A review and tribute to one of the greatest songwriting teams ever to grace the stage of America. This Broadway extravaganza was a Tony-nominated success, featuring musical tastes of over 30 Rodgers and Hammerstein classics. These selections include songs from Oklahoma!, The King and I, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, and many, many more.

Our founding fathers 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 remarkable revue, with innovative musical arrangements including a sultry Andrews Sisters-esque I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair, a swingin Honeybun, and a jazzy Kansas City.

Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Conceived by Walter Bobbie

Ain't Misbehavin
The joint is jumpin’ with Ain’t Misbehavin’, a power-packed Fats Waller’s musical swing/blues magic from 1930’s Harlem featuring over 30 showstopping tunes including Ain’t Misbehavin’, ‘Tain’t Nobody’s Business, The Viper’s Drag, Fat and Greasy, Honeysuckle Rose, The Joint is Jumpin’, Black and Blue, and I Can’t Give You Anything But Love. All the songs in Ain't Misbehavin' were either composed, collaborated on, or recorded by Fats Waller, pianist and singer.

Thomas "Fats" Waller grew up immersed in the rich cultural stew that was Harlem in the first two decades of the 20th century. Waller's devout parents encouraged him to begin his musical education by studying classical music and playing in church; he honed his chops on Bach. Against his father's wishes, however, Waller fell for the seduction of blues-influenced jazz. At all-night parties and Harlem nightclubs, his left hand pounded out striding rhythms while his right hand improvised the melodies that became songs like Honeysuckle Rose and The Joint is Jumpin.

As each song is performed, it becomes a miniplay in which the singers' characters emerge. Some of the high points of the show occur during duets, such as when Horace and Illeana explore the vicissitudes of romance from sweetness to hilarity during Honeysuckle Rose. With their give-and-take on Fat and Greasy, Ray and Horace make you wish your buddies were as much fun, while Shontelle and Illeana manage to be both funny and steamy when they advise the ladies to Find Out What They Like.

Ain't Misbehavin' began as a cabaret revue at the Off-Broadway Manhattan Theater Club. It  quickly became the hot theater ticket in New York City and transferred to Broadway's Longacre Theater, opening May 9, 1978. It was conceived and directed by Richard Maltby, Jr., choreographed by Arthur Faria, and starred Nell Carter, Charlaine Woodard, Armelia McQueen, Andre De Shields, and Ken Page.
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Beehive
Five wailing women, a hot six-piece band, 50 outrageous costumes and wigs and 15 cans of hairspray can only mean one thing — Beehive, The 60's Musical Sensation. Beehive is a high-energy musical revue tracing the coming of age of women’s music through 37 popular hits of the girl groups and solo singers of the 1960’s. The Chiffons, The Supremes, Tina Turner, and Aretha Franklin are just some of the 60’s pop stars portrayed by the super talented cast. Hear such favorites as My Boyfriend’s Back, One Fine Day, Where the Boys Are, Downtown, Proud Mary, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, and Respect.

"JOYFUL, TOP-NOTCH ENTERTAINMENT, it had the audience screaming with joy."
—ABC-TV

"ROUSING...EXUBERANT...With all this talent simmering throughout over 35 classic songs, Beehive is the HOTTEST SHOW IN TOWN!"
—The Denver Post

"PURE IRRESISTIBLE FUN. What GREASE did
for the 50's Beehive does for the 60's."
—The New York Times

"A RAFTER-RAISING MUSICAL"
—People Magazine

The original stage presentation of BEEHIVE was created and directed by Larry Gallagher in 1985 and ran for over 18 months Off-Broadway at the Village Gate Theatre in New York City.

In 1988, Rick Seeber acquired the rights to direct and produce BEEHIVE in Denver. The Denver production ran for 69 weeks and then toured nationally for 20 weeks including 13 weeks at Harrah's Marina Hotel in Atlantic City.

In 1994, Rick formed a partnership with San Francisco producer, Charles Eisler. They have licensed and produced BEEHIVE in San Jose, Detroit, Las Vegas, Fort Worth, Houston, Jackson and on a 90 city tour.
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The show consists of the Plaids doing their thing. They sing old standards like Three Coins in the Fountain and Love is a Many Splendored Thing, crack jokes with the audience, and fret about whether they still remember their choreography after all these years.

