LOGAN – The Lyric Repertory Company’s 2023 season will open on Friday, June 16 with The Marvelous Wonderettes.
It’s a juke box musical, meaning that the majority of the songs performed by the titled female quartet will be classic Top 40 Tunes from the 1950s and 1960s, rather than original compositions.
Local theater lovers may recall the 2020 productions of the familiar juke box musicals Forever Plaid and The Taffetas staged by Music Theatre West. But The Marvelous Wonderettes is a little different, according to Lyric music director Luke Shepherd.
“Yes, the show is like Forever Plaid,” he explains. “But it’s about women instead. The themes of The Marvelous Wonderettes are much more focused and female-empowering.”
The show is being guest-directed and choreographed by local favorite Stephanie White, who has previously guided numerous MTW productions.
Playwright Roger Bean wrote a one-act version of the show in the late 1990s, trying to follow-up on the success of his first musical Don’t Touch that Dial!
Challenged by limited backstage space in the intimate Stackner Cabaret in Milwaukee, he wrote a musical in which most of the characters stayed on-stage most of the time.
In the two decades since, The Marvelous Wonderettes has grown from its original one-act format to a fully realized, two-act musical.
What hasn’t changed, however, are the show’s themes, Shepherd notes.
“The Marvelous Wonderettes has a really strong message about how relationships can endure both time and really intense personal conflicts,” he said during a “Page to Stage” gathering with summer citizens on the morning of June 6 at the Caine Lyric Theatre.
Shepherd is a graduate of Utah State University who is now an assistant professor of musical theatre at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point.
At the “Page to Stage” gathering, Shepherd said he was lucky enough to be able to recommend one of his UW students – Kaia Fitzgerald – to perform in The Marvelous Wonderettes.
Ms. Fitzgerald has been cast as Cindy Lou in the juke box musical and also as Maria in this year’s Lyric production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
The other singers in the show may be newcomers to the Lyric’s stages, but not to USU audiences.
They are Marin Robinson as Missy, Ashlyn Rober as Suzy and Ariana Whatcott as Betty Jean, all of whom have been active in recent productions by the USU Theatre Arts program.
Rounding out the cast will be Fred Coad as Principal Varney.
The Marvelous Wonderettes will be performed at the Caine Lyric Theatre on Friday, June 16; Saturday, June 17; Thursday, June 22; Wednesday, June 28; Thursday, July 6; Friday, July 14; Monday, July 17; and, Saturday, July 22.
All performances are at 7:30 p.m., except a 1 p.m. matinee on Saturday, June 17.
The Caine Lyric Theatre is located at 28 West Center Street in downtown Logan.