Early in Micro, the new Adam Qutaishat and Heidi Joosten musical receiving a workshop production this Friday courtesy of Music Theatre of Madison, protagonist Ali Masihl sings a rousing power ballad addressing all she’s up against, as a global majority woman in a prestigious doctoral program for microbiology.
“Surrounded by all those who colonize” and “fighting for inches while they take their miles,” Ali is conscious that she’ll “only get one chance” to “blaze a trail” and shatter the glass ceiling. Should she fail, it’s she who’ll be in pieces, branded as an “impostor” and forced to explain to her loving parents that she didn’t make it.
All she wants, Ali plaintively sings to us, is sufficient “peace and quiet” to hear herself think, without needing to heed all the doubting voices telling her she isn’t good enough and doesn’t belong. How might she learn to hear the sound inside, so that she can sing her own song?
Systems of Oppression
Qutaishat (any/all) understands what Ali is up against. Not only are they a nonbinary, global majority artist making their way in the overly white world of American theater. In addition, both of Qutaishat’s parents are microbiologists; Qutaishat’s mother, who’s served as a consultant for the science in Micro, has lived much of what Ali confronts.
“These are stories I heard growing up about being a woman in this field,” Qutaishat said to me, adding that there were “real differences” between the respective work experiences of their two parents.
True to Qutaishat and Joosten’s title, Ali endures countless microaggressions – and some flagrant macroaggressions – as the musical unspools.
From a condescending white technician. From her global majority mentor Stephen, scarred and scared by the racism he himself has endured. From Big Pharma, trying to steal her idea and shut her down. From colleagues. Even from well-meaning friends. It feels systemic and claustrophobic, because it is.
“It’s fascinating for me as a writer to see how we do – or don’t – change systems,” Qutaishat said.
“How do we decide whether to make change within a system? What does it take to leave a system? These questions resonate for me, writing for characters with non-traditional, marginalized identities. How does this affect the way they answer these questions and see the world?”
Ali wrestles with such questions while researching how sound might affect cellular biology; I’ll spare you the science, which Qutaishat describes as “plausible but not actual.” Working with new friend MJ – a musician, not a scientist, in an academic setting that frowns on such cross-disciplinary collaboration – Ali runs with the idea that certain sounds could help heal the body.
“There’s research being done involving the possibility of using conceptual sound waves and frequencies to break down cancer cells,” Qutaishat said, pointing to an illustrative example of some of the substantial research he’s done for this show.
For Ali and MJ, that research homes in on microtones: musical intervals smaller than a semitone. It’s a pitch-perfect metaphor for all those sounds we fail to hear, programmed as we are to live our lives within prescribed musical lines that continually play the same old song while making little room for difference.
“There are notes between the keys” on a piano, MJ explains to Ali – adding that we only fail to hear them “because we don’t have buttons for them.” Can the two of them compose a new song? Will they find a way to hear and transcribe the voices within? And will others hear them sing if they do?
A New Sound
The sound I heard, when listening to the recording of MTM’s December 2021 reading of Micro in Madison, mixed electronic music with traditional ballads as well as jazz; collectively, they captured the scientific context within which Ali lives as well as her own efforts to be heard above the din.
While noting that there’d been significant changes to Micro during the intervening 18 months, Qutaishat confirmed that the show still includes those early sounds – as well as experimental chord clusters reflecting the musical’s focus on scientific experiments and an additional infusion of jazz, often serving as a motif for more conservative characters.
“It’s not that we don’t like jazz,” Qutaishat hastened to add. “But it will sound older to our ears, as distinct from the pop-inflected music sung by more progressive characters.”
We’ll be able to hear this music at all because of MTM’s ongoing investment in new music; Micro represents the third entry in MTM’s Wisconsin New Musicals Cycle, embodying the company’s commitment to developing new musicals by Wisconsin artists through a reading, a semi-staged workshop, and a full production. Micro is slated for such a production in 2024.
Although based in Milwaukee, Qutaishat serves as MTM’s Associate Artistic Director, willingly making the commute to Madison on behalf of a company which, they rightly note, “has championed both new musicals and musicals by the underrepresented.”
Since Qutaishat joined MTM, the company has also produced An American Mythology, an excellent concept album (directed by Qutaishat and Nathan Fosbinder) released in 2021 that features Wisconsin BIPOC artists interrogating myths of American exceptionalism.
In 2022, MTM published Alexis Dean, Jr.’s Finding Me (music and lyrics by Qutaishat), a musicalized children’s book involving a BIPOC child’s efforts to find his superpower.
Come August, MTM founder Meghan Randolph (they/she) will direct an MTM production of Marshall Paillet and A.D. Penedo’s Who’s Your Baghdaddy? Or, How I Started the Iraq War, a bracingly satiric musical takedown of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq.
“For MTM to take chances on material like this makes me want to work with them,” Qutaishat said.
“So many companies focus on tried-and-true material,” Qutaishat continued. “I appreciate MTM’s willingness to choose material that might not draw as big an audience because it involves something new. They’re taking a chance on art that isn’t immediately recognizable.”
All of which goes double for World Premiere Wisconsin as a whole. In both an email exchange and during our ensuing phone conversation, Qutaishat was vocal in their appreciation for the room WPW has made for a workshop production like the one MTM will unveil on Friday, which will include design renderings and a post-show talkback.
“We’re really inviting the audience in to see how new musicals are made,” Qutaishat said. “So that adds some uniqueness for an audience, which will be able to affect where this musical goes before its full production next year. You don’t see much of this in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is hungry for it.”
The workshop production of Micro takes place at 7:00 this Friday, June 9, at Bur Oak, 2262 Winnebago St. To learn more, visit https://worldpremierewisconsin.com/event/micro-a-workshop-performance/.
