Happy End

The house lights dimmed for the opening night of Happy End in August ’03, and slowly a group of fierce-looking actors moved menacingly downstage toward the audience. They sang and stared at us, daring us to move or react, and just as we were starting to get uncomfortable — bang! the music shifted, the lights shot up and a manic rag ensued that had us laughing madly.

The tone was set for this brilliant smash hit production which so truly presented the madcap, reeling world of Brecht and Weill, where the antics of Bill Cracker’s hapless gang and the fate of the rebel Salvation Army officer Lillian, shift from danger to frolic to sadness in a blink of an eye.