If History Theatre has a signature show, it’s “Glensheen,” which will receive its 10th anniversary production this summer. But the company currently has something onstage that may deserve the same kind of enduring presence in our local theater scene.
“Whoa, Nellie!” is built around the life and times of a former Minnesotan with whom you’re almost certainly unfamiliar. Nellie King was a woman of the 1880s and ’90s who could be called a cultural curiosity. She was a chameleonic con artist, a vaudeville performer, a horse thief, a serial bride, a prostitute and a norm-defying gender bender, among many other things.
John Jamison II, front, and cast members in History Theatre’s premiere production of “Whoa, Nellie! The Outlaw King of the Wild Middle West,” which runs through June 8, 2025 at the St. Paul theater. Josef Evans’ new musical follows the exploits of Nellie King, a 19th-century Minnesota woman who became a notorious outlaw. (Rick Spaulding / History Theatre)
Josef Evans has created a musical about her that stands among the most exciting and imaginative shows to have hit the History Theatre boards in recent years. It’s a darkly comic thrill ride that’s not only richly entertaining, but thought-provoking and finally heartbreaking. And it features a “wow”-inducing performance by Em Adam Rosenberg as Nellie.
It’s a role built for just such a star turn, as Evans’ musical (for which he wrote the book, music and lyrics) is about a woman who got by on charisma and an unslakable thirst for the public’s attention, one who proudly presented arresting officers with her newspaper clippings. The Nellie King we meet via Evans’ vision and Rosenberg’s compelling portrayal is one of those magnetic personalities who inspire with their sense of abandon before closer examination reveals shadings of the tragic.
The musical is framed as a vaudeville variety show with an experimental edge, a meta excursion in which other pop culture figures of King’s time (most of them largely forgotten) step forward to guide you through the story and the yarn grows more ripping by the scene. Evans employs a stylistic smorgasbord for his 16 songs, including thunderous rock, wafting waltzes, barbershop harmonies, pop balladry and even a show-stopping gospel number.
It all serves an itinerant tale that has interesting things to say about American culture’s confused history with the gender binary and how to enforce it, as well as what lies beneath a longing to be noticed and celebrated that extends long before the advent of social media.
There are echoes of Kander and Ebb’s “Cabaret” in this musical’s storytelling style, what with an emcee who wanders the aisles and engages the audience, as well as its unblinking gaze at the seedier sides of life. Director Laura Leffler has helped shape a crisply energetic production that benefits from the clear commitment of a very talented cast of nine that ably executes Joey Miller’s choreographic concoction of movement old and new.
There are convincing characterizations and fine voices throughout the ensemble, with John Jamison II a standout as our host, Bert Williams, a comedian of the era.
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But no one can eclipse the star quality of Rosenberg, a non-binary actor who’s been primarily a Shakespearean on Twin Cities stages, but demonstrates that they have musical theater chops in abundance and an astonishingly versatile voice that can slide from operatic soprano to bluesy tenor.
We’ll likely look back upon their performance as one of the year’s best, and thank Evans for creating the memorable role that made it possible.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.
‘Whoa, Nellie! The Outlaw King of the Wild Middle West’
When: Through June 8
Where: History Theatre, 30 E. 10th St., St. Paul
Tickets: $74-$15, available at 651-292-4323 or historytheatre.com
Capsule: A very entertaining, thought-provoking musical about one woman’s quest to go down in history.
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