Nearly 50 years into its lifespan, Super Summer Theatre remains one of Las Vegas’ most underrated traditions. The seasonal treks by actors, artists and families out to Spring Mountain Ranch State Park began in 1976, and the latest season kicks off with Cinderella this month.
Although the Rodgers and Hammerstein version—which originated in 1957 and has gone through many adaptations—wasn’t written for opera, it was an ideal project for Vegas City Opera to take on and elevate, artistic director Skip Galla Katipunan says.
“We’re doing this new tour version, which is strictly and straight-up [a] musical,” he says. “There’s nothing about it that specifically suggests [that] you should have an opera company do this.
“You need some pretty strong singers to pull it off. We have [those], definitely. … With the ballroom scenes, the fairy godmother, the magic and the dresses, all of that is right up our alley. There’s nothing we love more than a little bit of sequins and jewels onstage. That’s really our style, over-the-top opulence.”
Formerly Sin City Opera, Vegas City Opera was co-founded by Katipunan and executive director Ginger Land-van Buuren in 2010. They’re no strangers to reworking productions to better connect with contemporary audiences. The group recently staged Richard Wagner’s The Valkyrie—“probably [the] most famous piece of opera music in pop culture,” Katipunan says. “It’s everywhere, from Bugs Bunny to the movies we watch.”
Likewise, Cinderella is one of the best-known fairy tales of all time—so how do the 20 cast and 15 crew members maintain elements of excitement and surprise? “We lean heavily into staging and costuming,” Katipunan says.
“Ginger and I always laugh at the conversations that we have,” he continues. “She’ll say, ‘How is this wig?’ And I’ll say, ‘We need more bicycles in it.’ In the end, we have these gorgeous, ridiculous costumes. And we use them as a storytelling agent. Storytelling is the very first point of any production that we do. We can’t connect if we don’t have a good story.”
And how many costumes will it take to tell that story? “It’s not a large cast, but I think we’ve counted at least 80 costumes for the show,” Katipunan says. “The stepsisters have four dresses, Cinderella has four dresses … and [one of them] is a magic gown that … magically turns into a beautiful ballgown onstage before your eyes.”
Super Summer Theatre typically works with local troupes for one of its productions each year (last summer it was Majestic Repertory for Matilda).Cinderella marks Vegas City Opera’s third such collaboration. “In 2018, we did Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, which I directed, and then during the strange times of the late pandemic, we did a concert called Viva Las Popera out there,” Katipunan says.
Following Cinderella, Super Summer Theatre will present musical comedy Something Rotten! in July and Kinky Boots in August.
Cinderella Through July 1; Wednesday-Saturday, 6 p.m., $23+. Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, supersummertheatre.org.
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