Arts & Leisure
Tickets now available for Ogunquit Playhouse's 75th season
By Rose Safran
OGUNQUIT - At a well-attended recent reception at Jonathan's Restaurant when the program for the Ogunquit Playhouse's 75th season was publicized, Executive ArtisticDirector Brad Kenney stated that tickets were already available and selling for "Menopause the Musical."
The joyful parody, filled with 25 baby boomer-era songs, was extended last season due to popular demand. This musical will launch the 2007 season, which begins early this year - on May 23, a Wednesday - and will run through June 9.
Altogether, the new seasonal schedule will include 20 weeks of performances, six productions of musical classics from well-known Broadway hits, several featuring original sets, and some added weekend matinees. Clearly, the management is thinking in terms of the bottom line and a level of entertainment geared to a broad-based resident and visitor mix. Last year's successful sold-out run of "Menopause the Musical" sent a message. This is a difficult theatre to fill to capacity - acclaimed and highly publicized musicals seem to attract the largest audiences.
The second production of the season features a favorite performer, one well-known to audiences here, namely, Sally Struthers in her fifth Ogunquit show, who will be joined by Broadway veteran Hunter Foster, currently appearing in "The Producers," who makes his debut here in the Tony Award winning "The Full Monty."
Kenney assured us that, yes, the cast will have the nerve to go "the full Monty;" i.e., unemployed Buffalo steel workers turned male strippers, from June 12 to 30. Additionally, again reflecting the success of a program extended into the popular fall season, this same production, also with Sally Struthers and Hunter Foster, will be repeated from Sept. 18 through Oct. 6.
Those great George Gershwin classics - "I Got Rhythm" ..."They Can't Take that Away from Me"..."Embraceable You" - will certainly attract and please the oldsters in the area as well as introduce younger members of the community to some of the best American musical melodies in the memorable "Crazy for You," which will be running from July 3 to 14. Original Broadway sets and costumes from the 1992 Broadway production should add lustre to this boy-meets-girl tale.
Perhaps the gayest gay tale ever told, "LaCage Aux Folles," is about the behind-the-scenes lifestyle of a glittering gay café owner and his partner, who adopt and raise a thoroughly straight boy who falls in love with - and plans to marry - a conventional and equally straight lass from a Bible Belt-style, utterly square family. When the two opposite-ends-of-the-pole families meet, the encounter raises the hilarity level temperature well over the 100-degree mark. "LaCage Aux Folles" will run from July 17 to Aug. 4.
Next comes Anna's captivation of his royal highness, the King of Siam, in the beloved "The King and I," about which little needs to be said, except that Broadway sets and costumes will accompany the beautiful Rogers and Hammerstein music with which we are all so familiar. The musical will run from Aug. 7 through 25.
While these productions will be produced by the Ogunquit Playhouse, the next
one is a co-production with Brunswick's Maine State Music Theatre. The comedy
"Hairspray," which was based on a 1988 cult film satirizing 1960s-era outrageous style and sociological ingredients and which premiered on Broadway as a full-blown musical comedy in 2002 to win a series of Tony awards, including one for Harvey Firestien, is scheduled to run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 15. Set in the Baltimore of 1962, this spoof - which is still running in New York City - on instant celebrity, racial integration, 1960s blown-up everything including physical size, big hair, big dance and big ideas, has toured nationally and, last I heard, was being made into a new film featuring John Travolta in drag, Michelle Pfeiffer and Queen Latifah.
The joint musical comedy endeavor being planned between the Brunswick facility and our Ogunquit Playhouse will be a regional premiere for "Hairspray" with roles to be announced. Importantly, the casting for this regional production of "Hairspray" will include a local talent search for the lead character of Tracy Turnblad, "the big girl with the big hair and big ambitions." Auditions will be held in April with time and dates to be announced.
That's the latest information for the playhouse's main stage. The Playhouse Children's Theatre program is expanding and now offers theatrical training camps for students in kindergarten through high school, under the guidance of Education Director Gina Connolly. This year's Playhouse Kid's Korner productions include Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" on July 7, "Robin Hood" on July 28, Disney's "Mulan Jr." on Aug. 18, with one other undertaking to be announced later.
Tickets for all Ogunquit Playhouse 2007 performances are now available at the Ogunquit Playhouse Box Office at 646-4411 or on the web at www.ogunquitplayhouse.org. Tickets range from $39 to $48 - far less than the cost to attend Broadway musicals with equity actors in New York City. Show times are Tuesday through Friday evenings at 8 p.m. and Saturday evenings at 8:30 p.m., with matinees on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 2:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. Old timers and first night regulars, please note that the Monday night opening has been discontinued to allow for improved rehearsal time. Most shows will open on Tuesday evening.
