comes" by Mark A. McNease exemplifies what this theater is about.
8 p.m. Bronx Academy, 841 Barretto Street, South Bronx, (718 842-5223; www.BronxAcademyofArtsandDance.org, $12 to $15. (Dunning) KIMBERLY BRANDT (Tonight and tomorrow) Ms. Brandt's "something we can both be proud of," a piece about winning, represents dance in this theater's monthly series of new performance art, dance and discussion series.
As a reporter covering the Iraq war in 2003, I met them: young American soldiers full of passion and profanity, hellbent on saying "mission accomplished" for themselves yet angry and confused about why they were in this theater of war in the first place.