The character known as Sparky stands out as the most energetic and silly. His face is in constant motion, generally seeming just full of giddy energy. That energy is at the heart of the whole show. As the group's apparent leader, Frankie conveys it well in his mannerisms, grinning widely in a way that just makes you like him. Jinx and Smudge round out the cast and are also very enjoyable. All four characters are made to seem likable -- essential, because it gets the audience on their side and keeps them there the whole time.

Each of the four singers gets at least one showcase number, with Cry and Perfidia (complete with atrocious Spanish) being among the more notable ones.

The choreography is simple and daft, often relying on the principle that if someone is dressed up nicely in a dinner jacket and bow tie, practically any unusual body movement will be funny. (And if you have four guys doing it all together, that's even funnier.) One can't help but smile at the number where they use tall plungers instead of microphones (that's how they always practiced it in rehearsals). It's so simple, and yet they do it with such glee and childlike abandon.

That's what makes Forever Plaid a great show: innocent charm and playfulness. Forever Plaid is an enjoyable, thoroughly entertaining show.
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Featuring a sparkling, seminal score by Stephen Schwartz, GODSPELL boasts a string of recognizable songs, led by the international hit, Day By Day. As the cast of actor/clowns makes it way through Prepare Ye The Way Of The Lord, Save the People, Learn Your Lessons Well, Bless The Lord, All For The Best, All Good Gifts, Turn Back, O Man, and By My Side, the audience members get to see the parables of Jesus Christ come humanly and hearteningly to life.

The idea for the musical came to Carnegie Mellon University student John-Michael Tebelak on a snowy spring Easter Sunday after sunrise service. He found the experience to be devoid of feeling. "I felt like the service was trying to roll the rock in front of the tomb instead of celebrating the risen Christ.", Tebelak said. After the service, he was stopped and frisked for drugs by a Pittsburgh policeman in the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral. This experience provided him with the inspiration for GODSPELL. As a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts degree at CMU, Tebelak was required to direct a production of a classic or a period piece for his thesis. He asked to be allowed to write his own play for this exercise and, using his Easter Sunday experience, wrote a musical based on the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The CMU show included an original song by a cast member and old Episcopal hymns played by a rock band.

A chance meeting with Ellen Stewart of the Cafe La MaMa in New York paved the way for the musical to move from Carnegie to her off-off-Broadway experimental theatre for a two-week run. A producer saw GODSPELL while at La MaMa and offered to do the show off-Broadway if it had a new score. They brought in Stephen Schwartz without knowing that he had been a classmate of Tebelak's. Schwartz wrote a new score in 5 weeks which included only one song from the original production, entitled By My Side.

The show opened off-Broadway on May 17, 1971, and its success was immediately evident. Every critic proclaimed his/her ardent approval. After five years of attracting sold-out audiences off-Broadway, GODSPELL made its way to the 1,200-seat Ambassador Theatre on Broadway in June 1976. On September 4, 1977, GODSPELL ended its run after 527 performances. In all, the musical achieved more than 2,600 performances both on Broadway and off.

In the last four years of its New York run, there were 25 companies performing GODSPELL around the world, with eight resident companies and three touring companies in the United States and Canada. Perhaps its greatest success was the record-breaking run in South Africa, with a multi-racial cast in Johannesburg and a multi-racial audience in Capetown — events covered by the media worldwide.
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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
The first collaboration between Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat tells the story of a young man named Joseph living in the land of Canaan. His father's favorite son, Joseph is perhaps a little spoiled. While the rest of his brothers are forced to wear sheepskin, he struts around in a fabulous rainbow-colored coat, a gift from his adoring father. The rest of Joseph's brothers aren't too pleased with the situation, and when Joseph goes so far as to tell them of a dream he has had in which their stacks of wheat bow down to his stack of wheat, they decide they have finally had enough.

Joseph's brothers abduct him, destroy his cherished coat, and toss him into a pit to perish. But when a group of Ishmaelites come by on their donkeys, the brothers have a change of heart and decide not to murder Joseph, but rather to sell him into slavery. Either way, he's out of their hair, and this way, they make a little extra cash. So they slaughter a goat, bloody up Joseph's coat of many colors, and return to their father, feigning great sorrow at the unfortunate death of their poor brother Joseph.

