Hairspray
Frauenthal Theater, October, 2011
“Welcome to the 60s!” Hairspray will transport you to 1960’s Baltimore—where the 50’s are out and change is in the air. Loveable, plus-size heroine, Tracy Turnblad, has a passion for dancing and wins a spot on the local TV dance program, “The Corny Collins Show.” Overnight she finds herself transformed from outsider to teen celebrity. Can a larger-than-life adolescent manage to vanquish the program’s reigning princess, integrate the television show, and find true love (singing and dancing all the while, of course!) without mussing her hair?
Doubt
Beardsley Theater, November & December, 2011
Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Drama, Doubt is a gripping story set in a 1964 Catholic school in the Bronx. Sister Aloysius, the principal of the school, takes matters into her own hands when she suspects the young Father Flynn of improper relations with one of the male students. However, this story is less about scandal than about nuanced questions of moral certainty and is full of empathy for all four of the characters involved. This is a gripping mystery, and the elements come together like clockwork in this provocative play.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat
Frauenthal Theater, April & May 2011
This delightful musical is the biblical saga of Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, and his coat of many colors. Joseph is sold into slavery by his envious brothers and is taken to Egypt. When he rejects the amorous advances of his master’s wife, Joseph lands in jail. However, when news of his gift as an interpreter of dreams reaches Pharaoh, Joseph is on his way to success! His brothers, who have fallen on hard times, come to Egypt to seek help and do not recognize their brother. After testing his brothers’ integrity, Joseph reveals his true identity, leading to a reconciliation of the sons of Israel. Set to an engaging cornucopia of musical styles from country-western, to calypso, to pop, and rock and roll, this Old Testament tale is timeless.
Something's Afoot
Beardsley Theater, September & October 2010
This murder mystery is a musical spoof of the whodunit genre, typified by Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries and the musical styles of the past. Ten people are stranded in an English country house, which is set on an island, during a raging thunderstorm. One by one they are picked off by fiendishly clever devices. While the bodies are piling up in the library, the surviving guests work frantically to uncover the identity and motivation of the cunning culprit!
The Dining Room
Beardsley Theater, November & December 2010
This play is set in the dining room of a typical well-to-do household, the room where families assembled for daily breakfast and dinner and all special occasions. The action is a series of interrelated scenes—some humorous, some poignant, some rueful—which, when taken together, create an in-depth portrait of a vanishing species, the upper-middle-class. Each vignette will introduce a new set of people and events, and the actors will play a variety of roles, personalities, and ages from little boys to stern grandfathers and giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids.
Always...Patsy Cline
Black Box Theater Setting on the Frauenthal Stage, January 2011
This musical is based on the true story of Patsy Cline’s friendship with Houston housewife, Louise Seger. When Seger first heard Cline on the “Arthur Godfrey Show” in 1957, she immediately became an avid fan and constantly hounded the local disc jockey to play Cline’s records on the radio. In 1961, Cline went to Houston for a show, and by coincidence met Seger. The two women struck up a friendship that was to culminate in Cline’s spending the night at Seger’s house—a friendship that lasted until Patsy Cline’s untimely death in a plane crash in 1963. Over a pot of strong coffee, the two women chatted about their common concerns. When Cline finally left for Dallas, the two women exchanged addresses and telephone numbers. Louise never expected to hear from Patsy again, yet soon after, Louise received the first of many letters and phone calls from Patsy. The pen-pal relationship provides much of the plot of the show. While Louise Seger provides the narrative, Patsy Cline floats in and out of the set singing the tunes that made her famous—“Anytime,” “Walkin’ After Midnight,” “She’s Got You,” “Sweet Dreams,” and “Crazy”—to name just a few.
