It's official, friends and neighbors: as of 1:06pm today, I am directing Thoroughly Modern Millie at Solano College Theatre! For those of you who do not know, this is the stage adaptation of the 1967 movie musical which originally starred Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, James Fox (skip forward to minute 6:00),Carol Channing, Beatrice Lillie, John Gavin, Pat Morita and Jack Soo.
The stage adaptation opened on Broadway April 18, 2002 and closed June 20, 2004. It starred Sutton Foster, Gavin Creel, Angela Christian, Mark Kudisch, Harriet Harris, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Francis Jue and Ken Leung. Well, technically those are not all starring roles. But they are the actors who played the key roles, both leading and supporting. I like to be clear.
The show is not the same as the movie, for obvious theatrical reasons: shooting Muzzy out of a cannon before one of her songs or flying the Chinamen for the very last fight sequence would be tricky at best. Frankly, I think all of it would be a huge plus; were it possible, I would put those things into the show. However, knowing that the budget will not allow for such amazing tomfoolery, I focus instead on making it what it should be: frothy, toe-tapping spectacle.
I'll be making regular updates herein, as I am very excited about this show and looking forward to every moment of the process.
© 2009, Edward Hightower. All Rights Reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment