If you go ...
WHAT: "Della's Diner"
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. today, April 25
WHERE: Gunderson Stiles Concert Hall, Monroe Arts Center, 1315 11th St., Monroe
COST: $20 and $25 for adults, $10 for students 18 and younger
MADISON/MONROE - A touring musical from Georgia with a stop tonight in Monroe has an unlikely connection to Wisconsin.
The lyricist, Mary L. Fisher, lives in Madison now but remembers when "Della's Diner" was a cult hit in Atlanta in the early-1980s. The show played for years to packed crowds at a popular cabaret upstairs from an Italian restaurant run by two drag queens. The cult status of "Della's Diner" was so legendary that by 1983, it attracted Hollywood producers and even got a two-month run in New York City.
Some three decades later, Springer Theatricals out of Columbus, Ga., is taking the campy musical comedy on the road to small venues across the U.S.
Set to original country, blues and rockabilly songs, "Della's Diner" tells the story of café owner with a shady past in Chicago who's made a new life for herself down South, dispensing love and wisdom to the oddballs and misfits who congregate in her diner on Morning Glory Mountain.
The show's creator, Tom Edwards, conceived it in 1978 as an over-the-top soap opera. The first two episodes he set to country standards.
Fisher was his lighting designer. She had moved recently from Virginia with an MFA degree in Theater and quickly fell in with the tight-knit Atlanta theater crowd.
For the third episode - the version now touring - Edwards wanted original music. He asked Fisher to write the lyrics.
That's when "Della's Diner" really took off.
"It was just a mega-hit in Atlanta," Fisher says. "I think we were a little caught off guard by how successful it was."
Suddenly, the cast and writers were making real money. Fisher remembers going out and buying a bunch of new electronics with her newly flush income.
In 1983, producers from Warner Bros. saw the show and arranged for a production off-Broadway.
The show had a successful run in New York, but Fisher says the New York cast and directors couldn't quite capture the Southern-fried charm of "Della's Diner."
"They didn't understand televangelists," she says. "It's different now, but at the time, they thought 'Dukes of Hazzard' when they thought of the South."
The characters of the show are not caricatures. "These people have genuine affection for one another. They're very warm people," Fisher says. The Atlanta cast and crew back then "came by their Southernness honestly" and understood how to portray it.
Warners Bros. also arranged a big production of "Della's Diner" in Hollywood for interested TV producers.
"That didn't go anywhere. Though I did get a really cool sweatshirt from Warner Brothers," Fisher says with a laugh.
After that, the "Della's Diner" franchise slowed down but never totally faded. Broadway Play Publishing bought the rights. "Every once in a while I get a (royalty) check in the mail," Fisher says.
Meanwhile, the old cast and crew went their separate ways. A couple moved out to Hollywood. Others stayed on in Atlanta and kept performing.
Fisher kept writing for theater, then left Atlanta for Madison 12 years ago to be closer to her partner's family. She works as an insurance underwriter and in her spare time performs in an improv comedy group.
For a native Southerner, she's taken surprisingly well to Midwestern life: "I've learned to ski. I do the Polar Bear Plunge. I'm all in."
But she hasn't done theater work in years. In fact, it's pure coincidence that "Della's Diner" is touring in Wisconsin. Fisher only found out about the show coming to Monroe when her nephew alerted her.
She estimates she hasn't seen a production of "Della's Diner" in 25 to 30 years. The only keepsake she has from her "Della's Diner" days is the sheet music.
She's excited to see the show again after all these years.
"It's going to be an out-of-body experience. I'm really looking forward to it," she says. "I'm really looking forward to how people in the Midwest relate to it.
"I think they'll like it. It's just goofy and fun. There's a running gag about Chicago, too."
The production in Monroe is also a chance to introduce her Wisconsin friends to her Atlanta history and theater background. She's bringing a group down to the Monroe Arts Center tonight.
"It connects my life in some way," she says. "It just shows you life is very strange."
The lyricist, Mary L. Fisher, lives in Madison now but remembers when "Della's Diner" was a cult hit in Atlanta in the early-1980s. The show played for years to packed crowds at a popular cabaret upstairs from an Italian restaurant run by two drag queens. The cult status of "Della's Diner" was so legendary that by 1983, it attracted Hollywood producers and even got a two-month run in New York City.
Some three decades later, Springer Theatricals out of Columbus, Ga., is taking the campy musical comedy on the road to small venues across the U.S.
Set to original country, blues and rockabilly songs, "Della's Diner" tells the story of café owner with a shady past in Chicago who's made a new life for herself down South, dispensing love and wisdom to the oddballs and misfits who congregate in her diner on Morning Glory Mountain.
The show's creator, Tom Edwards, conceived it in 1978 as an over-the-top soap opera. The first two episodes he set to country standards.
Fisher was his lighting designer. She had moved recently from Virginia with an MFA degree in Theater and quickly fell in with the tight-knit Atlanta theater crowd.
For the third episode - the version now touring - Edwards wanted original music. He asked Fisher to write the lyrics.
That's when "Della's Diner" really took off.
"It was just a mega-hit in Atlanta," Fisher says. "I think we were a little caught off guard by how successful it was."
Suddenly, the cast and writers were making real money. Fisher remembers going out and buying a bunch of new electronics with her newly flush income.
In 1983, producers from Warner Bros. saw the show and arranged for a production off-Broadway.
The show had a successful run in New York, but Fisher says the New York cast and directors couldn't quite capture the Southern-fried charm of "Della's Diner."
"They didn't understand televangelists," she says. "It's different now, but at the time, they thought 'Dukes of Hazzard' when they thought of the South."
The characters of the show are not caricatures. "These people have genuine affection for one another. They're very warm people," Fisher says. The Atlanta cast and crew back then "came by their Southernness honestly" and understood how to portray it.
Warners Bros. also arranged a big production of "Della's Diner" in Hollywood for interested TV producers.
"That didn't go anywhere. Though I did get a really cool sweatshirt from Warner Brothers," Fisher says with a laugh.
After that, the "Della's Diner" franchise slowed down but never totally faded. Broadway Play Publishing bought the rights. "Every once in a while I get a (royalty) check in the mail," Fisher says.
Meanwhile, the old cast and crew went their separate ways. A couple moved out to Hollywood. Others stayed on in Atlanta and kept performing.
Fisher kept writing for theater, then left Atlanta for Madison 12 years ago to be closer to her partner's family. She works as an insurance underwriter and in her spare time performs in an improv comedy group.
For a native Southerner, she's taken surprisingly well to Midwestern life: "I've learned to ski. I do the Polar Bear Plunge. I'm all in."
But she hasn't done theater work in years. In fact, it's pure coincidence that "Della's Diner" is touring in Wisconsin. Fisher only found out about the show coming to Monroe when her nephew alerted her.
She estimates she hasn't seen a production of "Della's Diner" in 25 to 30 years. The only keepsake she has from her "Della's Diner" days is the sheet music.
She's excited to see the show again after all these years.
"It's going to be an out-of-body experience. I'm really looking forward to it," she says. "I'm really looking forward to how people in the Midwest relate to it.
"I think they'll like it. It's just goofy and fun. There's a running gag about Chicago, too."
The production in Monroe is also a chance to introduce her Wisconsin friends to her Atlanta history and theater background. She's bringing a group down to the Monroe Arts Center tonight.
"It connects my life in some way," she says. "It just shows you life is very strange."