The National Endowment for the Arts has selected Oobleck as one of 13 Chicago-area recipients of a $10,000 theater grant, to develop and produce “The Hunchback Variations Singspiel,” a musical adaptation of playwright Mickle Maher’s “The Hunchback Variations” to be created in collaboration with composer Mark Messing (Maestro-Matic, Mucca Pazza).

Wowie. That’s exciting.

The Hunchback Variations (the play) has been one of the most successful productions in Oobleck’s 21-year history, and one of the most unique (in a large field of unique works). And, as a play much concerned with music and sound and performance, it seems a natural idea to throw it fully into the embrace of music and sound and performance by making of it a singspiel, a work informed by the shapes and strictures of opera, musical theater, and spoken performance, but not bound by them. To stretch it further by giving it over to the innovative mind and talents of composer Mark Messing will set us on an entirely new course of exploration. New courses of exploration being, of course, at the core of our mission.

We are hoping to stage at least an early or workshop version of “The Hunchback Variations Singspiel” by the end of 2010.

(Haven’t seen “The Hunchback Variations”? Check out this excerpt from the 2005 PAC Edge production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vdksHXH-xM.)