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POOLSIDE — After Hours — In a rare move for a man who has never confirmed his own last name, Midnight Ricardo has come forward as a development sponsor of Swimtacular: The Poolside Fever Dream of Denise Dornoch, the new musical comedy now in development from the creators of the sold-out hit Country Club Wrestling: The Musical.
The partnership is, by every available account, a natural one. Swimtacular takes place at a Las Vegas hotel pool. Midnight Ricardo it's pool boy. The show is about a woman trying to hold onto her whole self in a world that keeps demanding she pick a side. Midnight Ricardo has, for years, quietly held onto a single word — his name — and given it to no one until exactly the right moment. The two are, one might say, aligned.
Swimtacular follows Denise Dornoch: a tired, funny, fully human pool mom who came to the pool to rest and instead found a deck at war with itself, split into two colors that each want her to enlist. She refuses. She is not a red and she is not a blue — she's a nuanced, complicated, fulfilled person trying to stay that way in a country club world gone gloriously sideways. It is a story, its creators note, about being a whole self when everyone around you would prefer a slogan.
Midnight Ricardo declined to comment. Midnight Ricardo always declines to comment. This is understood to be his enthusiastic yes.
As a development sponsor, Midnight Ricardo lends the production his name, his aesthetic, and his signature rule — the one where you are never permitted to say his name aloud until the precise right moment, and then you all say it together. Audiences who have encountered the rule already know it works whether or not there is a pool nearby. Audiences who haven't are advised to learn it before they go.
Swimtacular carries forward the deadpan, sincerity-first comedy that made Country Club Wrestling a hit — the same country club, the same commitment to playing the absurd completely straight, and now a great deal more water. Book and lyrics are by San Tropat.
The show is in active development, with more to be revealed in the coming months at swimtacularmusical.com.
It's midnight. You know what to do.
About Midnight Ricardo
Midnight Ricardo is the after-hours pool attendant of the Country Club Wrestling universe — the man no one is allowed to name until the finale, and the keeper of the rule that bears his name. He tends the water at every event, at an hour that does not change. Learn the rule before you go.
About Swimtacular
Swimtacular: The Poolside Fever Dream of Denise Dornoch is a new two-act musical comedy, book and lyrics by San Tropat, in development as a follow-up to the sold-out Country Club Wrestling: The Musical. Set at the deep end of the same universe, it's the story of a woman trying to be her full self — nuanced, fulfilled, and stubbornly her own — in a country club world gone sideways.
