Swiss explorer John Sutter named portions of Sacramento including Sutter's Fort "Nueva Helvetia" in the year 1840. As of January 2009, Sacramento has a new "New Helvetia" -- only this one is a theater company designed to provide Sacramento with a unique and intimate theater experience and an opportunity to revisit a classic American Musicals.

Its mission: to rediscover hidden gems of musical theater, and to be a birthplace for new musicals and plays. In addition, the theater staff wants to have the educational outreach to build a new generation of theater-goers.

Nonprofit status still pending approval, the group was founded by a young NYU graduate Connor Mikiewicz, who studied musical theater in NYU's CAP21 program, part of the Tisch School of the Arts. On Jan. 17, the group presented New Helvetia's mission and staged its one-night-only debut play Celebration at the Crest Theater. The 1969 play was written by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, who created the long-running hit The Fantastiks, and produced and directed by Mikiewicz himself.

Wednesday, June 3 at the Artisan Theater, the young company gave a preview of its first full-scale production, the popular musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, directed by Matthew Schneider, Mikiewicz's friend and NYU classmate. The colorful story shows the life of Hedwig, a transvestite rock and roll singer whose botched sex change operation leaves her (him?) with a "angry inch," while exploring the nature of love between two human beings.

Local four-piece band The New Humans appear as the rock band The Angry Inch and provide comic moments in the musical, fronted by Christopher Davis Carlisle as Hedwig, with additional vocals by Nanci Zoppi. Though the script is usually monologue, a new multimedia element adds video, art and sound effects to the stage's production, and Hedwig engages in dialogue with several video monitors throughout the musical.

The band is a local band, Zoppi is a local actress, the art was produced by local artists and the photographs were shot by local photographers, director Matthew Schneider mentioned in a phone interview.

"So by employing the best of the best from the area, we've really set ourselves up for a strong production just by choosing the best Sacramento has to offer," he said.

"One of New Helvetia's mottos is rethinking theater, and I think we've created a new theatrical experience that a lot of Sacramento is unaccustomed to or unfamiliar with," Schneider said. "A new theater company is a wonderful thing, any new invigorating force in the arts scene should be supported by the community."

Schneider recently worked on White Christmas and Pride and Prejudice as part of a team and as a featured player and has toured in cities across the United States, so when Mikiewicz asked him to direct, he felt that his work including experience with Broadway directors and choreographers prepared him to make his directorial debut.

"It's also a new professional theater company finding its sea legs in the middle of a recession. I think things like this pop up when people really need it the most. In addition to that, I think the story is particularly current at the moment," he added. “I think the project of equal rights for the transgender community is up and coming -- that's really the future of the human rights campaign in America.”

The Artisan Theater is located at 1901 Del Paso Blvd. Hedwig and the Angry Inch plays Thursday at 8 p.m., as well as Fridays and Saturdays at 7 and 9 p.m. June 6-27.

*Photographs courtesy Brian Kameoka/ New Helvetia Theatre