Paul Garman, executive director/producer and Steven Glaudini, artistic director/producer of Musical Theatre West (MTW), have announced the 2010-2011 season at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center.
“We are thrilled to provide a season that truly has something for everyone,” Glaudini said. “From the Tony-Award winning musical Annie, which introduces many families to musical theatre for the first time, to our number-one patron requested show— Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, to maintaining our commitment to producing newer works such as the world premiere of the New Roger Bean musical Summer of Love, to the recent New York hit The Wedding Singer, we at MTW continue to promise to provide the highest quality of musical theatre to our region, solidifying our claim as Southern California’s premier musical theatre company.”
The season will open with everybody’s favorite orphan— Annie (Oct. 29—Nov. 14). Based on the Tribune Media Service comic strip Little Orphan Annie, Annie is the story of a spunky depression-era orphan determined to find the parents who abandoned her years ago on the doorstep
of a New York City orphanage run by the cruel Miss Hannigan. In adventure after fun-filled adventure, Annie foils Miss Hannigan’s evil machinations, befriends President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and finds a new family in the home of billionaire Oliver Warbucks.
For its second production, MTW will present Cats (Feb.11—27), based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The story is set at the annual reunion of the Jellicle cats at the Jellicle Ball. The eldest of this special breed, Old Deuteronomy, seeks to select which of the many cats in the neighborhood will be reborn to begin another life.
For its third production, MTW will present the world premiere of a new musical from Roger Bean, the creator of The Marvelous Wonderettes and The Andrews Brothers— Summer of Love (April 1—17, 2011). In 1967, the countercultural revolution brought a melting pot of music, creative expression, and politics to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. A few years later, a young flower child named Daisy arrives on the scene, yearning to experience her own summer of love amid the hippies and drop-outs populating the Golden Gate Park.
MTW will close the season by taking you back to 1985 to relive the days of big hair with the Southern California regional premiere of the musical based on the Adam Sandler film The Wedding Singer. Wannabe rock star Robbie Hart is everyone’s favorite wedding singer and life of the party until he gets jilted at the altar. Embittered, he vows to make every wedding as disastrous as his own. But then he meets Julia, a waitress who wins his heart— but she’s already engaged. Can he win her heart before she says “I do,” or will it be too late?
More Information
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