After keeping its musical a secret in early November, Bard to Broadway has pulled back the curtain on its “surprise” production.
B2B will be putting on the longest-running American musical in Broadway history: Chicago.
Rarely seen on stages because it’s still on Broadway and performed on national tours, Bard to Broadway has nonetheless been granted performance rights, said Laurel Johannson in a press release.
“We are beyond thrilled, honored and excited to be staging this incredible ground-breaking musical during our 2018 summer season: a first for any non-professional theatre company on Vancouver Island,” she said.
The musical, featuring sexy murderesses, a corruptible justice system, sensation-minded media and celebrity, withstands the test of time, with all elements as relevant today as when Chicago first hit the stage in 1975.
Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd were celebrities for their crimes and the public couldn’t get enough. So too are Velma Kelly and Roxy Hart, the two lead characters in Chicago.
On top of everything, the play features music the audience won’t be able to get out of its head, all played by Bard to Broadway’s first-class band of professional musicians.
Bard to Broadway’s season is rounded out with two comedies: Baskerville is a brand-new play and no other theatre company on Vancouver Island has ever staged it. It’s a spoof of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and is a romp in which a cast of five portrays about forty charachters.
The other comedy, Savannah Sipping Society, is about four women who meet at a disastrous round of hot yoga and the friendship that develops, which involves a fair amount of sipping. The play is also very new and will also be a first for the Island.
Auditions for all three plays are scheduled for Jan. 20 and 28 at Shelly Road Hall in Parksville, as well as Jan. 21 at St Paul’s Church in Nanaimo.
Performances will take place this summer.
For more info, go to b2btheatre.com or www.facebook.com/B2B-Theatre-Bard-to-Broadway-Theatre-Society-395387747200783/?ref=br_rs.
— NEWS staff/
Laurel Johannson submission
