November 2006

Dear Subscriber:

It has been an exhilarating fall in St. Louis, hasn’t it? We were energized by a full slate of shows running in all of our venues and along with the rest of the town, enjoyed the thrill of a World Series victory. Though competing with a major sporting event is challenging, we are pleased that audiences still did come to see and enjoy all of the works that were in production at the time. One repeated observation that we heard toward the end of the run involved a timely reference to Of Mice and Men on the television series Lost. While I’ll not say that we have any connection with the program, many patrons commented on a recent episode that was peppered with allusions to Steinbeck’s play. Did you notice that that wretched Henry/Ben was even carrying a rabbit? Though such a classic needs no endorsement from pop culture, it is heartening to see its timeless qualities acknowledged, even on contemporary television.

I AM ALSO THRILLED to report that ACE is receiving the positive press that it deserves, and our production will be seen at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego this winter. It opens on January 18th and closes February 18th, so if you’re headed to southern California for winter respite or have friends there, this will be a fun opportunity to see the show again.

TO CARRY US INTO THE HOLIDAYS, we have two shows that are spirited and filled with clever, witty observations on the social order as well as musical theatre. Running during December on the Mainstage is the wildly funny, award-winning, The Musical of Musicals—The Musical! This is a brilliantly compact show—anchored by four versatile actors who rein the vast world of Broadway into five mini-musicals full of puns, silliness and pure enjoyment. You and your family will get a kick out of all five scenarios, and you may want to see more than one performance, as the jokes are so plentiful, you’ll become aware of all sorts of new punch lines each time you watch. Because St. Louis plays host to many musicals at our town’s theatres over the course of each year, many of you will have had some contact with almost all of the shows referenced in this piece. However, fully entertaining and accessible, this work is also a great jumping off point for the musical theatre novice, or even skeptic. As the title indicates, the writing team is certainly not above poking some good-natured fun at their own art form, so even if you think that “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say No” is an episode from Jerry Springer or you can’t imagine why people would pay money to watch adults dressed in cat costumes, you are sure to enjoy each rich and riotous vignette. Because the tone is so clever and outrageous, part of the fun of the show is identifying the real-life target of each hilarious send-up.

SKILLFULLY COMBINING TRIBUTE with parody, composer Eric Rockwell and lyricist Joanne Bogart have teamed to create a work that gently mocks some of the hallmarks of the genre, while at the same time pays homage to some of its greatest accomplishments and contributors. The set-up for all five scenarios is the same: a young woman is unable to pay her rent to a brutish landlord until a handsome young hero arrives to save her. All the while, this age-old love/hate triangle is commented on by a third quirky character role. Act One encompasses the tuneful, familiar sounds and styles of Rodgers & Hammerstein in “Corn,” the (nearly)-inimitable strains of Stephen Sondheim in “A Little Complex” and the brassy chorus numbers of Jerry Herman in “Dear Abby.” Act Two moves on to the sweeping ballads of Andrew Lloyd Webber with “Aspects of Juanita” and the hard-edged world of Kander & Ebb in “Speakeasy.” In each mini-musical, we see the same five characters, revamped to suit the unique trademarks and theatrical vehicles of the featured writers. The real craft and beauty of this piece though is that Bogart and Rockwell are not uninformed comedy hacks, mercilessly ridiculing Broadway from afar. The skill demonstrated in both the lyrics and the musical composition reveal writers who know the legends they are lampooning inside and out, and they masterfully make us laugh riotously at pieces that we may have previously revered, while at the same time highlighting those aspects of the works that made them classics in the first place. This deeply embedded smartness makes it fun to play “Name that Tune” and to try to process all of the rapid-fire puns and allusions. It is comedy pure and simple—fun for the holidays. And just in case you are harboring any feelings of guilt or betrayal to your favorite show tune composers, when Stephen Sondheim saw the show in New York, he loved it and thought the whole event was funny and wonderfully conceived.

