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Entertainment

Theater schedule full of laughs, musicals

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
Published February 12, 2005

We're coming down the stretch of the 2004-05 theater season, so local venues are starting to announce their schedules for 2005-06.

The Show Palace Dinner Theatre beat everyone to the punch by revealing its shows through May 2006 several months ago. Now Richey Suncoast Theatre has released its lineup. It includes two Neil Simon favorites and three big musicals, two of them new to area theaters.

The season opens with Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Sept. 8-25), which was wildly popular at Stage West Community Playhouse and the Show Palace in past years.

Based on the biblical story of Joseph and the brothers who betray him, only to be rescued by him, Joseph is part vaudeville and part calypso, country-western and rock 'n' roll, all with a good story that makes it an audience favorite.

Next is Simon's comedy Rumors (Oct. 20-Nov. 6), which had great success at Stage West in 2000 under the direction of the inimitable Saul Leibner, who will direct the Richey Suncoast production, too. It's a show for grownups, partly because of some profane language, which fits the action on stage, and partly because it goes so quickly and involves so many characters and misunderstandings that it requires a grownup's comprehension to keep up.

A Pasco Christmas, the season's "bonus" show, plays Nov. 25-Dec. 4. Once more, Richey Suncoast board president Charlie Skelton has said he'll write it, so there's no telling which way it will go. If it's as clever as his first two holiday shows, it is guaranteed to be most entertaining. (I still giggle when I think about the Citizens Against Virtually Everything (CAVE) and their leaders' comically strict control of the local homeowners association in Skelton's 2003 Christmas show.)

The new-to-the-area George M (Jan. 12-29), a biography of Broadway's bouncy George M. Cohan, kicks off 2006, and the year ends with Disney's Beauty and the Beast Musical (May 11-28). In between is a perennial crowd-pleaser, Simon's classic comedy Odd Couple (Feb. 23-March 12).

Season tickets for five shows are $60, which means you get one show free. Add the Christmas show, and the tickets are $70, an even bigger savings. Perhaps best, season tickets guarantee a seat, which has become important because several Richey Suncoast shows have sold out this season.

Season tickets are on sale to everyone, but current season ticket holders must buy theirs by May 29 to guarantee they'll keep their seats.

The box office at 6237 Grand Blvd., New Port Richey, is open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and an hour before each show through March 13 and again May 4-29. Call (727) 842-6777.

Skelton was talking about next season through a great big grin over the success of the recent Ticket to Broadway talent show the theater did in conjunction with the Pasco Education Foundation.

The show netted $3,000, which means six $500 college scholarships will go to Pasco students who plan to major in the performing arts. That's twice as many as last year.

The foundation submits a list of applicants, and the winners are chosen by the Richey Suncoast board in the next few weeks.

Those following the CBS reality show Wickedly Perfect were probably happy to see New Port Richey's own Darlene Cahill survive the fifth episode Feb. 5. The show is pitting 12 self-styled perfectionists against each other for the title of "next great stylemaker," plus a book deal, at least six appearances on The Early Show and a chance to develop their own TV show.

Darlene's performance and audience polling numbers have had a complete turnaround since the show debuted Jan. 6. After the first episode, more than 40 percent of those polled said Darlene should be the next contestant to go. By episode five, she had halved that number, and early "Who Will Win?" favorite Mychael Chang had been voted off by her teammates.

Perhaps more significant, Darlene's "Who Will Win?" number has more than doubled since the first episode, and her "Who is the Best Party Host?" score has risen by 41 percent. In the past episode, when it was necessary to transfer a team member to even things up, Darlene was the one chosen by the rival team to make the move. A former team member lamented the loss, saying, "It probably won't be near as crazy and fun with Darlene not on our team anymore." The team that chose her saw her as a valuable consensus-builder.

This is a stark reversal of the way Darlene was viewed and treated early on. In the first episodes, three (thankfully gone) of her team members rudely dismissed her and her ideas, and one (who should go) called her an "odd bird." Now almost everyone seems to appreciate what Darlene has to offer. And she seems happy and content to do whatever she can to help her team.

I never dreamed I'd get wrapped up in one of those usually horrid reality shows, but I like this one. It's fun to watch people create and plan things around the home, and, except for what looked like a couple of contrived spats, it doesn't humiliate, denigrate or terrify its contestants by making them eat worms, jump off tall buildings or make fools of themselves trying to do something for which they obviously have no talent.

At 8 tonight, we'll see if Darlene can make it through one more show - or maybe all the way.

[Last modified February 12, 2005, 00:24:15]