PANORAMA
		Entertainment Magazine	For Northwest Indiana

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UP AND COMING SHOWS: (See Local Theatre Links Below For More Information): (See Links Below) "The Marvelous Wonderettes," musical comedy, July 21 - July 31, Canterbury Summer Theatre, Michigan City. "The Last Days of Judas," July 23 - Aug 8th, Beatniks on Conkey, Hammond. “Othello,” July 30th – Aug 8th, Crown Point. "Nobody's Perfect," a comedy, Aug 4 - Aug 14, Canterbury Summer Theatre, Michigan City. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” Aug. 5th – Aug 14th, Highland Parks. "Hollywood Arms," a Carol Burnett comedy, Aug 6 -  Aug 15, Footlight Players, Michigan City, Indiana. “The Crucible,” Aug. 13th – 29th,  Chesterton. “Evita,” A Musical, Aug. 13th – 29th,  Dunes Summer Theatre, Beverly Shores. "The Star Spangled Girl," a Neil Simon comedy, Aug 19 - Aug 21, Canterbury Summer Theatre, Michigan City. “The Complete Works of William Shakeshpear, Abridged,” Sept 10th – 19th, Portage.
Local Auditions:  Are listed on the Calendar of events.
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The Festival Players Guild presents its 42nd Canterbury Summer Theatre Season
For further information call: (219) 874-4269

            The Festival Players Guild’s 42nd Canterbury Summer Theatre Season will offer audiences three musicals and three comedies at Michigan City’s Mainstreet Theatre.

     Neil Simon’s comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue opens the season on Wednesday, June 16 and continues through  Saturday, June 19. Mel is a well paid executive of a fancy New York company which has suddenly hit the skids and started to pare the payroll. Anxiety doesn't help. Mel, too, gets the ax. His wife takes a job to tide them over, and then she, too, is sacked. As if this weren't enough, Mel is fighting a losing battle with the very environs of life. Polluted air is killing everything that grows on his terrace; the walls of the high rise apartment are paper thin, so that the private lives of a pair of German stewardesses next door are open books to him; the apartment is burgled; and his psychiatrist dies with $23,000 of his money. Mel does the only thing left for him to do; he has a nervous breakdown. It is on recovery that we come to esteem him all the more for Mel and his wife and people like them have the resilience, the grit to survive. 

     The musical Spitfire Grill (June 23 thru July 3), based on the film by Lee David Zlotoff, tells the story of a feisty parolee who follows her dreams, based on a page from an old travel book, to a small town in Wisconsin.  She finds a place for herself working at Hannah's Spitfire Grill. The grill is for sale but there are no takers for the only eatery in the depressed town, so newcomer Percy suggests to Hannah that she raffle it off. Entry fees are one hundred dollars and the best essay on why you want the grill wins. Soon, mail is arriving by the wheelbarrow full and things are definitely cookin' at the Spitfire Grill. The reviewer for USA Today stated that the musical contained "an abundance of warmth, spirit and goodwill! ...” and “some of the most engaging and instantly infectious melodies I've heard in an original musical in some time."

     In the second musical of the season, A Grand Night for Singing (July 7 thru 17), taste and imagination, the two key ingredients for a first-rate revue, abound in this fresh take on Rodgers & Hammerstein conceived by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie. This new R&H musical opened the 1994 Broadway season with flair and distinction,  earning two Tony nominations, including Best Musical. R&H probably never imagined "Shall We Dance?" as a comic pas de deux for a towering beauty and her diminutive admirer, nor did they suspect that one day a lovelorn young lad might pose the musical question, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" But that's precisely the kind of invention lavished upon this new revue.

      Roger Bean’s The Marvelous Wonderettes (July 21 through 31) is the fourth offering of the season. It's 1958 and the night of Springfield High School's senior prom and The Marvelous Wonderettes, a pastel-colored crinolined foursome made up of graduating seniors Cindy Lou, Betty Jean, Missy, and Suzy introduce themselves as the evening's entertainment, and begin smoothly serenading us, the prom-attending audience, with popular tunes like "Mr. Sandman," "Lollipop," and "Dream Lover." Cindy Lou is the pretty one, Betty Jean is the tomboy; Suzy is the ditsy one; and Missy is the glue that holds them together.

            Simon Williams hit comedy, Nobody’s Perfect, opens August 4 and continues through August 14.  'Love Is All Round' is a feminist publishing house where Harriet Copeland is running a competition to find new romantic fiction; their motto is 'For Women By Women'. To avoid this gender bias, Leonard Loftus is forced to submit his novel under a female pseudonym. So when Lulabelle Latiffa wins the first prize, Leonard begins to have a major problem. He is a bashful statistician with a spectacular alter ago. With domestic complications from his wayward daughter Dee Dee and Gus, his rascally old father, Leonard tries frantically to keep up the charade of Lulabelle. His problems are made worse when he falls hopelessly in love with Harriet. He is a worried man in the guise of a carefree woman.  Nobody's Perfect has been acclaimed as a classic feel good romantic comedy.  It has the fertile tradition of Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, and Mrs. Doubtfire and offers belly laughs galore

   Closing out the summer season offerings (Thursday, August 19 through 21) is Neil Simon’s comedy The Star Spangled Girl.    Andy and Norman are radicals who barely make a living working on their magazine, Fallout, which is dedicated to fighting "the system" in America. Sophie, a former Olympic swimmer, is an all-American, Southern girl who moves into the apartment next door. It's love at first sight (or, as the play has it, first smell) for Norman, but his feelings are not reciprocated. Norman's obsession with Sophie makes Andy hire her just to keep the magazine going. Then Sophie falls for Andy, threatening to destroy the magazine and Andy and Norman's  friendship.

            After conducting audition sessions in four states, Artistic Director Ray Scott Crawford has assembled a summer stock company that will include familiar as well as new faces. Associate Director David Graham returns along with company members including Joseph Ginnane, Elisa James, Brandon Zale and Michael Dhesse, .

            Performances are Wednesday through Friday at 8:00 PM, Saturday at 5:00 and 8:00, and Wednesday afternoons at 2:00.  All seats are reserved. Season discount booklets containing six coupons currently are available for $70.00.  . By buying the booklet, a patron can save up to $18.00 over individual ticket purchases.  Even more attractive is the fact that the coupons can be used for each of the shows or in any combination.  A purchaser can get an entire season’s entertainment for the price of one Chicago show.
            Individual tickets are $12.50 on week nights and $14.00 for weekend performances.  Group rates, half price special student rates (high school age and below), and senior citizen discounts also are available.
            All performances are held at the Guild’s Mainstreet Theatre, 807 Franklin Street, Michigan City, Indiana.  Tickets may be ordered by writing the Festival Players Guild at P. O. Box 157, Michigan City, IN  46360 or through the Guild’s website at www.festivalplayersguild.org.
            Group dinner/theatre and luncheon/theatre packages also are available in cooperation with Galveston Steakhouse, Rodini’s Restaurant and the Heritage Room at Traditions 803.  Luncheon packages start at $23.00 which includes theatre ticket, lunch, tax and gratuity. Dinner packages start at $32.00. Further information on ticket reservations and special group dinner/theatre and dinner/tour/theatre packages is available by calling the theatre the Box Office (219) 874-4269.
            The programs of the Festival Players Guild are presented with support from  South Shore Arts, the Indiana Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Michigan City Community Enrichment Corporation . Photo id:  Returning for the 2010 season, Brandon Zale and Elisa James appeared in the 2009 production of "I Love a Piano."