QUITE A HIT IN NEW YORK, this piece played for more than a year before going out to Los Angeles, where it has just enjoyed a return engagement. We are so pleased to have Pamela Hunt, who directed Crowns for us most recently, to direct and choreograph this show. Pam directed the original production in New York and many around the country and is joined by fellow The Musical of Musicals—The Musical! veteran and co-writer Joanne Bogart in the cast. Also playing a host of similarly-named characters are Matt Bailey, Edwin Cahill and Kristin Maloney, all clever and wonderfully funny people. You can see them at their comic best all through December, so bring all the guests who are in for the holidays to have a laugh-filled time on the Mainstage.

OUR FINAL SHOW in the Off-Ramp series at the Grandel Theatre in Grand Center is the Tony Award-winning Urinetown. Don’t let the title put you off—this is one of the funniest, smartest new musicals penned in years. In fact, one of its writers, Mark Hollmann, grew up in Fairview Heights and wrote me to say that our production of The Threepenny Opera had a very big impact on him which led to his writing of Urinetown.

IN A WORLD in which the town’s waterworks are controlled by a corrupt monopoly, the citizens are forced to pay to use the public “amenities.” If they don’t pay, they are in trouble with corporate-driven law enforcement officials. Forced to the edge by increased costs without increased or improved access, a group of citizens stages an uprising in which the industrial giants are pitted against the lower classes. As Hollmann stated, it’s right out of Brecht. But with one enormous difference: this is riotously funny. The music is infectious, and when it surprisingly references major Broadway shows, the piece takes on a kind of social commentary on the art form as well as corporate greed.

DAVID AUBURN, AUTHOR of the play Proof, wrote in the introduction to the script of Urinetown:

What’s most startling about the musical might be the rigor with which Kotis and Hollmann work through their famously absurd premise. The water shortage that drives the plot produces villains and heroes, corruption and idealism—but the heroes have no monopoly on virtue, and it’s not just the villains that grow corrupt. Though Urinetown mocks the conventions of musicals, it is not primarily a spoof of them, as many reviews have held it to be (actually, it has the most solid, old-fashioned construction of any book musical in recent memory.)  If it is any kind of satire, it’s not of musical theater but of human corruption…

And what he is saying makes great sense. What goes on structurally in The Musical of Musicals—The Musical! and Urinetown is very different. The former is having fun simply twisting the works of the composers and their scenarios while the latter has set its own course with a story that employs satire to make its point. The bottom line is that both shows are highly entertaining and clever.

URINETOWN IS BEING DIRECTED by Rob Ruggiero, who directed last season’s Take Me Out—which happily has received a rave review in The New York Times for its current run at Hartford Theatreworks with virtually the same cast and creative team as appeared here. Wade Russo, musical director for several shows for the local company Theatre Factory, is taking on that role again and Ralph Perkins is choreographing the show, with set design by Michael Schweikardt, costumes by Anne Kenney and lighting by Peter Sargent.

THE SHOW HAS a very large cast, and one of the hallmarks of this production is the great number of St. Louis favorites who are in the piece. You’ll recognize Ben Nordstrom, Zoe Vonder Haar, Joneal Joplin, Michelle Burdette Elmore, Doug Storm, Steve Isom and Bill Lynch. They are joined by three Webster Conservatory students and several other actors who have come from New York. It’s an ambitious project to present at the Grandel Theatre and plays through December 10th. Like most of the Off-Ramp productions, this work is not for the youngest children, though there is nothing really provocative in the piece at all.

CAST RECORDINGS FOR BOTH The Musical of Musicals—The Musical! and Urinetown are available on CD and are great shows for listening. Each brings a very different look and feel to the musical form, but entertainment is the key during the holiday time. With Urinetown at the Grandel Theatre spinning a tale of corruption and uprising and The Musical of Musicals—The Musical! bringing great fun, silliness, puns and lots of show tunes to the Mainstage, we hope you’ll make time to share both shows with us.

HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY season. I hope you get all the joys and gifts you are looking for and that the whole world just settles down.

See you at the theatre,

Steven Woolf
Artistic Director

NEW YORK REPORT:  Grey Gardens just opened at The Walter Kerr Theatre to very positive reviews. Based on the documentary film by the same title, it delves into atypical subject matter for most Broadway shows, exploring the eccentric lives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and cousin, Edith Bouvier Beale, and her adult daughter, “Little Edie.” Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson are simply stunning as this pair of most-notable recluses. The Little Dog Laughed is a very funny play that is also quite outrageous. Julie White is giving an absolutely astonishing performance as a hard-boiled Hollywood agent. The play does contain nudity and sexual references, so it may not be for everyone, but her performance alone is worth the price of admission. Also, John Doyle, who directed Sweeney Todd last season, is directing a very interesting take on Company. The actors play musical instruments—they are the orchestra. Raul Esparza portrays Bobby and is brilliant in the piece. Unlike any version of this show you have ever seen, this Cincinnati-born production is compelling and fascinating and will give you a lot to talk about. Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House is playing at Lincoln Center. A layered comedy about how the mess of life infiltrates even the most ordered existence, it begins with a Brazilian cleaning lady who hates to clean, but loves to tell jokes in Portuguese. This production offers some wonderful performances, but Jill Clayburgh as a woman who actually does love to clean is particularly strong. I saw David Hare’s new play, The Vertical Hour, starring Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy on its second preview. Mr. Nighy is a brilliant performer, and Ms. Moore will grow into her role as previews continue. Mr. Hare’s work is brilliant when he’s dealing with the personal issues in the play; the political issues, though, seem a little obvious, possibly even preachy or slightly out of date given the recent election results. But many things can change during a month of previews. If you prefer diversion from world events and other serious matters, consider Evil Dead: The Musical, a musical take on the horror films of the same name. It is silly, funny, and full of blood—in fact, patrons in the first three rows (aptly named the splatter rows) are given ponchos. An off-Broadway show gaining a following, it is certainly a piece for those with a love of tacky horror movies. And if you simply want a whole lot of fun, see Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me—it is wildly funny and Mr. Short and his cast are having a blast. It’s fabulously mindless, which can be just the thing to follow a hard day of meetings or shopping in the Big Apple.

P.S.  I’d like to call something to your attention regarding electronic devices in the theatre. We know and appreciate that there was great interest in the baseball series that the Cardinals triumphed in, but please understand that looking at a cellular phone or Blackberry to get the latest score during a show is actually quite disruptive. The light from the phone is in sharp contrast to the darkened theatre around the audience, so people seated behind the offending phone and those sitting above and behind it are often blinded by the light or disturbed by it. Simply checking the time or sending an instant message during a performance is distracting and unfair to the rest of the audience. The wonder of technology is to be appreciated, but the proper use of it in public gatherings is also something to be considered. While you think you may be anonymous in your theatre seat, the minute you open your phone, everyone around you is watching you. Please preserve the working environment of the theatre and keep all electronic devices turned off during performances. I and your fellow theatregoers thank you in advance.

Don’t miss the holiday magic of our Imaginary Theatre Company’s tender production of The Velveteen Rabbit, on the Mainstage December 21st & 22nd at 11:00 a.m. and December 23rd at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Call the Box Office for tickets or check availability online today.

A special offer for Rep subscribers: Order tickets for The Rep’s presentation of John Patrick Shanley’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt, February 20–25, 2007 at the Fox Theatre, starring Tony Award-winning actress Cherry Jones. Entertainment Weekly called Doubt “a breathtaking work of immense proportion. Positively brilliant.”

Rep subscribers can order tickets for priority seating before tickets go on sale to the general public. Click here to download a ticket order form.

Act today! This exclusive offer is only available under December 31, 2006. Tickets go on sale to the public January 7.

Please note: Tickets for this special presentation at the Fox Theatre are not available through The Rep’s Box Office.