Joseph, however, will not be put down so easily. After being sold to an Egyptian property owner and serving a brief stint in prison, he uses his dream-reading abilities to secure an interview with the Pharaoh who is so impressed with the young man that he immediately appoints him Minister of Agriculture. Years later, when a severe famine hits the land, Joseph's brothers come begging for employment. Realizing that they don't recognize him, Joseph decides to stage a little surprise for his would-be murderers before he allows everyone to live happily ever after.

Lasting only fifteen minutes when it was originally presented as a cantata at the Colet Court School in London on March 1, 1968, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was revised five years later by Webber and Rice, expanded to 40 minutes, and presented at the West End. It was expanded again, this time to 90 minutes, before its first New York production at the Boston Academy of Music in 1976. In 1981, the show opened at an East Village theatre and ran 77 performances before moving to the Royale on January 27, 1982, where it remained for 747 performances. The Royale cast featured Bill Hutton (Joseph), Laurie Beechman (Narrator), and Tom Carter (Pharaoh). During the Broadway run, Hutton was succeeded by Andy Gibb and David Cassidy. The 2000 film version features Donny Osmond.
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Fifty-two died; only 48 were buried, though, before the Mother Superior spent the rest of the convent's money on a DVD player. Until the burial money is raised, the remaining four dead nuns are being kept in the freezer -- until the Board of Health finds out, that is.

Its outlandishness story line can be forgiven when presented in such a whimsical, giddily, morbid fashion. There is something inherently funny about seeing women dressed in full nun regalia dancing around like the Rockettes.

Nunsense is the name of the show that five of the surviving nuns are putting on, and we are their audience for that show (they therefore assume we're all Catholic, by the way). We also see some behind-the-scenes drama as the street-wise Sister Mary Robert Anne wants to do her own number; Sister Mary Amnesia struggles to remember who she was before a crucifix fell on her and wiped out her memory; Sister Mary Leo wants to be a ballerina; and Sister Mary Hubert wants to be Mother Superior.

There are some wonderful jokes and one-liners. While thumbing through the convent's cookbook Baking with the Blessed Virgin Mary, they find Mary Magdalene Tarts, which two of the sisters observe must be easy and cheap to make.

The show is audaciously funny and energetically performed by five women in costumes that are probably nun-too-cool to be hopping around in.
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Based on Green Grow the Lilacs, a stage play by Lynn Riggs, Oklahoma! brought together for the first time composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. The duo would go on to write nine Broadway musicals together, but none would be as important for the development of American musical theatre as Oklahoma! A milestone in its fusion of story, song and dance, the production even featured a dream ballet (choreographed by Agnes de Mille) which revealed the main characters hidden fears and desires.

The plot is simple, revolving mainly around the question of who will take Laurey Williams to the box social--the decent Curly McLain or the sinister Jud Fry. However, Oklahoma! continued in the tradition of Show Boat in its depiction of the pioneering men and women of the American Southwest.

Oklahoma! opened at the St. James Theatre on March 31, 1943 and ran for 2,212 performances. The original cast featured Joan Roberts as Laurey Williams, Alfred Drake as Curly McLain and Howard Da Silva as Jud Fry. The 1955 film version featured Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.
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Even better questions emerge later, though, when the six remaining brothers, whom Milly promptly turns into civilized human beings (much to Adam's chagrin), decide they want wives, too. They all go to a barn raising and win the hearts of six girls in town, wooing them away from their current beaus. How do they do this? By dancing, apparently.

Ultimately, Adam convinces his brothers the best way to get the girls to marry them is to abduct them from their homes, drag them back to the family farm in the woods, and cause an avalanche behind them so the townspeople can't come rescue their daughters until spring.

The title of the play indicates what eventually happens, of course, but everything in between is nonsensical -- at least when summarized in writing. Somehow, when it's performed onstage it all makes sense. You almost don't notice the absurdity of six guys running around the stage with girls slung over their shoulders like bales of hay.

This show has several really great scenes. When Milly teaches the six brothers about etiquette and Goin' Courtin', the whole group dances around the kitchen table like there's no tomorrow. And in the barn-raising scene, where the brothers try to win the hearts of the girls, the dancing is occasionally a bit off, but it's still charming in its klunkiness. Even better is the ensuing brawl, which is as carefully choreographed as anything you'll see, but with the feel of absolute reckless abandon.

It's that kind of sheer joy and enthusiasm that makes Seven Brides for Seven Brothers work. The show is fun, fast-paced, sometimes raucous, sometimes sweet, always entertaining.
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