Broadway abounds in playhouse season

Broadway musicals make up half the schedule for the coming Playhouse 19 season, including Man of La Mancha and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

By JORGE SANCHEZ

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 28, 2000

CRYSTAL RIVER -- Fans of Broadway musicals will find a plentiful offering during the coming season at Playhouse 19 community theater.

Musicals make up half of the 2000-2001 season: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Taking My Turn and Man of La Mancha. Playhouse 19 also will present the comedy Lend Me a Tenor, Mystery Theatre and the family drama Little Foxes.

The season opens with Lend Me A Tenor, a comedy, running weekends Sept. 15 to Oct. 8. The play tells of two sweethearts, Max and Maggie, who are holed up in a Cleveland, Ohio, hotel suite eagerly awaiting the arrival of world-famous Italian tenor Signor Tito Merelli, known to legions of fans as Il Stupendo.

When Stupendo's "Dear John" letter to his wife is mistaken for a suicide note, Max agrees to impersonate the great singer.

Next up is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the first collaboration between Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. They play tells the story of young Joseph, a Canaanite and also the apple of his father's eye. Joseph wears the brilliantly colored coat until the fateful day his jealous siblings take it from him and sell him into slavery, concocting a murder story to explain Joseph's disappearance.

But a new life for Joseph means success, and he eventually confronts his brothers in the play's climax. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has weekend performances from Oct. 27 to Nov. 19.

Playhouse 19 then rolls out its Mystery Theater, typically a campy spoof of a whodunnit, from Jan. 19 to Feb. 11.

Next up comes the Broadway musical Taking My Turn, the 1980s feel-good song story about growing old. The play is a "theme musical," meaning it is without a story line, but the songs set the theme for the positive and uplifting message about aging. Taking My Turn will be performed March 9 to April 1.

The Southern drama The Little Foxes will be performed from April 20 to May 13. The play by Lillian Hellman is about a Southern family torn apart by greed and deception, set in the 1930s cotton industry.

The season finale will be Man of La Mancha with performances from June 8 to July 1. The play is about a prisoner named Cervantes who is forced to stand trial before a horde of mean-spirited inmates in a Spanish prison. He persuades the head convict to let him conduct his defense in the manner of entertainment. The famous song The Impossible Dream serves as the play's inspirational vehicle.

Season tickets for the coming season are $56. They can be purchased at the box office at 865 U.S. 19 S, Crystal RIver, or by calling the theater at 563-1333.

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