The Piano Lesson
Beardsley Theater, February & March 2011
Playwright August Wilson won his second Pulitzer Prize for this haunting drama set in 1936 Pittsburgh. When Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in his battered truck, he dreams of buying the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves. To raise the money for the land, he plans to sell an old piano, which has been in the Charles family for generations. While Boy Willie and his sister both own the piano, the piano is in Berniece’s living room, and she has already rejected many offers because the antique piano is more than an heirloom; it is covered with carvings that detail the family’s rise from slavery. Boy Willie tries to persuade his sister that the past is past, but she is more formidable than he anticipated.
Social Security: A Contemporary Comedy
Beardsley Theater, September 2009
Written by Andrew Bergman, one of Hollywood’s top comedy screenwriters, this charming farce is a journey back to the Manhattan art world of the 1980’s. David and Barbara Kahn run a high-end art gallery and enjoy their stylish life in their fancy East Side apartment. Their domestic tranquility is shattered by the arrival of Barbara’s straight-laced sister, Trudy, and her uptight CPA husband, Marvin. A family crisis concerning their college-age daughter has forced Trudy and Marvin to deliver Sophie, their aged, curmudgeonly mother, to Barbara and David’s care. The sparks really begin to fly when the elegant couple bravely hosts a dinner party for an elderly, minimalist artist, a French legend who is their best client, but —oh, no! Sophie will be there, too!
Nuncrackers
Beardsley Theater, November 2009
The Nunsense Christmas musical is presented as the first TV special taped in the Cable Access Studio built by the Reverend Mother in the basement of Mount Saint Helen’s Convent with part of the prize money won by Sister Mary Paul (Amnesia). The show is the annual Christmas program put on by the students of Mount Saint Helen’s School, and this year’s highlight will be an original ballet based on the “Nutcracker” featuring Sister Mary Leo as the Sugar Plum Fairy. In the usual Nunsense highjinks, many problems and comedic situations arise, and we are treated to an evening filled with seasonal songs, laughter, and even some audience participation!
Rabbit Hole
Beardsley Theater, January 2010
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Rabbit Hole explores the impact of a family tragedy and its consequences with honest dialogue which is both an intensely emotional examination of grief but also interweaves wit, insight, and compassion. Becca and Howie Corbett have everything a family could want until their world is shattered by an accident that leaves the couple emotionally adrift. This perceptive and poignant study of the day-to-day aches of bereavement, uneasy relationships with friends who don’t call, and the emptiness in a house full of reminders, is ultimately about the grieving couple’s search for comfort and a path that will lead them back into the light of day.
Witness for the Prosecution
Beardsley Theater, February 2010
Only the grand dame of mystery, Agatha Christie, could have
conceived of this suspenseful courtroom thriller and topped it off
with a triple-flip ending. Over the strenuous objections of his private
nurse, Miss Plimsoll, Sir Wilfred Robarts, a master barrister in ill
health, takes on the case of Leonard Vole, a young man accused of
murdering a wealthy old woman. The testimony of his wife, Christine,
should ensure his acquittal, but she is called, instead, as a witness for
the prosecution. For a fee, a mysterious woman provides Sir Wilfred
with some damning evidence and testimony against Christine, and
the plot twists and turns keep coming until the dramatic climax when
Leonard and Christine confront each other in the courtroom.
The Sound of Music
Beardsley Theater, April 2010
When a postulant, Maria, proves to be too high-spirited for the religious life, she is dispatched to serve as governess for the seven children of a widowed naval Captain, Georg Von Trapp. Her rapport with the children and her generous spirit capture the heart of the stern Captain, and they marry. Upon returning from their honeymoon, the newlyweds find that the Nazis have taken over Austria and now demand that the Captain report immediately for service in the German Navy. The family’s narrow escape over the mountains into Switzerland on the eve of World War II provides the inspirational finale. This final collaboration between Rodgers & Hammerstein was destined to become America’s most beloved musical, and many songs from the show have become standards including Edelweiss,” “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” and the title song.
For more past production information, visit Muskegon Civic Theatre's History Page.
