Richey Suncoast Theatre announced its 2004-2005 season this week, and it lives up to the theater's growing reputation for offering something to please just about everyone.
For kids, there's Honk!, the musical based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the Ugly Duckling, playing May 12-29 in 2005. It's gotten great reviews wherever it has played and won the 2000 Olivier award for "Best New Musical."
For sophisticates, there's the first-time-here musical High Society (Feb. 24-March 13), based on the marvelous 1940 Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant/James Stewart movie, The Philadelphia Story, that was later made into the Cole Porter musical with Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.
For grownups, there's another new offering, the comedy-farce Wife Begins at Forty (Oct. 21-Nov. 7), co-written by Ray Cooney (Run for Your Wife, It Runs in the Family, Move Over Mrs. Markham), a favorite in these parts and for good reason: his shows are always lots of fun. In this one, longtime marrieds George and Linda Harper are parting, and George blames their dull sex life. He moves out, she goes for self-improvement, they hire the same lawyer, and, as George tries to reseduce his wife, their teenage son walks in the door.
The familiar, but always well-received shows are the season opener Guys and Dolls (Sept. 9-26) and the comedy-farce, Love, Sex and the IRS (Jan. 13-30), and Christmas Show (Nov. 26-Dec. 5).
Season tickets are the same as this year, $60 for five regular shows, $70 if you add the Christmas show. Current season ticket holders have until June 1 to keep their seats, but everyone can buy their season tickets now. Call (727) 842-6777.
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The musical Show Boat just opened at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre, but, already, work is going briskly on the next three shows.
Those in the Back to Broadway Senior Academy class at Pasco-Hernando Community College got a preview this week, when actors and crew members did a scene from one show and dropped a few tidbits about two others.
Harvey Laskey, who is directing Run for Your Wife (July 9-Aug. 15), talked about the challenges and theories of directing, then guided actors Matt McGee (Mary Sunshine in Chicago), Candler Budd (Mr. Cellophane in Chicago) and Troy LaFon (Pete in Show Boat) through a scene from the comedy-farce.
Even though the actors had just met their director and were doing a cold reading, they were so good that the audience cracked up all the way through the scene. McGee is a mix of Paul Lynde and Harvey Korman and Budd a mix of Bob Newhart and Tim Conway, but these two have their own special moves and expressions that often outshine those zany guys. Look for this show to be still another Show Palace hot ticket.
Later, as singer-makeup artist Sara DelBeato showed the class how she turned McGee into his Mary Sunshine character in Chicago, she let it slip that she's starring in the next Show Palace musical, Swing! (April 16-May 23).
Ms. DelBeato has been featured several times at the Show Palace, but she was tapped for her first top spot there in large part because of her star turn in Stage West Community Playhouse's recent Funny Girl, proof again of the value of community theater both to performers and to audiences.
Her co-stars in the tribute to the swing era are McGee, Susan Haldeman (Nancy in Oliver!) and Ron Foster, whose deep voice and easy manner wowed the crowds in Smokey Joe's Cafe two summers ago (Keep on Rollin', Searchin', and the sexy You're the Boss).
For Nunsense Jamboree, (May 28-June 27) McGee will play Father Virgil Manly Trott, with Ms. DelBeato, Ms. Haldeman and Laura Lynn Tapper (Sugar in Some Like It Hot; Julie Jordan in Carousel) as the Little Sisters of Hoboken. Other editions of the popular Nunsense shows have played in this area, but the closest Jamboree I can find was in Sarasota seven years ago.
McGee once did the show under the tutelage of Nunsense creator Dan Goggin and will direct the upcoming version at the Show Palace.
So all of us in mourning at the finale of Chicago (I wanted to go just one more time) can take heart that lots of other good things are coming our way.
