Head Over Heels! Tickets | Schedule for 2024/2025 Events

Head Over Heels!

In Head Over Heels, we hear a lot of songs and lyrics from The Go-back Go's discography rearranged as a jukebox musical comedy. The story of the musical was inspired by Sir Philip Sidney's 16th-century novel The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Jeff Whitty came up with the idea for the show and wrote the original book. After Whitty left the show (because he didn't get along with the new director, Michael Mayer), James Magruder changed the book to fit the show.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival's outdoor theater was home to the world premiere of "Head Over Heels" in June 2015, and the production ran for five months. Head Over Heels opened on Broadway at the Hudson Theater on July 26, 2018, three years after Whitty left. In 2018, Broadway Licensing bought the rights to license productions that will happen in the future. On October 12, 2018, a cast record came out.  It closed on Broadway on January 6, 2019.

How the Show Works

The audience in Head Over Heels goes wild when the Oracle of Delphi, Pythia, makes her entrance. It is not just because she is played by Peppermint (a former RuPaul's Drag Race contestant) but as she is making her Broadway debut. This seer is fierce, draws you in immediately, and is surrounded by dancers who move like snakes.

Basilius, just like in Arcadia, tries to stop the bad things that the Oracle says will happen: his daughters Pamela (Bonnie Milligan) and Philoclea (Alexandra Socha) will marry men who aren't good for them (one isn't even a man and the other is a liar), he and his wife Gynecia (Rachel York) will have an affair, and a better king will take his crown, And then things start to get weird.

Head Over Heels is full of delightfully subversive alterations to a famous book from the 1600s. Mopsa goes on a short vacation to the actual island of Lesbos, where she writes the new lesbian hymn "Vacation." And Musidorus's ability to dress as a woman instead of a man doesn't just make people laugh; it makes him fully accept his feminine side.

Head Over Heels tries hard to show gender fluidity and sexuality realistically. Respect is shown toward Pythia's pronouns, and they even inspired some updates. The show cares as much about how it represents people as it does about ensuring the audience has a good time. And with a bunch of Go-songs, Go's every song is a bop-almost it's inevitable that the latter will happen.