By Artistic Director Greg MacKellan
Photo by David Allen
As 42nd Street Moon sails into our third decade, we realize that we’re all suffering from "21st Century Blues." Life is harder and more complex than ever before. We need a break now and then, and in 2013-2014, relief is on the way.
Let me first introduce the company. We present intimate productions of rarely performed Broadway musicals. Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart — these are the folks whose work is often found on our stage at the Eureka Theatre.
When we (with co-founder/co-director Stephanie Rhoads) plan a season, we strive for a balance of serious and silly. This time, however, we decided nothing was more important than to help our audiences laugh their troubles away. Life is more complex than ever before, and who couldn’t use a break now and then?
Theater, like life, can be a serious business, but a lightness of spirit and a recollection of our past are important, too. To risk being innocent and fun — silly, even – to treat our most important themes and issues with humor or even evasion, to simply entertain: these are the themes of our next season.
So, taking it from the top, Oct. 2–20, we’re celebrating the Man of Steel’s 75th birthday with the delightful It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman — courtesy of the Bye Bye Birdie team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams. Then, Oct. 30–Nov. 17, Rodgers and Hart's I Married an Angel, with songs like "Spring is Here" and "I’ll Tell the Man in the Street."
For the holidays, we’ll bring Charles Schultz’s beloved characters to the stage with Snoopy!!!, by Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady. A new musical with songs from Depression-era movie musicals, Painting the Clouds with Sunshine, opens our spring, April 2–20. We close out 2013-14 with Cole Porter’s very naughty musical, The New Yorkers.
Of course, I’m not at all objective, but I think it’s going to be a lot of fun – I hope you’ll come and join us.