Paul Garman, the executive director/producer of Musical Theatre West (MTW), along with Michael Betts and David Lamoureux, producers of the Reiner Reading Series, has announced the line-up for the Reiner Reading Series’s 2012-2013 season.
Reiner Reading Series focuses on staged readings of classic musicals by celebrating and preserving musical theater as an art form by exposing audiences to works that might not otherwise be produced on a larger scale. Through the minimalism of the staged-reading format, the audience is encouraged to use their imaginations to explore and enjoy the diverse range of musical theater, both in style and era, including lesser-known shows by noted composers as well as noted shows by lesser-known composers.
This series is underwritten by Ken and Dottie Reiner, both Long Beach residents and Musical Theatre West donors, along with the Ackerman Family/Evalyn M. Bauer Foundation. Additional funds come from a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The season schedule will include staged readings of:
Legs Diamond (Dec. 2)
This musical from the late ’80s has never been seen since it closed on Broadway. It is about gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond, whose great ambition is to see his name in lights as a song-and-dance man on the Great White Way. MTW favorite David Engel, who also performed in MTW’s Forbidden Broadway, Greatest Hits, Volume 1 & 2 and The Producers, is set to star as the gangster turned hoofer.
110 in the Shade (Jan. 20, 2013)
Based on the classic drama The Rainmaker, this musical— from the creators of The Fantasticks— is set in a town desperate for a deluge. Enter self-named Starbuck, the man described “to make it all happen— at least for a price,” sweeps the town and town spinster away with his promises of precipitation and romance.
The Secret Garden (March 17, 2013)
Mary Lennox, newly orphaned, comes to England to live with her reclusive Uncle Archibald and his sickly son, Colin. While roaming the grounds, Mary discovers a long-forgotten door that leads to the garden her late Aunt Lily reveled in.
Kismet (June 30, 2013)
“Stranger in Paradise,” “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” and “Not Since Nineveh” are a few of the songs that contribute to the Middle Eastern-flavored tale with music based on the scores of Alexander Borodin. Hajj, the beggar and poet, spins his rhymes in the court of the Wazir and catches the eye of the Wazir’s mistress, LaLume, while Hajj’s daughter Marsinah, unbeknownst to her, has turned the head of the young Caliph.
City of Angels (Aug. 25, 2013)
This Tony-winner is arguably the jazziest score from the pen of Cy Coleman. Close-up: Hollywood in the 1940s. Styne, the writer of a popular detective series, has moved out west to provide the script for an adaptation of his works for the silver screen.
All readings are on Sundays at 7pm. Pre-purchased general admission tickets start at $25, but admission is $30 at the entrance. They are available now through the MTW box office at (562) 856-1999, ext. 4 or at musical.org. Season tickets are still available. Pick any four for $85 or all five for $100.
The series takes place at University Theatre at California State University of Long Beach at the 7th Street entrance.
