A musical ‘Twist’ (as in Oliver), up next at the Pasadena Playhouse
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Tena Clark has written and produced hit songs for Dionne Warwick, LeAnn Rimes and Patti LaBelle, been nominated for a Grammy Award (“Way Up Thereâ€), founded a company called DMI Music and Media Solutions, and written jingles for McDonald’s.
But she says none of those successes compare to her current undertaking, writing the songs for a new American musical, “Twist,†which opens next week at the Pasadena Playhouse. The work is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist†set in Depression-era New Orleans. Shortly before its opening, Clark was calling it “my legacy piece. I spent love, blood and tears over this.â€
“Twist†is not only Clark’s first musical, but also a show whose themes and characters hit close to home.
The protagonist is a mulatto orphan in 1928 New Orleans named Twist, the child of an aristocratic white mother and a black song-and-dance man. Though Clark is not biracial, she found herself identifying with Twist’s struggle to fit in as a “color no one likes.â€
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--Sophia Lee