Crown Uptown brings ‘Hedwig home to Kansas’

One of the advantages of playing the glam-rock lead in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” joked Dalton Zogleman, is that wearing 4-inch heels gives him a whole new perspective.

“For a 5-foot-7 guy, suddenly being nearly 6 feet tall was incredible. The first time I wore them to get my balance, I went to get a bottle of water and could see over the fridge. I’ve never been able to do that before,” Zogleman said.

“Another benefit is that I now have incredibly toned legs,” he added.

“Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” an award-winning off-Broadway cult phenomenon from 1998 that spawned a 2001 movie version and became a 2014 Broadway hit that won Tony Awards for best musical revival and best actor (Neil Patrick Harris), will receive its Kansas premiere this weekend from DZ Productions at Crown Uptown Theater.

The gaudy, sometimes raunchy 90-minute musical about an East German singer who undergoes a botched sex-change operation to marry an American soldier, only to be abandoned in a Junction City, Kan., trailer park, will be performed Thursday-Saturday.

Starring as Hedwig (nee Hansel) is Zogleman, a 2016 Rutgers University music theater grad who co-founded DZ Productions three years ago with his mother, Deanne Zogleman, longtime director of music at Newman University. This is the fifth production for the company, whose mission is to present cutting-edge shows (“Heathers: the Musical,” “Spring Awakening”) to encourage and challenge “pre-professional” local talent.

Also starring is Darian Leatherman, local actress/director/costumer, as Hedwig’s back-up singer and husband, Yitzhak, a Jewish drag queen from Zagreb – a role traditionally played by a woman. The Angry Inch band includes Ben Karnes on keyboards as Skszp, Chris DeGrandmont on guitar as Krzyzhtof, Ted Myers on drums as Schlatko and William Quincy on bass as Jacek.

Directing is Deanne Zogleman with costume design by Dalton Zogleman and Roxana Stitt, set by Dalton Zogleman and lights by Tyler Gallegos-Lessin.

“This is kind of a dream show for us – to bring Hedwig home to Kansas, so to speak,” Dalton Zogleman says. “I had seen it on Broadway, and while it was a lot of fun, I also left emotionally challenged. Hedwig has been beaten down and cast aside, but like a phoenix, she keeps rising from the ashes.”

With music and lyrics by Stephen Trask in the 1970s glam-rock genre epitomized by David Bowie, the show was written by John Cameron Mitchell, who played Hedwig in the off-Broadway original and in the movie. Mitchell is the son of an Army major general who was in charge in West Berlin at one point, and his inspiration for Hedwig was a divorced German housewife who baby-sat the young Mitchell and occasionally moonlighted as a prostitute out of her Junction City trailer park.

“Hedwig is an incredibly difficult character to understand, but I’m having the time of my life trying to get into her head,” Zogleman said. “We are very different kinds of people. I’m very mild-mannered, and she is not, obviously. She is fun and in your face, but it comes from a place of pain. She uses humor as a coping mechanism.”

Despite Hedwig’s outlandish appearance – “a little punky, a little trashy, a little scary” – everyone can identify with her motivations, Zogleman said. “Her search for her other half, the person who makes her whole, is something we all can identify with.”

A number of well-known actors have played the role, from Harris TV’s “How I Met Your Mother”) to Andrew Rannells (“The Book of Mormon,” “Hamilton”) to Taye Diggs (TV’s “Murder in the First,” “Private Practice”) to the upcoming national tour starring Darren Criss (TV’s “Glee”) starting in October.

“I’m hoping I can do justice to Hedwig, because she has become such an icon to so many people,” Zogleman said. “I am equal measures thrilled and terrified.”

The role may also be Zogleman’s swan song as a performer – at least for the foreseeable future. He’s accepted a job as an arts manager with a Boston theater company and will begin his duties after “Hedwig” closes.

In the show, Hedwig tells her life story, particularly her ill-fated affairs, from the gay American soldier, Luther, who persuades her to have the aforementioned sex-change operation so they can marry and move to the U.S., to self-centered rock star Tommy, who luxuriates in her groupie adoration but abandons her when he discovers she’s not a biological woman.

Among the dozen songs are “Tear Me Down,” “The Origin of Love,” “Wig in a Box,” “Exquisite Corpse” and “Wicked Little Town.”

“Rock can be such a different style for a musical theater major, because it has so much grit. It can be really raw. It’s a difficult show to sing, because it’s 90 minutes without an intermission. But I find that I enjoy that style,” Zogleman said.

Will the show be controversial because of the transgender issues that have been so much in the national news this past year, including here in Kansas, over use of school restrooms and locker rooms? Zogleman doesn’t think so.

“At least, I hope it’s not controversial. It has met with such acclaim during its recent Broadway revival. I know that Broadway is different than the Midwest, but it shouldn’t be controversial because of its humanity.”

This story was originally published August 21, 2016 at 7:57 AM with the headline "Crown Uptown brings ‘Hedwig home to Kansas’."