FROM THE PRESS
“The bottom line: this is a beautiful piece of theatre with a compelling story and a toe-tapping soundtrack.” - The Sappy Critic
“Utopia, Ohio offers a unique and local story worthy of dramatizing, and a praiseworthy score. It demonstrates great potential as a musical theatre piece.” - Talkin’ Broadway
“the music is grand, heartfelt and earnest, sometimes spirited, sometimes spooky, always engaging.” - Rick Pender’s Theater Stages and Scenes
“Hugo West Theatricals does it again with its uncanny ability to bring us local history in theatrical form... Josh Steele has written a fantastic piece.” - Behind The Curtain Cincinnati
CREATIVE TEAM
Zack Steele, Director
Deondra Means, Asst. Director
Jim Stump, Costumer
Greg Glevicky, Graphic Design
ORIGINAL CAST
Marci Hedges
Jeremiah Savon Jackson
Jennie Malone*
Brad Myers
Linsey Rogers
Zack Steele*
*AEA member
UTOPIA, OHIO
a new musical
America’s first anarchist. A séance-leading abolitionist. A cult who believed that the oceans would turn to lemonade and humans would grow long and useful tails. Each of these was responsible for founding strange, remarkable, idealistic communities in Ohio in the 1840s. And all three communities were founded in the same location: 30 miles east of Cincinnati in a place known as Utopia, Ohio.
UTOPIA, OHIO is a new musical following the real history of three little-known utopian experiments through the voices of individuals whose lives led them there: a widowed shoemaker, a Black man who escapes enslavement with his family, and a Jewish immigrant fleeing persecution. Featuring gifted actors playing their own instruments and a bevy of historical images, the musical bursts with emotion and longing felt by everyday people marginalized in the young and rapidly changing United States.
Past Productions: August 2023 at The Carnegie Center of Columbia Tusculum
Produced with special support from Falcon Theater and the W.E. Smith Family Charitable Trust.
Learn more about Utopia, Ohio in this fantastic article.
Our Financial Supporters
The W.E. Smith Family Charitable Trust
and
Anonymous (8)
Heidi & Matt Croy
Nat & Bridgette Comisar
Emily
Dr. & Mrs. Myron Moskowitz
Cathleen Cramer
Duane Crowe
Daniel Duffee
Brian Feit
Cori Munro Flatt
Tyler Duncan Gabbard
Neil Heyman
Tom Highley
Frank Jung
Terry Lemmerman
Julie Smith-Morrow
Greg Newberry
Elizabeth Rogers
Robert & Bonnie Sherman
Beverly Simon
Mitchell Sparks
Tom & Mimi Steele
Dennis Steele
Jesse Steele
Phillip Webster
Stan Workman
The cast of Utopia: (l to r) Jennie Malone, Zack Steele, Linsey Rogers, Jeremiah Savon Jackson, Brad Myers
The cast of Utopia: (l to r) Linsey Rogers, Zack Steele
Jeremiah Savon Jackson from UTOPIA, OHIO.
Jennie Malone from UTOPIA, OHIO
The Village Market at Utopia, Ohio.
The interior of the underground chamber at Utopia, Ohio
A watercolor of the Cincinnati Fourierists travelling to Clermont Phalanx.
Josiah Warren, founded of Utopia, Ohio.
John Wattles, who founded the community of Excelsior at Utopia.